of Northeast CA while catch and release fishing. I caught my first zonata. One of my friends was going down a parallel deer trail to the one I was on and yelled that he saw a red yellow and black snake, so I took off crawling down an animal run through the manzanitas to find it. I captured it just long enough to get a good look and let someone in our group take a pic (I hope they give me a copy) it was quite large and very orange. We were not in a park or reserve and I obviously had my fishing license so I could have kept it but I didn't.
A large mellow gopher snake with a different color pattern than I'm used to came out from under a rock formation we were fishing from (they way you don't want to come across a rattlesnake) and hung out with us for a while. I handled it a bit also, I couldn't help myself, I've never seen a wild one act so tame.
Saw another pituophis crossing the road, two green colubers on the trails, and a thamnophis startled me when it "jumped" out of a bush next to me. I caught 3 species of trout as well, but that is for another forum.
