Reptile Fight Club - Do others inspire our herping to evolve? W/ Stephen Falick

Episode Date: May 23, 2026

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Hi, welcome to Reptile Fight Club. Hope you guys are ready for a good fight tonight. We've got Stephen Fallick joining us. How are you doing, Stephen? I'm doing well. Thanks for having me back for a second time. Yeah, of course. You've got some great insights,

and I thought we'd get you back for more of your input here, especially when talking about field herping. You're the man, so. Yeah. How are you doing, Rob? hanging again. Yeah. Excellent.

The progesterone or whatever is getting to work. And yeah, it definitely made a difference on the swelling from the Poison Oak Escapade. Yeah. It's finally alleviated. Yeah, within a couple doses, it started making quite a bit of difference. But yeah, that whole deal was pretty surprising. Do you have poison oak that way, Stephen? I don't think so.

I haven't run into it out here. That's probably a good thing. That sounds like a good call. I had poison ivy and stuff, you know, been through that, but it turned out poison oak was a whole different beast. And, you know, you get in the contact dermatitis, but then two weeks after exposure, my arm swelled up like one and a half times it saw it all the way through my knuckles as it had gone systemic. And that was the thing that made me a little bit like, okay, I probably have to get this checked out. Wow. My injury from this last weekend wasn't so bad.

I found a spade foot towed on the road, so I took it off, you know, off the road to take photos of it. And I leaned my elbow down and got some weird, like, sticker or something in my elbow. And it's like, I've got this, like, wood embedded in my skin. I'm not sure if it's like a scab or anything. So I've got this weird thing going on with my elbow. Yeah. The things we do, right? Absolutely.

Yeah. I didn't anticipate getting all cut up, just leaning down on the road to get down at a eye level with a spade foot toad. Speaking of which, we went down with the university with my college to go check out a property down near KNAB. It was a pretty sweet area, you know, kind of off the grid a bit through some really sandy roads. I was a little nervous about getting bogged there and having to dig out. But fortunately, all the vehicles made it through and the pilot handled well. There was, I mean, there's a fair bit of lizard activity out there, three or four species on the property that I found. probably others that, you know, I just didn't see this this time around.

And then on the drive back, the first night we explored the property, there was a big Great Basin Rattlesnake crossed the road. It was really nice individual and sent a few shots to the group there and got some nice positive responses. Yeah, I didn't. I just, that was just a cell phone pig, but they were saying how much my photography skills improved. I'm like, oh, okay. That works. So, yeah, it was pretty cool. I'm excited to see the pictures from the real camera now. It was really good lighting just right on, you know, almost to

sundown. So maybe a couple hours before. But yeah, beautiful snake. Happy to see that. Went out and saw some dinosaur tracks like 9 o'clock at night. It was a little hard to find them in the dark, but finally managed to locate those. But yeah, kind of cool, you know, some... Yeah, the aeropod dinosaur with the three toes, walking across an old mud flat and saw that. There's some pretty good dinosaur tracks in Utah, various sites. So good place for that.

And that was on the parcel or just nearby or what? It was on a little hike outside of town, so close to town. But, yeah, brought back some good memories of our trip down the north of the Grand Canyon. So I was a little tempted to maybe go drive out there and check it out. Herping around Canab isn't isn't that spectacular, I guess. I don't know if it's because not many people go out there. So it's not, you know, it's more of an unknown or if it's just like you can find all the species in Canab that you can find it in St. George. But you also get a lot more cool herps in St. George. So why go to Canab when you can go to St. George? maybe, I don't know, trying to figure that out.

But this whole thing came because the university was looking at this property. The owners are really great people who got to meet them. They kind of showed us around the property, showed us things they've been doing to bring it back to more of a natural stay, like getting rid of rushing olive trees and things like that, replacing invasives with more native. plants and stuff. So it's been definitely a labor love for this older couple, and they've just been working their property for a long time. But it's a really nice spot with the springs present and lots of water out in the middle of the desert. So very unique place. So it was really cool to see. And hopefully it works out with the university. But they were just looking to make sure that our

ideas for using the property would align with their ideals. So see how that I've helped. I volunteered to take folks out for naturalist excursions looking for reptiles or birds or mammals, whatever we could find. So see if that got me a trip down there. So that was kind of nice. They put us up in a hotel, fed us dinners, and lunches and breakfast. So it was a fun, fun little trip. Unfortunately, came right on the heels of my trip to Europe.

But it wasn't too bad. I was pretty much over the jet lag by the time I left. I did stop in a spot up kind of east of Salt Lake to look for green snakes, but didn't have any luck finding those either. I only had about an hour, an hour and a half to look, but I thought I'd get lucky, but unfortunately not. Still need to find that pesky species in Utah. Is it just leutosis that are in there, or is it the organist mix? or what are the rattlesnakes that are down there?

I think it's just lutosis in that area. You might get some of the abysses coming up into areas near Knav. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know about too close to the city, but it could be. It seems like there were some records that are abysses looking. I guess that depends on if you consider abysses. Sure.

The true subspecies or forms. or whatever. Right. Outside the ditch. Yeah. So, yeah. This was, you know, clearly a lutosis. Yeah.

It wasn't very abysus looking. So, yeah. All right. Well, what about you, Stephen? You've been out recently doing much ripping yet? I've gotten out a few times. Been pretty busy with grad school. But the weather's been nice.

that I've forced myself to spend some nights out. There's been some stuff moving, so. Good. Yeah. Nice. What's been the highlight of your season so far? I have already found one of those great band and king snake things that people like so much, myself included. Which, yeah, that's always the highlight for me.

But mabel grattle snakes and Transpigas copperheads and, you know, all the good stuff. Nice. Still haven't seen a gray band or a copperhead out there, but I did get a modeled rattlesnakes. So that was nice. Yeah. Pretty sweet. Yeah. And I'm sitting similarly situated, though, it was over different trips. So, yeah. Interesting stuff. Is that a typical, like, is that early? Have those turning out? it was my earliest one. There's been a few early ones this year.

Early rains and mild winter maybe is contributing to that. I don't know if it's, yeah, unusual for me. Okay. I mean, more typically, right, the first, no, the second time we had come out was in the beginning of June. And I think that year the rain hadn't even come yet. And it, there wasn't a whole heck of a lot going. What year was that? What was that?

What was that? That was 22, I think. Yeah. That was a horrible year out here. The race never really came that year. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

That's the fun of herping distant locations. Yeah. Yeah, plan several months in advance. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then making it out there only to find out that the conditions aren't great. And they're come back another year.

Yeah. Even in dry conditions, there's worse places to be. Right, right. For sure. And the rock rattle snake that I found with Jordan Parrott and actually Casey Lazzick and his buddy, oh, God, I'm sorry. Why do you even go down? I don't know why I do that, but there was not much moving, but we were out there for Carpet Fest anyway. So Jeff is a name.

Sorry, sorry, Jeff. But we were down for Carpet Fest, so we just were getting in a little herping west. But, yeah. And that was pretty late, right? Yeah, September and October. Right. So not the best herping time, but we also managed to see an Indigo snake. So that was cool.

Oh, cool. And, yeah. So it was a, it was a good, good trip overall. Was that indigo out west? Um, it was, uh, oh, where was that? It was, it was west a bit, yeah. Well, not, not, yeah, not quite. Now what do you mean, Stephen, no.

Well, more like they'll really, you know, at that. Yeah. Well, yeah, that's further west than I've ever found one. That's cool. And I don't even know if it was that part, because what, there's that stuff up by Brackettville, right? That's kind of the western side of them for the most part. Yeah, we were kind of on, it seemed like kind of on the edge of the range to some extent, but maybe not the edge, you know, the edge, but, you know, further west in their range.

