Finding venomous snakes in fall before hibernation

deerhuntinghippie · September 22, 2016

We were about 5 miles from home when we drove past a pasture that had a beautiful hillside and an enormous oak tree at the very top. The cows were on their feet and the moon had them and the tree silhouetted. At the bottom of the hill was the fence to the property and some train tracks ran parallel to the fence. I turned the car around and my wife prepared her camera for the moon shot.

We parked at the entrance of a public green space, walked across the street and started down the train tracks. At about the 100 yard mark my wife, who was walking directly beside me holding my hand like a vice, kind of skipped/jumped over something. "What that a log or a rope we just stepped over?" It dawned on me immediately and I felt foolish for not having a flashlight on. "I guarantee you it was a snake." I said to her. I reached into my pocket, turned the light on on my cell phone and BAM! We had literally just stepped directly over a timber rattlesnake.

We immediately started setting our equipment up to film the snake. The moon would have to wait.

After we got some good footage of the rattlesnake, we kind of spent our remaining weekend herping and ended up getting footage of a copperhead and a black racer.

I shot this video blog style so if you only want to see the reptile footage I was skip to the 4 minute mark. Although, I would like to add that I have been working on my editing and I have tried really hard to make the videos as entertaining as possible.

So for those that watch the entire video, let me know if you like the video and if it held your attention well.

I'll shut up now and post the video.