tucson herping in monsoon season (same as main forum)

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pythonregius3
Posts: 74
Joined: June 14th, 2010, 9:05 am
Location: Central Indiana

tucson herping in monsoon season (same as main forum)

Post by pythonregius3 »

First off I want to thank all the people that helped me with giving me some info on spots to go to. I recently went on a trip with 2 of my brothers, my sister in law Sam and my mom. We had 2 people i didn't know until before this trip from the forum and another friend we have known for a while from the forum that is a Midwesterner like us help us with some road tips to cruise as well. i won't be listing names of who helped as I don't want to get any one kicked in the junk for telling strangers like us any spots and also don't want other outsiders like us bugging the same great people that helped us all the time asking for info.

You know who you are and thanks so much. You made our trip so much better than it would have been without all the information you provided. :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

We put in over 2200 miles of driving in a week of time while in Arizona, got very little sleep and hiked lots of miles many of which were in tough high elevation mountain areas looking for some awesome species we had all dreamed of finding. Below i have some pics of what we found and a species list of what we turned up.

we also found many toads and some lizards but we are a snake family so that is what you will see pics of below.

We started out a little slow the first few days. We got in on a Saturday and went for a hike not finding any snakes and on the first night cruise we found one western diamondback in a high traffic area so i didn't get any good pictures and a cal king really close to a border patrol check point so again no pics of that one. :(

On Day two we hiked the Santa Ritas. Awesome place! we didn't turn up any snakes there and the most exciting find was my Bro Marc turning up a few piles of Bear crap. Later that afternoon on a road cruise we turned up the two below snakes. Both the snakes listed from day one were lifers for Marc and Sam and also both of these were lifers for them as well so that was really exciting. Mom, David and I were in AZ in 2011 and had found these 4 species so we were still searching for the first lifers of the trip.

Black-tailed Rattlesnake

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Mojave Rattlesnake

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On Day 3 we were hopeful one of the sites we had been told about would turn up a lifer for the entire group after a few days of lower numbers than we had hoped and we weren't disappointed. We hiked for a good while at one of the locations two of the people from the forum had told me about and found two of my favorites and a lifer for all of us below. one little baby and a good sized adult in two different spots we hiked.

Tiger Rattlesnakes

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Later that night we then turned up another lifer with this Checkered Garter

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We were all feeling much better after we all got our first lifers on the trip. The next day we ended up finding another Western Diamondback. (again in high traffic area again no good pics) 2 sonoran whip snakes lifer for all of us but both eluded us!! Man those things are fast. one on the road and bolted into some cactus. My brother David just texted a full week after our trip he was still digging cactus out from his attempt to chase this snake down and the second one I spotted in a pile of rocks on a hike and it bolted under the huge rocks and we couldn't locate it by the time we ran over there. Later that night we found the below snake on a road we were told about to cruise from our midwestern friend from the forum. Thanks so much (again can't mention names)

Sidewinder

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The next night we got a few more diamondbacks again i have no good pics. The one time we found one that it was out in the middle of nowhere and i could have gotten pics i have an odd story on. I plan to post a separate post on to ask for people's craziest border patrol stories. I am sure someone can top this one but it was wild. I will post it right after this post. I have only a few pics of any that we found and none are worth posting as we kept finding them in high traffic areas and we found the below lifer for all of us.

Lyersnake

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After the Lyersnake we were all much happier and loving how things were going. we finally got a chance to make it to one of the spots we were told to try for my number one target species of the trip LEPIDUS. This was going to be on our last full day. we kept wanting to go to this spot each other day and rain kept being a big chance where we were scared to go get rained on all day so we kept pushing it back.

So Friday rolls around and we get to the spot real early b/c it was still set to rain early afternoon. I am really nervous by the time we get there as i have dreamed of finding a banded rock rattler for years. I have owned Klauber's two volume rattlesnakes book for years and always wanted to find the snake (well one of the snakes) named after him.

So obviously i wouldn't build it up and not find one right????

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Technically that is right because i didn't spot either of them and we actually found two so it is right for two reasons. Thanks again to both of you that helped us with this spot. If i knew where you lived i would give you a hug. This made the entire trip for me worth every penny i paid to get out west. I know most people on earth would think that is an insane comment but i think on this forum while i sit here wearing my shirt that says "the more people i meet the more I like snakes" I am preaching to the choir on this one.

Right after the second one of these as we are about to head back to the car my brother Marc falls down. He then hears a rattle and right next to him he spots this. kind of scary how close (well really scary) this was to him but awesome we found this one too

ridge-nosed rattlesnake

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What a day. two of the mountain species in one day. we were so excited and two more lifers for all of us. The last day before our flight myself and my 2 brothers went out on a road cruise and turned up a blacknecked garter and western patched nosed. I don't have pics of either of these. the patched nosed i have a few pics but it had just been hit and was bleeding some from the mouth so we just snapped a few as it was a lifer and let it go hoping it was ok. None of the pics are any good. We found them at the same time so since we had seen a blacknecked before we let it go to snap photos of the patch nosed real fast and release it to give it the best chance of survival.

Species list:
Lyre snake
western patch nosed
sonoran whip snake
california kingsnake
checkered garter
black necked garter

rattlesnakes:
western diamondback
mojave
black tailed
sidewinder
tiger
banded rock
ridge nosed

**To my Family sorry again for the arguments we got in on the trip. I know we all got stressed out with not getting our way some of the time and with being cooped up in the car so much so I am sorry for causing some of the arguments. I wasn't trying to be pushy about where we went on our family trip, i was just trying to use the info from the people that helped me on here the best i could to try to help us have a successful helping trip.
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Brian Hubbs
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Joined: June 7th, 2010, 11:41 am
Location: "Buy My Books"-land

Re: tucson herping in monsoon season (same as main forum)

Post by Brian Hubbs »

Looks like you had a successful trip. :thumb:
pythonregius3
Posts: 74
Joined: June 14th, 2010, 9:05 am
Location: Central Indiana

Re: tucson herping in monsoon season (same as main forum)

Post by pythonregius3 »

Thanks. We were very happy w the diversity we found for sure. Missed some targets but gives us a good reason to return :thumb:
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Brian Hubbs
Posts: 4735
Joined: June 7th, 2010, 11:41 am
Location: "Buy My Books"-land

Re: tucson herping in monsoon season (same as main forum)

Post by Brian Hubbs »

Are you putting your finds in naherp.com? If not, please do...
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ThamnElegans24
Posts: 406
Joined: November 23rd, 2010, 6:44 pm
Location: Mesa, Arizona

Re: tucson herping in monsoon season (same as main forum)

Post by ThamnElegans24 »

Congratulations on a successful trip. Thanks for sharing.
double d
Posts: 50
Joined: December 27th, 2012, 5:46 pm
Location: lakeland, florida

Re: tucson herping in monsoon season (same as main forum)

Post by double d »

Awesome trip , I was wondering if you ever made it out there, remember hit me up when you make trip back to florida!
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