We saw lots of tracks and we also saw a DOR animal. The one that we did see was like a kind of a brief glimpse like because we were seeing you know different sticks and shadows that looked like a snake and and jordan was kind of talking to himself and he's like how was that not a snake and then it moved and we're like oh it was a snake it was an indigo we're tried to you know jump out and try to chase it down but it got away through some thick brush and and bushes so yeah they can be deceptively fast yeah right and it was a younger one it wasn't a huge monster You know, big-sized one, so it got away a little quicker, but definitely an indigo. So, yeah.

Yeah, I need to see another one just to, you know, have pictures and proof of, proof of sight, I guess. Pictures or it didn't happen is the old adage, right? Well, it happened to you. You just need a photo. Yeah, yeah. Similar to your coral snake. That first coral, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So speaking of that, Stephen, do you find that LEPs are more sort of cosmopolitan and their temperature taste and things so that they're out later in the year, more likely about earlier than the year, at least relative to the alternative to the alternative? Yeah, I would say so. They're pretty tolerant of a wide range. And in the fall, in August, September, you get males moving a lot, looking for females. So that can actually be a pretty good time to find them. Interesting. Okay.

Do you find that the further eastern, sort of in the West Texas, I'll turn a range type habitat, the further eastern, that that kind of starts earlier, goes later than the Davis stuff? Yeah, for sure. The rain, well, temperature-wise, it warms up there a lot faster than it does in the Davises. I drove through the Davises this morning around sunrise, and it was 40,000. degrees. So stuff isn't really moving out there. But it's already, like Del Rio's already hit 100 degrees. So, yeah. That's pretty wild. Yeah, it's, well, it's quite a bit, what, a couple thousand feet higher or something like that? Right. Yeah. Yeah. What,

what kind of prompts you to, to hit it hard, you know, to really start herping in earnest? Do you wait for specific conditions or is it just when you have time? When I have time is the big thing right now. But I like there to have been rain at least somewhat recently if I'm going to really hit it hard. Right. Yeah. That makes sense. That's nice when you're local too.

Right. Yeah. You know, see your rain and head out. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. But it's nice to have those local conditions and be close by spots.

So you can capitalize on good weather events and not have to be like a sucker traveling. Getting the luck of the draw, I guess. Yeah, suckers. All right. And you've been doing a little bit of birding as well, the guiding? I have. Yeah. Cool.

Yeah. Not as much as at the beginning of the year I was doing a lot of birding. And then it kind of slowed down with riding with gravity. with grad school and whatnot. April is my busy month for birding as far as guiding goes. Yeah. So it's kind of nice to have a little bit of a break from that right now. Yeah.

And what areas are you hitting a lot of different spots, or is it pretty much just kind of closer to you where you're at? Mostly here in the Tri-County area, so the big bend of West Texas. Right. Okay. There's some good bird life down there. for sure is. Yeah. I know Rob's going to cringe a little bit.

What's your favorite species to find out there? Oh, that's a tough question. Yeah. Right now I've got a really nice pair of Scotts Orioles that are coming into my yard pretty much constantly throughout the day and the male is singing currently. It's definitely my favorite song out here and one of my favorite birds to see for sure. Yeah. That's awesome.

Yeah, we've got the Lazzuli buntings. making their way through our town and putting seed out in the feeder to get them to hang around a little bit in the yard to see them. They're just so beautiful. They are. Nice blue. That shade of blue is unlike anything else. Right. It's killer.

Yeah. Yeah. I saw the first one in the yard right before I went down to Canab. And then down in Canab we saw Western Tanager, which are also really nice birds to look at. Yeah. All right. Sorry, Rob. Back to Herbs. Thanks for tolerating that. Yeah.

Obviously, I'm the one that's not advanced, right? That's clearly the function is that it's, you know, are you advanced sufficiently advanced to be a birder? And I am not sufficiently advanced. So that's okay. You just got to look at it as winter herping. That's all. Yep, that's how it starts.

Yep, exactly. Yeah. Well, that's great. Do you want to set the context for the fight, Justin? Sure, yeah. I'm just kind of making notes and things. And yeah, let's go for it. We're kind of setting up a fight to capitalize on Stephen's knowledge and experience in field herping.

And so we talked or thought this might be a reasonable topic to discuss and fight over, you know, in our evolution of our herping skills, is it better to learn from others or to kind of work it out on our own? and through trial and error, through, you know, solo outings, which which do you find helps you, I guess, involve your herping skills. So I guess we'll flip the coin to see who gets to fight with you this round. Go ahead, Rob. Tails. It is Tails. Cool.

You have won the toss. Well, I will, yeah, I'll chat through it. Okay. Sounds good. And then Stephen, go ahead and call for which side of the argument? heads it is heads all right

you guys are both winners which side of the argument would you prefer the herping with others or herping solo hmm I'll take herping solo I do most of my herping solo

so I think I've got more of a perspective on that beautiful all right okay well as the winner of the coin toss you can decide if you want to go first

or check it over to Rob I'll let Rob kick us off. Okay. Sounds good. Awesome. Yeah, so I suppose just sort of given my initial, you know, got into herping associated with going in groups for the most part, say being the key head and going and flipping a couple local boards and things, for the most part, my initial exposure is a product to going in groups with folks like Justin, you know, Princeton, you know, Princeton I was just looking at it. I think we've gone on 12 trips thus far. over the last five or six years.

Getting close, well, Eric, you know, I guess he's slightly increasing his lead. I think Louisiana is going to be 16 trips over the last seven years that we've gone on. Okay. So, and everyone else kind of falls. I think you're second, though. Okay. So that's obviously been, you know, sort of a driver for me in terms of group exposure going to different places. trying those different things, really having that sort of group experience. And I know a big part of that has been sort of learning and taking on the ethic of the group.

You know, I think probably I was coming from a decent spot. I don't see myself committing a lot of the really egregious sins, right, that we sometimes see online or on social media and stuff like that. But I do think that, you know, very firmly, I remember trip number one. Justin's, you know, imperative was, are you going to set that rock? back correctly, you know, it was a very, very harsh, you know, clear expectation, which was good. And, you know, so I do think that was a helpful place to be coming from. Yeah. I can agree with that for sure. There is a lot you can learn from being with other people in the

field and getting their perspectives. But I also feel that, you know, if you're, especially for Herping locally, getting out by yourself, for me, night after night in West Texas, but wherever you be getting out and getting that consistent field experience, sometimes you can't do that with other people. So sometimes it's alone just because it has to be. But I think that's a great way to really learn and understand specific areas and the specific habits of certain species. And then from that, you can apply it in a broader spectrum on travels or, you know, elsewhere in the field.

Now, you've been on many, you know, group herp settings as well. I mean, I have, yeah. I've featured on some of Noah's videos and things like that. Right. Do you find that you find a similar number, I guess, number of animals when you're herping so versus a group, or do you think the group dynamics kind of help increase the numbers? I think it depends, but overall, more eyes are always better. I think if you have more people, if you're out flipping cover, for instance,

if you have just one other person that's twice as many rocks that are getting flipped or whatnot, if you're walking cuts, you can criss-cross a rock cut or walk both sides of the road at the same time. And I think that is definitely a big advantage as far as, numbers of herps encountered. Do you have many experiences where, say, you know, somebody just went past a section of rock cut and then you've waited maybe 10, 15 minutes and done the same pass and found something that either wasn't out when they went or, you know, or they missed or things like that. Not 10 or 15 minutes. It's happened 10 or 15 seconds.

Oh, really? Okay. So. Well, and I've, you brought up Noah one time we were walking a rock cut, and he was five feet behind me. And I was walking, and he said, well, you don't want to see this milksnake? And I had just plastered on the rock wall. Somehow I'd walked right past a two-foot milksnake that was just out on a limestone rock cut, as obvious as could be. So, yeah, the second set of eyes can definitely be helpful. Yeah. Yeah, that's the big thing.

