Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Here are the snakes we found last weekend.

We hit Pandale (Crockett county) at 0830 and hunted fruitlessly until 1230. Then we pulled off the road and intended to walk a cut. As we walked towards the cut with the lights pointed down, we both simultaneously spotted a black rope in the middle of the road. I walked over and shazam - a male alterna. What pissed me off at the time was that this was the first night my hunting partner had EVER really looked for alterna and his first night alterna hunting east of Hudspeth county. Bam! Four hours in, he finds this. Lucky a$$!

It was a nice young male with a cool head pattern -

We bagged it up and proceeded to walk the cut and saw nothing else. As we headed back to the car, he was joking about now that he had found his first AOR alterna, it was time to find one on a cut. We drove down to the next cut, he shined it out the window and called out "alterna!". I thought he was kidding but looked over and saw an alterna on the cut in his light.

He was tied up with cords and the like on the front seat, so I jumped out and climbed up the cut a few feet and reached for the snake. Without warning, as I reached for her, she threw herself off the cut. Somehow, I made a blind grab in the air and managed to snag her. If I had missed, she would have landed in a pile of rocks and long grass at the base of the cut and been gone forever. She was a nice 1-2 year old female.

So on his first night alterna hunting he found a pair within 30 minutes. The only other snake that night was a last year's bogey with a big lump (Perognathus sized) in it.

We hunted 3 more nights, but had to settle for bogeys.

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Chris Harrison

First off, correcting something from the last post - "We hit Pandale (Crockett county) at 0830 and hunted fruitlessly until 1230." Of course, we started hunting at 2030 and found the first alterna at 0040.

Here are some pics of the bogeys we found. The shots are boring, but what do you want for a pile of rocks in the hotel room (we needed to let them go the next night). It was interesting how variable this species is just at one "locality".

These three were found within a few hundred yards of each other a few miles west of Lajitas on the RR.

A normal looking bogey -

one with a very light pattern -

and one with a really nice striped pattern -

And here are a couple from some of the gravelly dirt cuts between Lajitas and Terlingua, again within a thenth of a mile of each other -

We found 9 Bogeys in all over the weekend - 7 in one night on RR.
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Chris Harrison

Nice blairi morphs & a great story to boot, thanks for sharing Chris! Congrats on scoring the Pandale graybands.....JF

B-

If your un-named hunting partner was Herr Gronert, then I give up. It must be my bad luck then - that's why I never catch any snakes. Example in point: I hunted Juno with McCrystal and McCrystal on June 5th from 2000 to June 6th at 0400 and found one twitching lepidus N of Bakers (hit by road hunter traveling in opposite direction [red car] - no tire testers that night). No other snakes

There is a beautiful tree, however, on top of that first cut south of Bakers...

M

If your un-named hunting partner was Herr Gronert, then I give up. It must be my bad luck then - that's why I never catch any snakes.

Notice, I didn't come home with anything. When he and I go hunting, he finds what he wants, I end up empty handed (or bagged).

Example in point: I hunted Juno with McCrystal and McCrystal on June 5th from 2000 to June 6th at 0400 and found one twitching lepidus N of Bakers (hit by road hunter traveling in opposite direction [red car] - no tire testers that night). No other snakes

Juno sucks, you should know that by now.

There is a beautiful tree, however, on top of that first cut south of Bakers...

Of course, that is sacred soil. Shrimp is a good fertilizer.
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Chris Harrison

>>If your un-named hunting partner was Herr Gronert, then I give up. It must be my bad luck then - that's why I never catch any snakes.
>>
>>Notice, I didn't come home with anything. When he and I go hunting, he finds what he wants, I end up empty handed (or bagged).
>>
>>Example in point: I hunted Juno with McCrystal and McCrystal on June 5th from 2000 to June 6th at 0400 and found one twitching lepidus N of Bakers (hit by road hunter traveling in opposite direction [red car] - no tire testers that night). No other snakes
>>
>>Juno sucks, you should know that by now.
>>
>>There is a beautiful tree, however, on top of that first cut south of Bakers...
>>
>>Of course, that is sacred soil. Shrimp is a good fertilizer.
>>-----
>>Chris Harrison
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Chris Harrison

B

We actually did really well out at the ranch over the eight days we were there. 39 species isn't too bad for one plot of land in the Chihuahuan Desert. I'd be hard pressed to name that many species expected to be at IMRS (the ranch in Presidio has a lot more habitat types) - and there are still another 11 known species plus 2 or 3 others waiting to be found on the ranch. I'll send you a list and a habitat shot to make you wonder whether staying for your parents was really the right thing to do....

