Due to unforeseen circumstances at work, the majority of my vacation was cancelled. But I just had to get my annual Texas fix, so my wife Jane and I flew out for a four night whirlwind tour, meeting my buddy Brett and his wife, along with Don, Andy, and Jim. My wife had never hunted for alterna, so I was pretty apprehensive to say the least....I figured she'd be miserable and quickly tire of looking at white rocks..lol. Boy was I wrong!
On 7/9 we flew into El Paso. We found a Texas horned lizard and a bull snake on the way through the Davis Mountains and took lots of pics with our new Nikon D70. We later found a large Emory's ratsnake at dusk near Marathon, and found 2 atrox and a long nosed snake west of Sanderson. The night was looking promising!
As we approached Sanderson, I began giving my wife a dissertation on the art of hunting rock cuts. As soon as we were East of Sanderson, we starting hunting cuts in earnest. On her third cut, she hollered that she found something....I looked over and there was a large Scolependra (centipede) crawling on her cut. She was disappointed that it wasn't a snake, but I told her that it was a good sign....I often see alterna and centipedes active at the same time. Well, we went about 50 feet farther down the cut, and she hollered out again, and this time she'd found the 15" female alterna pictured (5.3 miles East of Sanderson @ 10:20 pm). I couldn't believe it....she'd been hunting for ten minutes and already had her first alterna!!
On the very next cut she hollered again, and this time she found a juvie trans-pecos ratsnake. Man, I was impressed that she already had the search image down....she was finding a lot more snakes than I was! I took her about 8 miles East of Sanderson and we headed back West. Jane kept saying that she was going to find her alterna a "boyfriend" while I explained that the odds were against it....I told her that I'd hunted many a night in Sanderson without ever finding an alterna there. This was a tough place, I said.........she interrupted me in mid sentence to say "there's another one!" I looked over and sure enough, there was another alterna, a male this time (5.5 miles East of Sanderson @ 1040 pm). To say the least, we were really stoked...a locality pair from .2 mile apart found 20 minutes apart. Jane is a lucky lady...
We saw a couple more atrox that night, but that was all. The next night we hunted Hwy 277 and didn't see a single snake until 3:30 am....a DOR trans-pecos rat south of Caruthers’s Creek.
The next day we debated about where to hunt. We only had 2 nights left and I was hesitant to subject my wife to another dead night on 277. The weather channel showed it was raining in South Texas, so we headed down to the Caterina area where I found a hognose and gravid milksnake last year. The rain was spotty and there was not a lot moving...we did see 4 checkered garters and 2 atrox, which was a dramatic improvement over the previous night. There were plenty of leopard frogs and toads out though, and we did see an armadillo and about 15 owls.
Due to unforeseen circumstances at work, the majority of my vacation was cancelled. But I just had to get my annual Texas fix, so my wife Jane and I flew out for a four night whirlwind tour, meeting my buddy Brett and his wife, along with Don, Andy, and Jim. My wife had never hunted for alterna, so I was pretty apprehensive....I figured she'd be miserable and quickly tire of looking at white rocks..lol. Boy was I wrong!
On 7/9 we flew into El Paso. We found a Texas horned lizard and a bullsnake on the way through the Davis Mountains and took lots of pics with our new Nikon D70. We later found a large Emory's ratsnake at dusk near Marathon, and found 2 atrox and a long nosed snake West of Sanderson. The night was looking promising!
As we approached Sanderson, I began giving my wife a dissertation on the art of hunting rock cuts. As soon as we were East of Sanderson, we starting hunting cuts in earnest. On her third cut, she hollered that she found something....I looked over and there was a large Scolependra (centipede) crawling on her cut. She was disappointed that it wasn't a snake, but I told her that it was a good sign....I often see alterna and centipedes active at the same time. Well, we went about 50 feet farther down the cut, and she hollered out again, and this time she'd found the 15" female alterna pictured in this post(5.3 miles East of Sanderson @ 10:20 pm). I couldn't believe it....she'd been hunting for ten minutes and already had her first alterna!!
On the very next cut she hollered again, and this time she found a juvie trans-pecos ratsnake. Man, I was impressed that she already had the search image down....she was finding a lot more snakes than I was! I took her about 8 miles East of Sanderson and we headed back West. Jane kept saying that she was going to find her alterna a "boyfriend" while I explained that the odds were against it....I told her that I'd hunted many a night in Sanderson without ever finding an alterna there. This was a tough place, I said.........she interrupted me in mid sentence to say "there's another one!" I looked over and sure enough, there was another alterna, a male this time (5.5 miles East of Sanderson @ 10:40 pm). To say the least, we were really stoked...a locality pair from .2 mile apart found 20 minutes apart. Jane is a lucky lady (and a keeper lol)!
We saw a couple more atrox that night, but that was all. The next night we hunted Hwy 277 and didn't see a single snake until 3:30 am....a DOR trans-pecos rat south of Caruthers’s Creek.
The next day we debated about where to hunt. We only had 2 nights left and I was hesitant to subject my wife to another dead night on 277. The weather channel showed it was raining in South Texas, so we headed down to the Caterina area where I found a hognose and gravid milksnake last year. The rain was spotty and there was not a lot moving...we did see 4 checkered garters and 2 atrox, which was a dramatic improvement over the previous night. There were plenty of leopard frogs and toads out though, and we did see an armadillo and about 15 owls.
For the last night, we decided to check out the River Rd and Xmas mts so we'd be closer to El Paso for the next day's flight. After the first pass on the river, we ran into a guy (his name was Robert Garcia I think??). I'm not sure if he worked for Big Bend Ranch or TP & W but we had a mostly friendly disagreement over the legalities of hunting FM 170. Initially, he said the local JP would back him up if he threw us in jail for catching snakes there. I mentioned that I had it in writing from TP & W's Chief of Law enforcement in Austin that it was not illegal to hunt snakes on FM 170....at that point he decided not to push the issue. He said he wasn't concerned about the legalities as much as the safety of snake hunters along the border. I told him I appreciated his concern, but that I'd been hunting the area for 20 years, and I was willing to take my chances. He turned out to be an all right guy and we didn't see him after that.
On the River Rd we found a couple of night snakes, 2 atrox, and a fresh hatchling long nosed snake....the smallest I'd ever seen. On the way through during the late afternoon it had been raining in the Xmas , so we were itching to get back over there, especially since the river was dry. We made a pass through on Hwy 118 and then made a pass out on North County Road, where we found a 5-ft+ trans-pecos rat laying in the dirt. We headed back out to 118, chatted with Norm awhile, and made another pass out on North County Road, where we found another trans-pecos rat, a 3' female. We had to get up early, so we called it a night...
We were able to spend some time with old friends (Eric, Carl, & Gus)and unfortunately narrowly missed others (Troy, Marla, and Mr. Fraser). Where were you John?? Next year we're going in June so hopefully we'll get to see everyone we missed!! I need to get back out there to prove to my wife that I'm a better hunter than she is (or am I?) lol
~~~~ They hone in on that stuff man. Congrats to you both, (especially her). Now you have your wife to compete with as I do. There is something about finding that first Alterna, then when they find the second one, your all of a sudden on the back burner. The 5 mile cuts East of Sanderson are my favorite and not only have produced my first one earlier in the year, but have given it up for many hunters this year! What a great locale. I will try the River Road once again in Early to mid September (after the Houston show) and hopefully catch my River Road Alterna I have been seeking for,..................for............... well, we all know it's been a long time. Don't we Shawn D???? 