You know, I still remember one of my first big hurried. perping experiences with was with a big herpetology class. And there were like 30 of us kind of spread across the desert, you know, in St. George area in southwestern Utah. And we found a lot of stuff, you know, and each person kind of, maybe not each person, but a lot of different people found a lot of different species. So yeah, definitely having that big group makes it, makes it nice. but by the same token, like, you know, you, I don't know, it's, then you have 30 people walking around the hillside and, you know, there's, there's, there's downsides to that as well.

Yeah. Sometimes it diminishes the experience, right, a little bit. And it's sort of how much do you feel actively involved in the process, right? If it's someone on the hillside, you know, three ridges over or something. And it's like, yeah, that can be a little bit. I don't know. Yeah, it raises questions, right? I don't know, Stephen, how do you feel about that?

Especially in the context of someone who's often out by yourself, do you find that when you're in a group, does it add to your experience? Sometimes, maybe when it's going great, it's additive. But if kind of you're not finding stuff that it diminishes it, do you have any thoughts on that? I mean, I think, well, whenever I'm herping in groups, it's always with close friends. so that's a nice aspect of it.

You know, my first herping experience is getting into herping was with the East Texas Herpological Society. And they would do field trips or, you know, you're 18 people out at a wildlife management area. And I saw my first Horl Snake on one of those trips, but it was found by another group on the other side of the WMA. And they brought it back to a camp to show it to us. So it was really cool to see it, but, you know, it's not the same as finding. it. Well, I was going to say, so this naturally brings us to sort of topic we talk about a lot. In terms of your own sort of lifeless, how does that fit in? That coral snag that you're talking about there, how, how, where does, what do you do with that? I, for me personally, I wouldn't

count it. I don't, for my life list, I don't have to be the one to find it, but I want to be present for it. You know, if I'm walking a rock coat with a friend and he finds an alterna, I count that to my alternate list, even if I wasn't the one to spot it. Right. But if they are walking a rock cut, that's even a mile away. If I can't see their light, I wasn't really part of the experience. Sure. Yeah, I think that's fair.

I do feel like for my own ethic or, you know, however it counts, right, do you kind of, I think there's something to seeing it in situ in that area and that you were, in the immediate vicinity, right? That it's not being transported someplace to you. I know the first lap that we saw in West Texas was something that a group, a different group, I believe, but had in a bucket.

You know, and we saw it at a very, you know, at a different place. And they kind of, oh, no, we just put it from here. I'm like, not with the way that looks, dude. I don't believe you. But, you know, and that certainly didn't count. You know, and it was, for a bunch of different reasons. that wasn't common venture.

They were doing, we just happened to be running into each other left, left and right. It wasn't that we were part of a, you know, singular effort. But it wouldn't have counted even if we were on the same team, so to speak. Right. And I mean, that's just how I feel about it personally. If other people want to count it or bend those limits a bit, then that's their list. They're afraid to do that.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. I certainly know people do that out here. And that's all right. Yeah. There's no prize for completing a list, right? Yeah.

Well, much less if people don't think that you're doing it honorably. Right, right. Yeah. Okay. Interesting. So I guess, you know, the natural follow-up to that would be, when did you find your first Texas coral snake? So that's the coral snake that I'm missing at this point. So I always curious to have that conversation.

What was the first one that you count as having found? I grew up in Houston where coral snakes are very common. So I found my first one when I was 11 or 12. I grew up right on Buffalo Bayou, so I spent a lot of time walking along Buffalo Bayou in the woods. And I flipped it under a log. And yeah, that was, you know, I didn't really keep a lifeless back then. But mentally, that's the one I count as my lifer. Very cool. Yeah, it does seem like, at least based on the records, and I don't know if it's a function of density or the habitat type or whatever, but it does seem like when you're in good pockets for the Texas corals that they can be much denser, you know, certainly parts of Central Florida can be pretty good for them. I've piped them up and cruised them, but it's some, the impressions I get of kind of even public spaces around Austin and Houston that some of those densities are very high.

Yeah, I think there are certainly pockets around those two cities that have really dense coral populations. And then there's also the aspect of how many people live in those cities that are having chance encounters with them, just because there's so many millions of people there. Yeah, absolutely. Is there kind of a seasonality to those? It seems like a lot of those turn up in the kind of winter and early spring. Yeah, for sure. warm days in the winter they're pretty reliable and then in the spring once it starts raining they're at least in those two areas they're they're pretty abundant i actually uh i found my first

west texas quarrel this year as well forgot to mention that on my highlights but yeah not west of the paco's river but pretty close okay so it counts that's very cool and was it on a cut or what was crossing the road. I was walking a cut and a friend pulled up to talk to me and he was sitting in his truck and I was talking to him and I looked down the road and it was just crossing the road in his headlights. That's wild. Which I guess is another aspect of group Herping working in favor there. I would have been half a mile past that spot when that coral across the road if he hadn't stopped. So, yeah. Yeah, interesting. Okay.

Do they have a similar appearance to those east? Is their variability within them across the range? It seems like the further west and south you get the kind of brighter and cleaner their pattern is. The ones in Houston are kind of, they've got a lot of black on them and kind of muddied and dull looking. And then, you know, the ones in Austin can be really pretty. The ones in South Texas can be really pretty. And then this one out west was very vibrant. Very cool.

I know it's the best one I've seen. And I've seen, I've seen dozens of them in Houston, and this one blew them all out of the water. That's very neat. Okay. And Justin had hit on this earlier, and so I do want to circle back. So I still haven't seen an Indigo. That was Jordan and Justin's Ventry. Still needs the picture or whatever.

I've looked for him. Well, we all looked for him in, yeah, on the first trip. Yeah. On the first trip. And then I've looked for him a couple times in Florida. it's no effect. I think part of it may be in the same way. They're kind of as big dark snakes that they're probably a winter into spring.

So I haven't really necessarily timed that up ideally for them. But how many of those have you seen? What sort of variation in size? Any of that stuff? I'm very curious. I've seen zero eastern indigoes, but I've seen quite a few Texas indigos. My first few trips down to South Texas,

I joked that they were the most common snake down there. And then I made that joke enough times that the hurt gods stopped letting me find them. My last few trips down there, I've seen a few of them. My lifer was about five feet long, and then the second one was a fresh hatchling. That's very cool. And I've seen several in between. That's really neat. What's the largest one?

We got one that was not six foot but close to it. We were out at a dump site with Noah and he said, hey, let's stop and flip that tarp. And then we looked over and the tarp started slithering away. That's cool. That's really cool. Are they difficult to photograph? They certainly can be. They eventually seem to calm down and sit still, but if you get a four-plus footer that doesn't want to sit still, it's impossible.

Yeah. Do they respond to kind of the frisbee or the bucket trick? It's got to be a pretty strong frisbee. Yeah. No, it's kind of just a couple. them with your hands and hope that they stop moving, and pull your hands away quickly and get the shot quickly. Not all of them are like this. Some of them will just pose perfectly fine, but I've certainly had a few that did not want to sit still.

Yeah, that's sort of the impression they give. I don't know that they're supercharged racers, but they're bigger and stronger versions of a similar snake is sort of the impression that I have. Yeah, that's a pretty accurate description. Yeah. Are they very defensive or more just run? For me, they've just ran. I have a friend who's doing work on them down in South Texas,

and she says they're really bitey. Like, she gets bit by them all the time. Our lifer tried to bite me and my friend, but I haven't had any others try to bite me since then. Yeah, I don't know. I guess that's just luck of the draw. Right. Not a snake I really want to get bit by.

Yeah. Yeah, it looks like it'd be phenomenally painful. Yeah. Yeah. I watched one eat a Western CoachWip one time. Oh, wow. Grabbed it mid-body, and it worked its way up to the head, and with every bite you could hear the ribs crunching.

Oh. And then it got to the head, and there was just one solid crunch, and then the Coachwhip went limp. Like, yeah. Oh, man. Not a bite I want to take. Right. That's crazy.

