Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I know this is not the Colubrid forum but this is the forum that I visit the most, so I thought I would let you all know what a cool memorial day I had.
I went over to my oldest Daughter's house for dinner last night and just to talk and spend some time. She lives about 6 miles east from my home in South East Lee County, on a small dirt road. So after dinner and chatting the wife and I went home about 8:30 pm and I jokingly told my wife, ok honey watch for snakes as we drive home (I have been road cruising in this particular area before and it is pretty good).
Well I hadn't said that 30 second ago when I jammed on the breaks for a snake in front of us. I got out of my truck to see what it was (it was a pretty good size, no hatchling here) and when I got up to it, it was a beautiful Scarlet King Snake. I have lived here in South FL for 33 years and have never found one before, but always wanted to. This was a nice 24" long one to boot!
With my not believing my luck, she held the snake as we drove home. Another 1/2 mile up the road, I jammed on my breaks again (this time giving my wife whip lash LOL. this was a nice 2 year old (looking two) corn snake. I picked this one up and now the two of us continued to drive home, each with a snake in one hand (I had no bags with me!! I always carry bags with me but not tonight). As we were getting closer to a more populated area I told my wife, ok we are out of snake territory now, and again as those words left my mouth, I again jammed on the breaks, (this time getting the wife mad LOL) and there at an intersection was another nice Corn snake a bit bigger then the last but still mostly a young snake, maybe three years old!

Now we are driving, I have two snakes in my hands and my wife has one and all three of them are with in a 3-4 mile stretch of road. So when we get home I tell my wife that I am going to make another pass through that area and a bit farther east.
I set the snakes up in temporary cages and hit the road. I am out for another 10 minutes when I find yet another corn snake trying to cross the road. As I collect it up it starts to rain, which is why I think there was so much activity. I continued to cruise my normal cruising area, I found one more live snake a Stori Dekay small slug eating snake, that I took to the side of the road he was trying to get to. After that I did not find anymore live snake (frogs of all kinds, but no live snakes) but as I was cruising I was taking a count of the total DOR snakes that I came across and here is the total.
DOR found
8 Corn Snakes
2 Yellow Rat Snakes
1 FL Garter (large female)
1 Beautiful Hog nose (this one broke my heart!)
1 FL Banded Water snake
1 Ribbon snake
1 Glass Snake (aka glass legless lizard)
That with the five live snakes that I found makes a 20 snake night! That was all in a two hour drive! It is still raining here today, if it stops tonight, I may go out for another trip LOL. The huge amount of DORs was a heart breaker, but if I go cruising and get them off the street before a car gets them, then that is one for the good guys LOL.
Thought you guys would find this interesting,
Thanks
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Jim Hopkins "Hoppy"
Hopkins Holesale Herps
Hopfam1@aol.com

they are sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet

I'm going to have to head east of Sarasota and do some road cruising myself. Please put up some OT pics when you can. Thanks for sharing!

Denny

Thanks for sharing the road herping adventure, wow that is a lot to find in one day!
Too bad about all the DORs.. I hate seeing that.
The only thing missing in your story are the pictures!
Do you keep all the live ones you find?
When I was visiting relatives back in Missouri I spent every evening driving around and moving turtles off the roads, there were so many... too bad they can't make 'reptile warning' devises like they have for deer (deer whistles that attach to the car, they are *supposed* to scare the deer off the road).

Anyways, if you have pics, I hope you share! take it easy,
April

I'll post the pics of the keepers as soon as I get from PT for my back, The scarlett king is in blue, But I will post a pic of him two. I treated them all for parasites and sex them just a few minuts ago and here is what I ended up with
2.2 Corns (one Miami Phase as I was driving east towards Miami)
1.0 Scarlet King 24" long!
Thanks
posting pictures soon!, but for now, here is a couple of the ones that I got 2 weeks ago when I went crusing that area, then it was
2.0 Corns I was a Miami Phase (again while I was Heading east towards Miami)
and the other a beautiful local colored one

The Miami phase one

The local North East Collier County one
-----
Jim Hopkins "Hoppy"
Hopkins Holesale Herps
Hopfam1@aol.com

One of the reasons I have been thinking about moving back to Homestead!!
Kudos to you
lateralis

>>I know this is not the Colubrid forum but this is the forum that I visit the most, so I thought I would let you all know what a cool memorial day I had.
>>I went over to my oldest Daughter's house for dinner last night and just to talk and spend some time. She lives about 6 miles east from my home in South East Lee County, on a small dirt road. So after dinner and chatting the wife and I went home about 8:30 pm and I jokingly told my wife, ok honey watch for snakes as we drive home (I have been road cruising in this particular area before and it is pretty good).
>>Well I hadn't said that 30 second ago when I jammed on the breaks for a snake in front of us. I got out of my truck to see what it was (it was a pretty good size, no hatchling here) and when I got up to it, it was a beautiful Scarlet King Snake. I have lived here in South FL for 33 years and have never found one before, but always wanted to. This was a nice 24" long one to boot!
>>With my not believing my luck, she held the snake as we drove home. Another 1/2 mile up the road, I jammed on my breaks again (this time giving my wife whip lash LOL. this was a nice 2 year old (looking two) corn snake. I picked this one up and now the two of us continued to drive home, each with a snake in one hand (I had no bags with me!! I always carry bags with me but not tonight). As we were getting closer to a more populated area I told my wife, ok we are out of snake territory now, and again as those words left my mouth, I again jammed on the breaks, (this time getting the wife mad LOL) and there at an intersection was another nice Corn snake a bit bigger then the last but still mostly a young snake, maybe three years old!
>>
>>Now we are driving, I have two snakes in my hands and my wife has one and all three of them are with in a 3-4 mile stretch of road. So when we get home I tell my wife that I am going to make another pass through that area and a bit farther east.
>>I set the snakes up in temporary cages and hit the road. I am out for another 10 minutes when I find yet another corn snake trying to cross the road. As I collect it up it starts to rain, which is why I think there was so much activity. I continued to cruise my normal cruising area, I found one more live snake a Stori Dekay small slug eating snake, that I took to the side of the road he was trying to get to. After that I did not find anymore live snake (frogs of all kinds, but no live snakes) but as I was cruising I was taking a count of the total DOR snakes that I came across and here is the total.
>>DOR found
>>8 Corn Snakes
>>2 Yellow Rat Snakes
>>1 FL Garter (large female)
>>1 Beautiful Hog nose (this one broke my heart!)
>>1 FL Banded Water snake
>>1 Ribbon snake
>>1 Glass Snake (aka glass legless lizard)
>>That with the five live snakes that I found makes a 20 snake night! That was all in a two hour drive! It is still raining here today, if it stops tonight, I may go out for another trip LOL. The huge amount of DORs was a heart breaker, but if I go cruising and get them off the street before a car gets them, then that is one for the good guys LOL.
>>Thought you guys would find this interesting,
>>Thanks
>>-----
>>Jim Hopkins "Hoppy"
>>Hopkins Holesale Herps
>>Hopfam1@aol.com
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E&C's Exotic House of Reptiles