Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Although I DID have lots of those too as a kid when they were abundant in S. Florida!, and before they were protected.

I remember around 1972, when two older kids came to my house(I was twelve then) and wanted to sell me a HUUUUGE Indigo(8-1/2to 9ft) for just eight bucks!!!!!!........I just couldn't come up with that large amount of "scratch", so I watched that noble beast get walked off into the sunset.................those were different times my friends.

I think I posted this pic before some time ago, but nevertheless, it's probably worth posting again!

enjoy!, ~Doug

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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

Poor dudes indigo used to be going and catching one for free, right? Back when an adult boa was an exotic snake that cost alot of money! Did you ever stop to think how spoiled we were living in south Florida to have such wildlife within walking distance of our houses back then? Gators in every canal, indigo snakes, green snakes, diamondbacks, everglades rats, moccasins, scarlet kings, miami phase corns, garters (when is the last time you saw one of those in the city?) coachwhips! We thought it was like that everywhere, but man we had it too good. I used to wonder what it would be like to catch one of those California kings with the single white stripe! I think we had the better end of that deal...
Later dude!

>>Poor dudes indigo used to be going and catching one for free, right? Back when an adult boa was an exotic snake that cost alot of money! Did you ever stop to think how spoiled we were living in south Florida to have such wildlife within walking distance of our houses back then? Gators in every canal, indigo snakes, green snakes, diamondbacks, everglades rats, moccasins, scarlet kings, miami phase corns, garters (when is the last time you saw one of those in the city?) coachwhips! We thought it was like that everywhere, but man we had it too good. I used to wonder what it would be like to catch one of those California kings with the single white stripe! I think we had the better end of that deal...
>>Later dude!

LOL!.........How right you are!......we DID have it pretty good in Ft.Lauderdale back in the day!

I remember catching several of the species you mentioned right in the bushes of my own yard in the middle of the city!!

I remember my neighbors chasing a giant yellow ratsnake around the corner of their house with a shovel,......unfortunately, I was a few seconds too late from making it there in time to stop the needless "execution"!. I was pretty "bent" at them for doin' that.

One day, Good ol' "Bradly Airport" also produced four young coachwhips that Paul Stone and I caught under stuff laying around in the field. I probably shouldn't of,......but I fed one or two of them to one of my Indigos at the house,.......He really tore into it as soon as he noticed it, and all I heard was alot of scale crunching as he over-powered it and munched it down!, it was a real sight!

One of my moms friends called her up one day to tell her about a big 7ft. Yellow rat that was coiled up in the carport. At first, the old lady thought it was a big section of yellow hose of some sort that got tossed there by someone,....that is until she saw it move!!.....so by the time my mom could drive me over there, alot of time had gone by. But when I got there, I gave it a shot anyway, and looked in all the shrubbery that surrounded the house, lo and behold I finally found it coiled up in a bush at eye level about two feet from my face!.....he made another cool addition to some of the other stuff I had at the house back then!LOL

Like we always keep sayin'.......what fond memories!!LOL

later!, ~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

Ft. Lauderdale/Pompano area did have some huge squirrel-eating yellow rats, man they are extinct now I think...
I remember the first time I fed a fresh caught indigo a stunned rat, the snake literally bashed the rat into every side of the aquarium cage several times. I had never seen anything like it! I thought for sure it was going to break the glass and I would have that wild monster on my floor. It was awesome how this snake could go from coolest tamest snake to “I ain’t getting near that #$@!* thing!” in three seconds. I noticed they get used to the rats being stunned and defenseless and don’t get so violent after awhile (being smart snakes!) but words can hardly describe that feeding response, something most people probably haven’t seen in captive bred or long term captives. Those guys just THINK they’ve seen it!
We are fortunate to have seen some things like that in our day.
Oh yea, kingsnake forum- and the Brooks were het for nothing back then, too.

n/p
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

Great stories guys.

Oh yea, kingsnake forum- and the Brooks were het for nothing back then, too.

LOL
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Mike
KingPin Reptiles Inc.
www.kingpinreptiles.com
^ Updated 10/29

I’ve got a story for you, since it’s a boring Sunday night and you might be slightly amused by this sort of thing...
This is my Bigfoot encounter. I didn’t find out until just a few weeks ago what it actually was. Me and my friend were cruising a white rock road (Wagonwheel Road if you want all the details) out in Big Cyprus at about three thirty in the morning. Pitch black. We spot a dead snake in the road ahead so we stop to check it out. There’s bushes all along the side of the road, passenger side, which I’m on. I open the door and hear something in the bushes, like five feet away. Right away I forget about the dumb dead snake and wonder what the heck...
So my friend has come around to the front and is looking at the snake in the head lights, and I can hear that there is something up at my head height, and some slight rustling at the ground, and I have this quick thought that this thing is as tall as I am if those two sounds are connected. I start to say “what the #@%$ is this?” to my friend, and when I do, whatever it is starts pushing limbs, sticks bushes aside and hauling butt away from me. I can hear two feet stomping and two very wide arms pushing everything out of it’s path like a wild man trying to get away from me. Or a cow. It seemed very big.
My friend about dies right on the spot from fright and says, “get in the truck!”. He is flat out going to leave me there if I don’t get in quick. It was very frightening, actually, but even in that moment I did realize whatever it was could have easily reached out and grabbed me, and was obviously going the other way as if it was scared of me. I jumped into the truck and I’m yelling, “what the #$@% was THAT!?” about a bunch of times, and he’s really scared. I say, lets turn around and see if we can shine the head lights on it, but he’s saying no way!.
So many years later we still talk about the Bigfoot thing, but I was always reluctant to say that’s what it was, because it was pitch black and we certainly didn’t see anything. But it was eerie.
So flash forward to me walking my dog a few weeks ago and I had the exact same thing happen in broad daylight. There was a opossum hit by a car, and about six huge turkey vultures (buzzards) feasting on it. A couple were on the ground, and a couple were in a small tree and bushes right next to it. As I got close, the birds on the ground hopped away into the bushes, sounding exactly like a huge bigfoot’s two feet stomping on the ground, and the two in the bushes (exactly about where two giant arms would be) start flapping and flying through the bushes, exactly the same sound and effect I heard that night! Mystery solved. So do I tell my friend? Naaaa...

HAHAHAHA!!!......I felt like a boy scout sitting around a campfire listening to that one!!!LOL!!

I bet the hair on the back of your neck stood up when THAT @*#!was going on!!

Funny that those buzzards were "crashed" in the bushes until they could see the dead snake in the morning!,.......I guess it's hard to fight over rotten scraps in the DARK!!

later!, ~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"