Yikes, that's funny that your friend who's working on him is getting bit, right? I'm just, that's pretty tough. Okay. Yeah, it's got to be rough. Okay, cool. Yeah, very cool. I know we'd also talked about you theoretically get Massasagas out your way. Have you turned any up at this point?

I have not. Yeah. Some people might feel differently, but I say that a true trans Picos Massasaga is the rarest snake out here. I was walking a rock cut with Noah last year, and some friends of his from Georgia pulled up, and they said, you see anything? And we said, no, not yet. What about you all? And they went, oh, we're just passing through on our way back from Arizona,

but we just got a Massasaga over about an hour ago. And I won't swear on the show, but I called them walking. And sure enough, they had it in a bucket to photograph. And so I have seen one, but, you know, it wasn't there. I've spent a lot of time looking for them. It'll happen, but hasn't yet. Interesting. Are they, I think I missed it in the excitement.

You said that was last fall? Last summer, yeah. Last summer, okay. Do they seem to be, well, and I know it's just so few records, it's hard to say. A lot of the areas, they seem to have really strong seasonal patterns in terms of when and where you'll see them and that sort of stuff. Does that seem to hold or there's just so few, it's so sparse? It's kind of tough to say. That one was in, I think that was late July.

The one before that, which was in 2017, was in October. and then I think all the other ones before that have been monsoon season. I look for them every month that it makes sense to try to look for them, including locking barbed wire fences to see if I can find one that got put up there by a strike or something, just to know if I'm in the right stretch of road. But, yeah, they are very tough out here. I've heard, though, from Test Parsons Wildlife did surveys for them a couple years ago, on a ranch that's just south of Highway 90 out there.

And they said they were common. They found several of them. So I don't know if they're just really isolated and just very rarely come across the highway or what it is. But a frustrating snake for sure. Right. At this point, I had alluded to this earlier, I guess, but unintentionally. Are you taking photographs of most stuff, just sort of cell phone? stuff, bringing out your birding rig?

In the last few years, I've gotten real lazy about photos, mainly because I'm walking cuts and I want to just keep walking. I don't want to miss that alternative that comes out on the cut. This year, I told myself I have to sit down and actually start taking photos of HIRPS again. But for the past three or four years, it's just been quick cell phone photos and then keep walking. Yeah. Well, that was a question that I was curious about. How long?

When did you move out to West Texas? I moved out here in the fall of 2018. Okay. How would you say that you're kind of herping within the space has changed over time? So, like, what you were doing when you first moved out or before you even moved out and then kind of, how much has it normalized, right? And this is just now, you know? Well, before I moved out here, I made my first trip in 2015, came out here to look for Alterna because I had heard all the guys in the East Texas Herb Society talk about going to West Texas and finding all these snakes. So I finally made that trip, got a sub-up on my first trip, which was awesome, but missed Alterna.

And over the next, whatever that is, three years, I made a total of 22 trips. trips to West Texas from Houston. Some of those were just a quick two-night trips. Some of them were week-long trips trying to find Al-Turna. Found none. So then I decided, I guess I'll move out there. Going to college seems like a good excuse to move out there. So that's why I went to college out here was so that I could spend my whole summers looking for Al-Turna.

And then that following summer is when I found my first one. but I guess as far as how my herping out here has evolved on those first trips in my first few years out here it would not be uncommon for me to get out there before sunset and then be walking cuts when the sun is coming up I'm not too good at doing that anymore especially when I'm herping further west like if I'm doing the Davises or you know

other high elevation spots. If midnight rolls around and I'm not seeing much, it's pretty tough for me to keep walking. And I guess that has also changed as far as where I choose to spend a lot of my time. In the early days, I spend a lot of time around Sanderson and further east because that's where people say Alternate are easier to find. And I think that is true. But ultimately, I think it boils down to just where

you spend the most time is where you're going to have the most success with them. So this year especially, I think I was spending a lot of my time closer to home in the Alpine Fort Davis area, especially with gas prices out here. And I'm in my field survey season, so I'm doing 18 surveys a month, which start at sunrise. So those earlier nights are nice for that. Yeah, I can't. In 2020, I did summer bird surveys, so I would be out herping Sanderson from sunset to 3 a.m. And then run back to Alpine, get back around 5, meet my boss in the parking lot, hop in his truck, and we'd head out in the field to do bird surveys.

And I can't do that anymore. Yeah. That's a young man's game. What area? has your favorite alterna I think it's kind of a cop-out answer

but Brewster County as a whole has my favorite look but that varies so much from Black Gap to the Christmas Mountains to Alpine Right My favorite Alterna that have been found in history

have all come from the Alpine area though There's just something special about the snakes out here. And they are a pain in the ass to find. More red or less red? What do you like? The skin, the orange infusions?

Yeah. Yeah. There's just the diversity of it. Noah found one on the hill that's half a mile from my house a few years ago. That was like platinum silver, completely granite speckled all the way down with these piercing gold eyes. And that snake was just incredible. I haven't seen another one since

that looks like that. I've ever seen a photo of one like that. But you get the ones out here that are like those buckskin blairs, whereas they get older, that orange kind of bleeds out from the bands into the gray. And then they kind of, some of them turn into just an orange snake with different color orange bands. And it's an insanely cool look.

there's also there was one found in west alpine i think back in the 80s that was half striped which you know that's a fluke the complete fluke but i always keep that's always in the back of my mind yeah it happened once it could happen again right cool yeah very cool um do you so you mentioned turning in earlier especially when you're further west or at elevation do you uh did you find when you were out doing that you're having success doing that or it's it is a function of you know are you do you feel like you're missing stuff when you when you uh turn in earlier or i know i'm missing stuff because i have friends who don't uh but i don't know i think it if further west at at elevation i think

there's an earlier window i think for the most part i mean i've spent a lot of nights where i've seen, you know, seven or eight leps in the Davis Mountains before 11, and then I hurt until 4, and don't see anything in that 11 to 4 window. So it's, herping out here is all, not all luck, but it's a, luck is a big part of it. And also, you know, it's just, if you put in the hours, you might get rewarded, but you might also do an extra 250 hours a year where you don't see anything. Yeah. I mean, that's the part that's kind of wild, right?

Yeah. And you might not see anything, but your friend who's half a mile down the road might have a great night. It's just how it works out here. Yeah. You drive you insane. What about, I know one of Justin's favorite snakes is the, uh, the, uh, the Tantilla Cuccalada.

Those are really cool. I was talking to somebody about those earlier today because I am sitting on a publication on those that I've been sitting on for years and they were asking me about that. Cool. Yeah, those are one of my favorites out here. You find a smaller one and it's still cool, but you find one that's my biggest was 27 inches. Oh, wow. The 27-inch Tantilla is an insane animal. Yeah.

And they're kind of intimidating when they get two plus foot. They're brown, that golden brown with the black head and kind of a lapid looking. They kind of make you think of typhans. And I've seen them eat centipedes. And it's a pretty potent venom on the centipede. So anytime one starts pushing its nose against my hand, I always kind of winch away. Are they known to bite much? sure.

No, but I don't want to be the first. Yeah, right. We only got to see a DOR, unfortunately. So, yeah, I love to see a live one. I think Jordan found a couple not too long a couple weeks back. Okay, nice. Trip out there, but yeah, it'd be nice to see a live one at some point. Yeah.

Yeah, they are very cool. Yeah. Are they just kind of, are they easy to target, or is it just kind of when you run cross them you there's definitely conditions that are more conducive for them they like it wet and they're one of those snakes where if it's wet it doesn't really matter

how cold it is they'll move if the ground is wet especially you know further west the more eastern ones are I haven't seen very many eastern cuckiaotta they seem more random

but similarly moving on wet nights. Right. Yeah, they do seem like they'd be a more wet. Yeah. And being larger and do you find them less often as compared to like a Hobart Smith-Eye or are they? I don't know. That would be interesting to go through my notes and check on it. I don't know. I've had pretty good luck with Cucula da the last few years. So it might, for me, it might be pretty similar numbers. I honestly don't see very many Hobart Smith-Eye. Yeah, that's what I heard.