M

Juno certainly can suck, until you figure out the little idiosynchricies. There is a network of little alterna highway crossings all along the roadway.

(effective) Alterna hunting is boring (IMO) because the key is repeatedly checking the same places over and over vs. haphazardly driving around west Texas until you find one (that could take years).

Travis, park your behonky on one of the known alterna crossings on Juno and walk until you find one. For example. The "lepidus cut" is a historical alterna crossing (approx 5 miles south of Bakers, the cut on the East side of the road). Alterna typically come right off the North point of the cut and cross the road going east to west (I've seen a half dozen do exactly that over the years).

There are at least 5 or 6 other spots on Juno that would fill the bill off the top of my head.

Best
Joe

Joe,

I wish I could say that all I did was drive Juno - I actually left a bit of blood due to the cactus and mosquitos while walking cuts as well. Yeah, there are snake highways on Juno but the snakes never seem to use them while I'm there. Ask Chris - I think our highest number of snakes seen on Juno in one evening was 4 (2 atrox, 1 Hypsiglena, 1 emoryi). Such is life...

travis

The same very small area of a very long cut has produced a trio of alterna for me in the last 3 years (0.1 - 2003, 1.1 - 2005); six cuts within a stretch of road maybe a quarter of a mile long (maybe less) produced a 2.2 group in the last two years (1.0 - 2004, 1.2 - 2005); and I'm pretty sure the 349 male I found on the road was in the same spot I found the adult female the night before. On this trip, success forced me to hunt the same areas over and over again.

RP

but he keeps using that "jinx" word so I was hoping to inspire him, or get the power of positive thinking going on inside his head.

I know exactly what he is talking about. I had a 5 year Juno jinx going on with my brother riding shotgun. We had to meet the challenge head on and when we broke it, we broke it in a big way....

Best
Joe

Do you remember that one time I called you and you told me to stick it out at nine mile, and I didn't stick it out at nine mile cause I got BORED, and this character pulls up in a pick-up truck, shines the cut and yanks one off as I drive by. That's what kept me pounding away!

Robert

That character was Brian Box and he pulled three off that cut that night. That day I returned from a one nighter on Juno (3 alterna, one gravid, and an annulata) to field your phone call.

Forky

OK - maybe I already knew that and it was suppressed because I had a wife and child and chose to live rather than dive off the top of nine mile!

RP

6/12/93?,sorry to hear you had a 5yr. streak of bad luck.do you think it is connected to lepidus cut?i beleive you were there i was there(you know the girl on a walker right after her hip replacement surgery ) your brother was there and a male alterna there.if you need absolution to improve your luck or just ease your mind. just call mother teresa,she can help.she has long ago forgiven and forgotten(even if you have not) p.s. isn't funny how some dates stick in your head.

The rest of the story.....

We pulled up to the lepidus cut and saw Kirk Drutar walking with some other folks. We were headed south, and there was a car parked to the right side.

As we cleared the car I thought I had seen something laying on the shoulder on the right, but wasn't sure. So I began talking to Kirk, and looked over at my partner (Steve Phillips) staring at the cieling of the car. I gave him a gentle nudge in the ribs to stick the spotlight out the window.

I still crack up because of what happened next..... first he spots way off over the edge on the right, then way down to the south (I began to get impatient), then he spots way up north, finally allowing his light to fall on the shoulder directly under our passenger door Steve exclaims "HOLY @#%!&!, there's a huge blairs!!" It was all I could do to get him out of the car to pick up the animal. That was our third and final Blairs of the night.

The gravid female I found that night is another hilarious Steve Phillips story all in it's own deserving of another post somewhere down the line.

That was a great night. I'll do my best to never forget that evening. The Juno jinx had long been broken by the time that night transpired.

Best
Joe

>>but he keeps using that "jinx" word so I was hoping to inspire him, or get the power of positive thinking going on inside his head.
>>
>>I know exactly what he is talking about. I had a 5 year Juno jinx going on with my brother riding shotgun. We had to meet the challenge head on and when we broke it, we broke it in a big way....
>>
>>Best
>>Joe
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Chris Harrison

.

Travis,

Chris may have had bad luck on Juno, and it is tough, but it does not suck like he says. You can have hard luck there, but also, as Joe says, there are great spots to hunt and there are good pay offs. We did not get one this year, but James and I have done VERY well there over the years hunting only a few nights a year.

We saw your male Bairds the night after you left. It was great to see you my man. We shall do it again!!! Hugh

Nice report and fantastic pictures Chris. It was good talking with you last week and I am sure we will run into each other again soon. Those pandales are super nice and I enjoyed you showing off the variation in the subocs.
Take care buddy.
Nathan Wells