Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I walked a few cuts tonight and its so dry here.Nothings moving not even an atrox witch you would normally see on any given night.I have not seen a live snake this year just one dead longnose.

The drought is that severe?

I just came back from a 3 night trip. We saw 12 snakes but 8 of them were DOR's including an alterna. The game warden we ran into was also a very nice individual and had no problems.

Chris

and yes the drought is horrible. The pandale fires destroyed somewhere between 175,000 and 250,000 acres. They definitely need rain. Rained for 20 minutes while we were there and 6 hrs later you couldn't even tell it had rained.

Chris

gas is so expensive right now I will wait for the right conditions.I live about 60 miles from alterna .Its not about the money I could almost buy a snake with the gas money I spend when I go hunting or should I say used to go hunting.I called texas parks and spiders are fair game.I would like to know what people are telling the game wardens when they get stopped.

We ran into one game warden and we told the truth. We were only there to photograph wildlife especially herps and landscapes. He had no issues with us photographing. We did not carry any collecting gear and We did not collect a thing. There wasn't much moving to photograph though. All the pics we took were insitu with the exception of the DOR alterna. We took it to the shoulder to photograph it because the warden asked us to clear the roadway when we stopped to photograph something. We also wore reflective vests to show we are trying to be safe. For us it isn't about collecting just being out there doing what we love.

Chris

My worst trip was in 2006. I saw 7 snakes in 7 nights and that includes DOR's. Only 3 live snakes. I shouldn't say it was my worst trip though because one of the live snakes was a nice light Blair's and any trip that includes a live grayband is a good trip in my book. The second live snake was a coachwhip in the daytime and I wasn't even hunting, I was just driving from Sanderson to Del Rio to change motels. I forget what the other snakes were. It was dry everywhere from Del Rio to the Davis. I remember around Palma on Hwy. 90 it was so dry that the bushes actually looked black to the horizon as if a fire had gone through.

I hope it gets some rain soon.
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www.hcu-tx.org/

The 4 live snakes we saw were a lepidus, suboc, blotched water and a central texas whip. The whipsnake was a lifer.

Chris

its so dry here 2 days ago someone got a flat between midland and odessa and it started a fire I could see the smoke from my job.a few hours later I could see the smoke from another fire north of odessa.I was walking a cut last week and the grass is tall and the dust I was kicking up was awful.I remember over 10 years ago it was dry like this and I didn't see anything all year.The next year we had lots of rain and I caught 8 that year and had my one and only 2 alterna night one king mountain and one on a cut on the I-20 service road.