Jordan said that Hobart Smith-Eye is actually more of a rare find than a cuckalada. Yeah, interesting. On our second trip, Justin had turned up one on the three-mile west cut. And that's always interesting, right, especially in the cut context, because so much we're just looking at blank rock that, well, if you saw that little two and a half inch, then you suspect you're not missing, you know, a footlong snake or a foot long or larger snake. Right. Yep.

Every year at the start of cut shining season, I'll walk cuts. And if I'm not seeing anything, I'm starting to think, like, am I just rusty? Am I walking past all these snakes? Right. They find a baby night snake. And it's like, okay, no, I can still find snakes. They're just on. Yeah.

We just saw, like, hundreds of those millipedes that they were everywhere. Yeah, down at Blackout. That was the thing. You know, I'm going like, okay, well, I don't think I'm missing snakes. If I'm seeing, you know, some of them get, you know, do get some size stone. But others, it was like, at things an inch long, and I'm seeing that. Yeah. Yeah.

Especially out east on those limestone cuts, it's pretty hard to miss snakes. I say that. I also talked about walking past an adult milk snake on a limestone. don't cut right it happens for sure yeah i was roadcruz in the other night and i uh came across a d oar um striped whip snake and so i i i checked it out and then i was i thought well i'll see it you know on my way back because it'll be on the driver's side when i come back this way and then i missed it and i so i'm like you know one of those kind of things where you're like i should have seen that why did i not see that i was a little tired on the way back versus the way out

So I blame it on that. I think with road cruising, it's the angle of approach has a big plane. Yeah. I'll drive past a snake and see a plane as day and make a U-turn, not see it, tell myself, well, it got off the road, make another U-turn, and there it is Plainers Day again. Yeah, it's strange, isn't how that works? Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And why does white paint look so much like a snake? I always hit the brakes with white meat. there's one white paint line out here that you know you're driving down the road there's a rock cut right here and you're going up a hill and you crest the hill and there's a squiggled skinny white paint line right there it's i slam on the brakes every time i know it's there and i still have to stop right yeah there was a it was like a tar raised tar thing and it looked just like a gray band i mean it had we were running back with full anticipation yeah it had some depth to it. So, you know, you're like seeing something off the road and it had like red rocks embedded it. I don't know if somebody constructed it and put it there because it was very convincing. I wouldn't put it past someone to do that out here. Right. Yeah. Those fun little jokes happen out there pretty freaking. Yeah. Right. And I suppose that fits into the sort of the fight topic of how,

you know, West Texas does have this different. culture around it, right? In terms of herping A, it's normalized in a way that it's funny on that second trip. We had then, we'd come into and out of San Antonio and we'd gone past El Rio, past 277 and stuff. And, you know, we, well, one thing, people don't, you know, even though there's still big cuts, people aren't walking around looking at stuff on them. And, you know, it's really, it's interesting that it's this insular idea that really probably, ends about, is it dried, you know, somewhere Lomaelta, wherever it is. And as soon as you're past that, you know, it's foreign. And once you're, you know, in El Paso, I don't think you're

wearing a vest, right? So it's an interesting, interesting range. And I wonder how that interacts with kind of being by yourself or being in a group. You have any thoughts on that? I definitely get questions about what I'm doing more from just random people if I'm with a group. If I'm by myself, it hardly ever happens. I think mainly because people don't want to stop and talk to the crazy looking guy walking down the side of the road at 3 a.m. with an extendable poll. But if there's, you know, two or three of us, I guess it seems safer or whatever for them to stop and ask. As far as law enforcement goes out here, you know, they all see the reflective vest and they know what's going on. So they,

for the most part, leave you alone, except for gay emmortons. But, yeah, and I guess if you're herping with a group, well, I shouldn't say this, but sometimes, you know, later in the season you get tired and I'll forget my vest at home, but if I'm going to meet up with a friend or something, then I kind of just tell myself, well, he's got a vest, so I'm all right, which did that last summer. I was like, what are the odds that this is the one night of game warden pulls up on us?

And of course it was. That's funny. Yeah. But I told him I was looking for bugs. And then my friend came down the cut. And he was like, are you looking for bugs too? And he was like, no, I'm looking for snakes. Come on, man.

But I didn't get a ticket. So it was all right. It came through okay. Yeah. Yeah. I talked to him about Beatles for a few minutes. and I think I bored him enough that he left me alone. Yeah, fair enough.

Okay. That's interesting. I know, so again, on that second trip that we had had, being in a group out on Three Mile West, it actually clearly was garnering antipathy in, there was a guy who was out by himself, and he was very annoyed and frustrated that I think that group saw, you know, obviously these different cuts are different,

and these sorts of things. And we had been out there for hours, and his whole mission in life was to look at Three Mile West that night. And, you know, we were really ruining his, you know, ruining his hopes and dreams by having eight people on it or whatever. Again, it turned up that Hobart Smith eye, and that was about it, I think. But, yeah, I suppose that's a challenge that you run into. Do you just try and, for the most part, go to places that other people aren't going?

You spoke of being west a little bit more and maybe even some of the, are the snakes in the eastern part actually easier? Or is it just a function of a lot more people are going to the eastern spots? Well, first of all, I bet I know who that guy was that was angry about that. And I get it from the standpoint of if you have an alternative from three mile west that you want to pair up, then that's the cut you want to be on. And at the same time, you know, I also used to get upset when I saw people camping on cuts like that. And then I would realize I'm doing the same thing. The thing about it in West Texas is if there's people on the cut you want to be on, just go to the next cut. Every rock cut out here has the same exact stakes on it.

You see this trend of people wanting to hunt the quote unquote famous cuts, three mile west, Milemore Sanderson, the headquarters cut at Black Gap, whatever it is, because they know Alternate have been found there or whatever's been found there, and they think they have a better shot at finding them there. Personally, I feel like going to those cuts that don't get hammered repeatedly by groups or by people for however many decades, it's been at this point. I think you probably stand a better chance at finding stuff if you go to those cuts that don't get hit as often. So that's kind of what I've started to do, especially out east.

And especially if I'm herping by myself, three miles is kind of a big cut. It's tough to cover by yourself and real easy to miss stuff on. So I like to pick, you know, not a small cut, but one that's manageable for me to kind of hunt by myself for a few hours. One that most people aren't going to think about cut jumping me on is if I can just avoid it all together. other than I'd rather do that. My days of fighting people for cuts are well behind me. Yeah, fair enough. So when you're doing that, are you looking for it?

Because some of the cuts are massive, right? And obviously, even then, you couldn't, no one's trying to singularly possess, you know, either of the sides of nine miles nor, you know, anything that that's so huge. But what sort of the cut that, you know, you've used. come to favor over time in terms of height, approachability, distance, those sorts of things. We were out at Iran on that third trip and, you know, what, there's probably realistically like four in a row on either something like that. And some of them you're talking about maybe they're eight to ten foot and then others you're, you get that sort of nine mile scale to it almost.

