hi everyone-
Well, i have been back at it. If you read my post about a week ago (about flippin the california kingsnakes striper) there has been a lot of progress since then. I went out with my girlfriend ( I know, who goes herpin' with there girlfriend!) anyway she wanted to see me catch some rattlers as she has become fasinated w/ mine and wanted to see some in there natural environment. i took her to a familiar spot of mine in carlsbad that shatty (my herp partner) and I like to call "the board spot". Now they have started a lot of construction around there so it didn't look to promising especially since we were in l.a. all weekend and when we got back I was pretty tired but the temp was good so we (I) decided we might as well give it a shot. We got there and i just started flippin the boards we usually flip (we have only found cal kings and southern pacifics at this spot but it is still great)and after about the 10th board, there she was.........
The "elusive" californa striped racer! I have only seen one other one of these in the wild and it was fast so luckily i flipped this guy and picked him up before he even knew what happened. I was so stoked because I have never actually caught one myself and I didn't even know tey existed in carlsbad, let alone at the spot I found it because it was alost a little to moist i would think. The best part was because we were in l.a. i happened to have my video camera with me and was able to shoot footage for a while, the best part of it all is when i was going to let him go and was filming him and holding him at my camera BBAAAMMMMMM! He struck my lens on camera and boy does it look great when I watch it back on a big screen especialy since i have a wide angle lens on it(which is used for my other hobby, skateboarding)! That just made my day but now my girlfriend thinks finding snakes is a piece of cake and it is a little hard to explain that things like tha do not usually happen, we (I) only wish they happened more frequently. After we found that, we hunted a little longer and stumbled upon a large alligator lizard which i caught so she could check out something that was a little more mellow, struck out on crotalus that day but i was personally more happy finding te racer than a souther, i have seen atleast a hundred southerns andthis was only my second california striped racer and my first in a coastal region, (the other being off the road near a spring in the california desert) On my next adventure, Shatty called me up at 9 pm last night and I and asked him if he wanted to herp in the morning. He greed and we went out to another one of our secret canyons around del dios area. We hiked for about 15 minutes throught the worst crap (thorn bushes, that damn beehive again, and the loosest, unstable ground in reeds up to your knees not knowing what you are walking in/ on. I began to hike up this incline and flipped a few rocks, imediatly i heard the shuffling in the rock pile and bushes directly under me. Ryan and i have both found many red diamonds in the area so I was pretty sure i knew what we stumbled across. Now, i was looking down into a swarm of debris and rocks standing over it with my legs spread apart, i turned and yelled to Ryan "dude, there is defiantly a snake in here!" He rushed up to where I was at and informed him whwere i heard it andwaned to know if i could reach down and grab it (meaning if it was a non venomous snake I will just jump down and grab it but not if it was what thought it was, a red diamond. Ryan peared into the hole that was urrounded by bushes nd yelled yeah it s a red, no gophe grab it, grab it!!!!" there was bout 3 inches of this guys tail sticking out of a hole in the side of a cliff with a 15-25 ft drop if either or both of fell. I grabbed his tail and the first part had been taking care of, locating it! Now, how to get it out. I was holding the tail and rubbing it vigerously as the snakes was willingly backing up inch by inch until I got him out about 8" and tha was it. I couldn't pull because that would have hurt him and only had one hand free so i called ryan for some assistance and came up with a plan as neither of us have never been in this situation with anything and had to think quick as there was a bee hive over top of us and we were standing on a very unstable cliff holding a snake that was atleast 3 ft by less that 1/4 of its body, we were definatly in a jam. I am a little bigger than ryan so I asked him if he was comfortable holding the tail, he agreed and we changed places. There was a huge rock on top of the pile and this was the hard part. Now ryans wrist and arm are laying in direct hit zone if I flip this rock the wrong way (it weighed atleast 50 punds) and not to mention the fact that one of our favorite indigenous snakes is relying on me to not hurt it while i flipped this rock. Meaning i have to pull this 50 lb. rock up towards me despite the ease of it falling foward to crush ryans wrista nd arm and the snake. i got into position and grassped the side of the rock. I almost aborted the mission because it really was a sticky situation and worst case scenario would be for me to hurt this snake and i was not going to let that happen. I lifted toward me with all of my might, the snakes was coiled up under another rock under the big one, ryn was still holding the tale and with his other hand he tried to gab another pice of the snake to unsure it wasn't able to take another escape route. At that time, i pulled the snake out with one hand, haoling the rock up with the other. Ryan removed his hand andto my dissapointment, when I let the rock down (keep in mind i had to do it with hand as the other had the snake) it shattered (the rock) We took some really good photography and soent about 30 minutes with it and let it go into the new rock pile we built with some other boulders and the rest of the shatterd rocks. This worked very well considering when i grabbed this snake, in my mind I was telling my self it got away. What turned out to be the best part of it all is that this was by far the most gorgeous gopher snake i have ever caught which is most likely why it gave me a run for my money, but it was all worth it, now that I am still picking thorns out of my hands. Well, all in good fun and i am very happy i have actually been catching things again, now if only the rosys would start cming out for me! Thanks for reading and happy herping! Jon ROOTSROK Rastafari
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1.1 Oregon rubber boas (02')
1.2 Hypo Borrego rosy boas (99')
1.2 Whitewater rosy boas (00')
1.2 Bay of L.A. rosy boas (98')
1.1 Ensanada Unicolor rosy boas (99')
1.1 Joshua Tree rosy boas (01')
1.1 Yorba linda rosy boas (03')
1.1 Desert Banded geckos
1.0 Holland lop "Pete" (rabbit)
1.1 African dwarf frogs