Right. Yeah, nine mile, I mean, I still hunted every year, but it's a pain, a literal pain in the neck to try to look up 80 feet. And I don't know why I look that high up anyway. If there's an alternative up there, I carry an extendable pull, but it's not that long. I'm just going to watch it crawl away. I like my ideal cut. I don't know if I have a particular favorite cut, but I like a cut that's, you know, maybe 100 yards long and 15 to 20 feet high, that's manageable for one person.

for me to cover, I feel like thoroughly. But I'm sure I still miss stuff left and right on those cuts too. Sure. Are you going back and forth? Are you kind of, are you setting up to kind of hang out at you feel when you're making a choice for the night, you're trying to set up there and thinking, okay, I'm going to spend a couple hours here. Are you going kind of, do you make a quick first pass? What do you do? That kind of changes throughout the,

year for me. If I get out, like if I go out to Sanderson and there's nobody else there, then I kind of just jump around all the cuts. But if I drive out to Sanderson and there's people on every cut, then I'm going to pick a cut that I like and I'm going to stay there because I don't want to leave that cut to go somewhere else and find the other cut I wanted to go to with somebody on it and then come back and find somebody on the cut I was just on. Because then inevitably those people that get on the cut that you just left are going

find an alternative. It's just how it works. Sure. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I certainly understand that. Is there some point at which you, I suppose it's just if you're not seeing folks around that you feel like you have more ability to kind of be mobile on things if it's not turning out for you? Yeah. It's definitely how many people are around plays into it. And then also, it depends on how late it gets in the night. If it's midnight and I've been walking the same cut back and forth and haven't seen anything or no nothing really too notable, then I'll probably start jumping

around too, which, you know, that's just because I get tired of looking at the same rock cut. It may be not the smartest choice, but that's, yeah, that's usually how it works for me. Okay, definitely fair. How was the Herping last year? I know you had your post and things to show the different alterna, right? What, a dozen of them last year? I did have a dozen last year, which was by far my best year. We had good rain last year, which I think definitely helps.

And, yeah, I don't know. I got lucky a lot. It was one of those years where I would get on a cut and find an alternative, and my friend who's half a mile down the road would be on a cut all night and see nothing. And that happened a few times. So we had good weather. I spent a lot of nights out, and then I got really lucky. Last year was kind of special because we had a lot of rain. Like we had a good rain in March, two good rains in April, and then it started raining in May pretty heavily and kind of just continuing.

to rain throughout the summer. But those early rains, I think, really kind of set up the season for being successful. Interesting. And are you finding that stuff comes out in the build-up terrain, during the rain, in the days after the rain? Different stuff likes different conditions for Alterna. People always ask me, like, what are the conditions for Alterna? and I tell them whenever the alterna wants to move, that's the conditions for them.

I've found them six weeks removed from rain. I've found them during an active downpour. You know, they kind of just, they move when they want to. When you have that kind of atmospheric buildup of rain in the area, I think that definitely helps. There's been many times where I've stayed out longer than I should have with lightning coming in right over my head. Because I tell myself, these are perfect conditions,

even though I don't know if perfect conditions exist. But yeah, it's a, the more you, the more time you spend looking for alternative, the more you realize, like, nobody knows what these things like. It really will drive you crazy. Well, Justin tried to have us out there during the lightning storm. and actually it wound up taking a big boulder off of the river road. And it was like, well, I'm glad we left. You know, so we'd gone into town and then come back out and it was like, you know, what,

it took, certainly the whole time we were there before they were able to remove that rock, but it was a boulder about 10 foot across, something like that. Yeah, it was an impressive rock. You know, the road. That road can be real spooky in the rain. Lots of low water crossings and, yeah, car-sized boulders just fall off. off the mountains there every year. Yeah.

We were very glad we weren't in that spot when the boulder came down. That could have been very bad. You go down there much? A few times a year. Probably not as much as I should. It's just you drive down there enough times thinking that it's going to be good conditions and it's 102 at 1 a.m. still and you're not seeing anything but A-trucks. And it's like, okay, well, that was a.

It could have been somewhere else. But there are cool-looking alterna down there. There's cool-looking laps. I still haven't found a blonde sub-aq. So I've got a lot of work to do down there still. Absolutely. Have you seen any of the alternata down there? I have not.

I could have a couple years ago, there was a group that came into town from out-of-state. and I heard that they were going to be herping, or they were planning to herp where I wanted to herp that night. So I told my friend, who was better friends with them, to tell them to go down to River Road. And they went down to River Road, and I was like, all right, sweet,

I'm going to get to Herp where I want in good conditions. While it rained, like, mid-afternoon at River Road that day, and then got sunny again. I found nothing where I went. They got two alternas. Last time I ever tried to make someone go somewhere else. Yeah, they were pretty nice-looking snakes, too.

That's funny. Okay. It seems like maybe before the road cruising prohibition, it's kind of on the front end of it becoming a big thing again in the late 80s, that that was one of the more popular spots, right? And it's somewhat less so now in light of the road cruising prohibition. prohibition, is that fair? I think so, yeah.

There are still people who get out there and walk, and there are still people who go in road crews down there. The climate down there has changed so much from the 80s. They used to rain there so much in the summers, and now it really doesn't. And I think it's kind of really taking a toll on overall HIRP numbers down there. Not to say that there aren't still Alternate being found there every year, because there are.

but it's definitely not what it used to be. Interesting. Are people still turning up blonde sub-box? Yeah, there's already been one this year, annoyingly. I've found dozens of them down there, normal sub-ox. Right. And no blondes, not even a D-O-R, which I guess kind of thankfully. But, yeah, you still need to find a blonde sub-buck.

him. I've only ever seen one liar snake, so I've got to go find another one of those down there. Yeah. I do plan on herping that more this year than I have the last few years. Right? It's just, it's pretty back and beyond, for sure. Mm-hmm.

And we definitely felt that with, yeah, the same thing you're describing where it's midnight and it's 100 degrees, and it can be a little oppressive in the, especially walking, and you know in rincherius and stuff it yeah yeah walking big hill when it's upper 90s the walking down the hill is fine but that half mile that whatever percent great it is that's brutal and you're not finding anything most of the time yeah agreed the uh although it's interesting the atrocks down there um do have a particular look which i actually kind of like right there

this Justin while we were all wandering through it in 100 degrees of midnight or whatever and turned one up that it was interesting. It very faded kind of almost unicolor look to it. But then Frank Colichico on a YouTube video had posted one that had a very similar look. And I was like, oh, I bet I know where you saw that thing. And it does seem like that's sort of a specific look to that place. Very cryptic. Yeah. A little landmine there.

Yeah. They're really kind of pale and sandy colored. And they don't get big on River Road either. I've never seen one above three feet long on River Road. And most of the ones I find are two foot and under. And from other people I've talked to, it seems to be the kind of general trend down there for whatever reason. They just kind of stay smaller in that area. And the black tails down there get huge. So it's a weird phenomenon.

Yeah, that's interesting. What else were the exciting finds of last year? Hmm. Last year I got, you know, lots of laps and lots of kukulata with all the rain, the kukilata were really moving. I got two milksnakes out here last year, which are always fun to find, but that was. was the worst I've ever done on milksakes. Oh, interesting. Yeah, I've always heard people say that they're harder to find an alterna.

That has not been my experience, but I just get really lucky with them, except for last year, kind of switched. Last year, what else did I find? I'm trying to think. I did my first international trip for a few years last year to the Bahamas. So not too far, but got cool island boas down there. That's very cool. Yeah.

Do you go by yourself? Do you go part of the group? I went with two of my friends, Noah and our friend Justin. Okay, very cool. How long did you guys go for? I think we were down there for four days. Yeah, it was a short trip, but we did well. So what did that look like?

hiking, cruzant, you know, kind of variable throughout the time of day and stuff? All the boas we found? We found four boas, I think. Four or five. They were all at night. The first two we shined

walking the road shining trees. It felt very similar to cut walking, except the mosquitoes were horrific. And then we cruised a big female and then shined another one up in a tree. And then during the day we did a lot of walking around mostly because I wanted to look for

birds. But there's a few diurnal snakes that we did not manage to find, but found the birds. So it worked out. Very cool. How does the, so you talked about it a little bit, how does the weather this past winter seem to be setting up, do you think, for this season? Compared to a lot. Was it last year, last year was the year to go and that sort of thing,

or does it seem to be setting up pretty well for this year? We've gotten some early rains this year. We had a really mild winter last winter, though, and I'm not sure how that's going to affect things. Like on Christmas Day out here, it was 84 degrees. Oh, wow. And I'm at a mile high in elevation here. It's not normal.

We didn't have our first real freeze until February. So, I mean, I've seen snakes this year, but pretty low numbers so far. So I guess we'll just have to wait and see kind of how it shapes out. Because I haven't been out here on a year where we've had such a mild winter like that. Oh, really? Yeah, we normally have a pretty solidly cold winter out here. and then short warm-up, and then it starts raining, and that's when stuff starts moving. So it'll be interesting to see when stuff really kicks off out here this year.

Interesting. Okay. What about further east? Kind of the same deal. I mean, they had an even warmer winter out east. They've gotten more rain than we have so far this year, so it could be shaping up for a really good year out east. I already know of a few decent finds out east this year but we'll just kind of have to see it and the other thing is that if it's the rain out here could stop at any minute any day it could be the last rain and then

it kind of all shuts off for the most part so I don't like to make predictions too much out here I don't want the herping gods to be hearing me say that it's going to be a great year and then they sure you know whatever happens happens but yeah and uh I get very superstitious around alternate season absolutely well and you know that kind of fits into the same

idea with the topic right is sometimes it feels like I'm in my own head with stuff and you know creating superstitions and ideas and those sorts of things and other times it's other people you know putting it out into the ether you know right And so that's kind of a good and bad of groups are going singular, right? Sometimes if I'm singular or even as part of the group, but, you know, off doing my own thing, I find myself very much in my own head.

And simultaneously, then other people say things that make me twinge, you know. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean, most of my nights out here herping are by myself. So that's anywhere from 50 to 70 nights a year walking the side of the highway out here with nothing but the thought. in my head. Well, I also play a lot of her podcast on my phone in my pocket to kind of break that up a bit. Yeah, you can definitely really get in your head about it.

And there have been times where I've convinced myself I'm in the wrong spot and I need to move and I go somewhere else and find nothing and where I was ends up being the place I should have stayed and vice versa has happened. but more often than not, I kind of psyched myself out of being in the right spot. Yeah, absolutely. Well, and I think even that, right, speaks to the difficulty of the task is saying, okay, so you got a dozen alterna, but if you're talking about, you know, 70 nights, then, and some of those, did you had some that were multiples in a single night?

Last year, I had two doubles. So, yeah, really. Is it, yeah, just, yeah, two doubles last year. So really 10 alternate nights. Yeah. So one out of every seven nights really isn't that bad, but it kind of takes a toll mentally. And that was the least number of nights I had done ever in a season out here.

Oh, wow. Okay. Interesting. And, I mean, one thing we always talk about in terms of the context of observability, is, well, are those prime, you know, prime condition nights, or was it when you had scheduled to, you know, on our stuff, particularly when we're traveling to go someplace, it's something that seemed decent or fit for other life reasons or whatever. But presumably being there, those reflected 70 nights you felt pretty good about.

Mostly. Yeah, I have found enough alterna that were in nights that I did not think were good, conditions that I still kind of go out even if I don't think it's going to be an alternate night. I still force myself to go out because you can't find them sitting on the couch. And there's not many worse feelings than choosing to stay in and sitting on the couch and your phone buzzes and your friend is sending you a photo of a really nice looking alterna that you could have been there for if you hadn't let yourself get too tired to go walk cuts that night. And that's when it really starts to take the mental toll on you.

Absolutely. Being out there, have you, I know that, well, we understand. We've never experienced it, but that some landowners are amenable to having folks out there. Do you ever go on to private land and look for Herbs? I've done a bit. And this year I'll be doing some more of it. I've recently become friends with a few. landowners that are interested in seeing snakes themselves.

So I'm really excited about the prospect there. Access to some really big ranches with really good habitat. I guess I'll see, I'll get to see what herping real habitat looks like out here this year. And I can then compare it to shining cuts. Because I really don't know if it's going to be easier or not. there's none of the collecting pressure for however many decades out there, but at the same time,

it's a lot more to look at than a few rock cuts a night. Sure. It's sort of a whole different thing, right? It's you're more just hiking within the environment. For the most part, right, it's, I suppose some of those might have natural ridges and things, but it's a lot more just sort of being in the space, right? Right. Yeah, walking hillsides with exposed rock.

and hoping you're on the right hillside and it's not the one right over there that's got all the snakes crawling on it. It'll be some trial and error, but I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, that sounds great. Have you noticed a change in sort of the number of people or the attitudes in the number of people or popular spots that people are going to over your time out there from 2018? Yeah, for sure. When I first started going out, there were definitely a lot of people out there. But 2020 and 2021 were the really crazy years out here as far as the crowds that I've seen,

2020 especially, because a lot of people weren't working. They weren't in school because of COVID. So they had a lot of free time. And a lot of people came out here and spent weeks at a time out here. Which was the summer where I got really frustrated with people. Since then, it's kind of calmed down a little bit. We still get big crowds every once in a while. Those holiday weekends are always busy out here.

There's an event out here called Snake Days, which draws in a bunch of people. But for the most part, it's kind of calmed down again out here. You don't see as many, like, three night or three 30 people group or three 10 people groups, rather, in Sanderson a night anymore. But Sanderson is still one of the hot spots out here. The Davises are still popular. Langtree is still popular. River Road still gets enough people that I would consider it a popular locality. Black Gap.

they still hit pretty heavily, so, you know, Juno and 277 still get hit pretty hard. All the kind of classic alternas spots are still getting hit by a fair number of people. Interesting. But your recommendation, and certainly the path you're choosing is so when Snake Days comes around, you're probably not going anywhere near Sanderson? Yeah, we'll see. Snake Days is helping Fort Davis this year. Oh, wow.

Okay. which, yeah, I have mixed feelings about. But I have a feeling a majority of those people will still make the drive to Sanderson. Even when they've held it in Alpine the last few years, and even then people still drive to Sanderson or to Black Cap. And I understand why. Snakes in general are easier to find out there. I don't know.

Well, I know it'll turn are easier to find in Sanderson than they are out here. But other snakes, you know, sub-Ox are made. maybe easier out there and whatnot. The common stuff is kind of common throughout the range. But I don't know, with it being held in Fort Davis, it will be interesting to see how many people choose to stay in the Davis's versus go elsewhere. I think that weekend I'll probably be out on one of the private ranches that I have access to.

There you go. Okay. Are they doing events and stuff with it as well, or is it just? They have a On Saturday They have a few speakers That give talks and And whatnot

And they have a silent auction And then Other than that It's just a bunch of people herping out here Okay Interesting And I would imagine That the game wardens

Will be pretty active Oh yeah They know when Snake Dazes is Yeah They'll be out looking for People road crews using people without vest on. And that's the one, well, I always try to wear my vest.

I only forgot it one night last year. But that's the one weekend every year that I make sure I have my vest. Zee, I know the gay morden, one of them lives one street over from me, but they'll write tickets to that weekend. Yeah, interesting. Hmm. And another Justin favorite, do you have recommendations for turning at Mexican Hognos? Hmm.

The marathon area is probably the easiest place to find them. But they can be kind of hit or miss. They're one of those things that are kind of easier in the fall. There is a kind of hog-tober. Yeah. Yeah. Not so much Hog-Tober out here. It's more Hog-Tember in my experience.

But I found them into November. So they do seem to move more in the fall. Recent rain. helps with them a lot. In the monsoon season, they seem to move a lot in the evening. In the fall, they move more in the morning, in my experience. Yeah, they're cool snakes. Yeah, absolutely.

Is there kind of a season? It seems like a lot of people start coming in June. Is it really June and July that you see that influx of people from out of town? Yeah, for sure. And in recent years it's kind of changed where June and July are still the big busy months, but we see more people coming out on those more fringe months. I guess you'd say, like, May has gotten a lot busier in the last few months. August and September have gotten a lot busier in the last few years, rather.

Yeah, and I don't know if that's just a aspect of people are back in work from COVID. people are back in school, so they kind of just come out whenever they can. Or if they're trying to avoid the crowds and in turn causing crowds other times of year. Yeah, I don't know. It's something that my friends and I who, or my friends who live out here and I talk about, like, why is everybody coming out this year in September? It's not good conditions. Two months ago, it was great.

Why'd they all come now? But, you know, I guess there is definitely an aspect of, of we're locals so we can see that. And people traveling from anywhere else might not have that freedom to see that. And pick and choose their dates as much as they might want. Sure. Well, and it's not necessarily that there are that many dependable weather stations to really indicate from a distance away. That is true.

Yeah. The radar out here is garbage. it'll never show you if it's raining on River Road. There is a radar gap there. So you kind of just have to know where the borders of that gap are and just wait to see if something pops out from there. And then you hope that it actually rained on River Road and not just around it, which happened to me earlier this year.

I was like, oh, it rained in Redford. It rained interlingua. I know that for a fact. So River Road definitely got rained. but nope it rained in Redford and it rained into England and River Road was bone dry yeah that is definitely a frustrating aspect of it out here and then the future forecast are I never believe them it'll say it's an 80% chance of rain at the end of the week and then the end of the week comes by and it is bluebird skies and sunny and hot and dry

Fair enough. So it's more, you know, watching almost what has happened or what, at least for someone at a distance of saying like, okay, if it actually does seem to have happened and then you can get away as opposed to trying to predict him. Yeah, I would say so for sure. I mean, I'm constantly checking the radar out here during herping season and making notes of where it's right to win so that I can, you know, a few days from that I can look. back and know exactly where I saw on the radar it rained, which, you know, sometimes the radar, it'll show it rained there and it didn't, but sometimes it'll say it didn't rain there and it dumped three inches of rain. But I like to kind of have some sort of general idea of what the trend has been. Yeah, fair enough. Do you think your enthusiasm for the thing

has changed over time, right? So you said that last year was the fewest nights that you had done, but to some extent, you know, maybe that builds up, you know, the goodwill or success, you know, I don't know. Has it changed over time? I sometimes think it might have. You know, like I mentioned earlier, I don't stop to photograph snakes much anymore. I'll just, you know, see a sub-buck and just take a cell phone photo and keep walking, not even pick them up most of the time. And I'll think about that and be like, man, do I really, is this, is this what it used to be? For me, I guess I'm just so focused on alterna out here that, you know, I think maybe I'm not as intents as I used to be, and then I shine an alternative.

And it's the, it's the same exact alternative rush I got when I got my lifer in 2019. And it kind of just, every time I find an alternative, it reinvigorates everything. And then I get more excited about seeing that next sub-op, that next step, but it is, the next black tail. But when I, you know, especially when I've gone on like a seven nights in a row streak with maybe three snakes to show for it, I start to really think like, why am I still doing this? But, yeah, I think that's, I think that's something that everyone who Herps has experienced at some point in their field herping career, no matter what they're looking for. yeah absolutely i think part of it too right is just the idea that being the local animals that are

around you and it almost feels you know applying sort of my own observation or whatever to it and applying it to my own circumstance i wonder if it's a little bit harder in this in west texas right because there is sort of that singular thing the culture of alterna and that almost creates a have-and-have-and-have-nots around different you know there's a thing and then there's a thing and then the rest of the things, as opposed to places that maybe don't have as distinctive of a prize. Right. I think that definitely is a factor.

And I try to, every year I try to remind myself, like, sobecks are really freaking cool snakes. You know, model rock rail snakes are really cool. And they are. Mexican hono snakes are really cool. Like, I'm very fortunate to live where I do, where I have all these really cool snakes that people travel out here to find, but there's still just that one singular thing that I am always looking for over everything else. But that is one of the nice aspects of herping with a group of people who don't live here, especially if it's their first trip to West Texas.

Showing somebody their first Sub-Ock, that's awesome. I love to find a Sub-Ock then. Not to say that I don't love finding Sub-Ox normally. Yeah. But, you know, it's a seeing the newness of something that I've seen a couple hundred times kind of also helps re-spark that a bit. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, well, and we'll have to figure out making it work because Justin and I both still have not seen a sub-aac. Oh, my.

Okay. Or a rough green there. I've seen them in Florida. Yeah, there's plenty. of things that are new, you know. I did see a rough green in Texas, yeah, with Jordan. So, yeah,

it was just sitting up in the trick of a tree. Sorry. No, no, you're fine. We're looking for those invasive scullopress, the Cyano that species. Near Austin.

Yeah. Yeah. So it was just hanging out in a while we were driving to go look for those scloporous, the lizards. Nice. Yeah. Pretty excited. Very cool.

Yeah. So, as I say, there's still plenty of new things for us. And maybe that's part of the joy, not only in terms of groups, but in terms of going to different places. Do you have any plans this year to go further afield? I was talking to my friend. Justin, who I went to the Bahamas with last year. We're talking about trying to make something work in July,

but we'll see if we can make schedules work. Some island in the Caribbean is what we're talking about. And then I'll also be at, I'm not going to be at IHS, but I'll be around the area during IHS. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to getting back out to Arizona, New Mexico. It's been a few years since I've done a trip out there in good conditions. So I'm hopeful that conditions will be good and snakes will be moving and excited to see some people I haven't seen for a long time. So, yeah.

Other than that, I don't think I have any other trips planned this year. Grad school kind of has me locked down in Alpine pretty heavily this year. Next year I plan to do quite a bit of not a ton of traveling, but some more traveling. I miss getting out to new areas, seeing new stuff. So, yeah, this year not too much next year and the year after that, I've got some trips planned. Very cool. Absolutely. And I don't want to speak out of school.

Don't want to miss remember. Justin, are you speaking at IHS or you're just, you're going to be present? Yeah, I'm speaking at IHS. hopefully signing books if the if the book makes it by then yeah yeah we've got the uh field guide to reptiles and amphibians of utah that should be it's at the printers now and we're hoping we'll have copies for iHS nice unfortunately five different projects came to the their conclusion at the same time and they're all kind of jockeying for position uh for printing but so we we are where we are and we'll see if we make it by hs but

Yeah, so that'll be cool to. Yeah, very cool. Yeah. We'll definitely have to get out in the field and do some perfect. Yeah. Hopefully, conditions are good while we're there. Yeah. It's going to be difficult with the number of people that are attending that might be crowded.

Yeah. Trying to identify some maybe spots of further afield. Yeah. The Chiracala's that weekend are probably going to be not where you want to. Yeah. Yeah, not the best one. It might be worth to drive a few hours. Yeah.

It's going to be tough to HIRP solo. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Justin, is there any aspect to the fight that we didn't touch on? Because mostly this is just Stephen and I yucking it up. Yeah. What, anything that had jumped out to you or kind of key points as you had ideated the topic?

No, I think this was a really nice discussion. And, you know, I think we are just more looking for an excuse to have a good topic and get Stephen talking. But, yeah, I think very, very good topics brought up. So I don't really have anything to question you on or throw at you. But, yeah, thanks. Any key fundamentals I missed on West Texas? I don't think so. just, you know, for people who want to come out here, just, I guess, do it whenever you can.

But, you know, try to stay in that June-July window. I think you'll have a better time if you do that, too. Yeah. Yeah, I will say that, so the first time we had come, it was, what, the back half of, I think it was back half of September 2020. And it was, I think, unseasonably cold. that it had probably a couple weeks or that might be a decent time, but it was it was pretty chilly. The only the only rattlesnake certainly was a really dark A-Trox right at the base of Boy Scout, which was a little bit surprising. Did see what a newborn Sonoran gopher down on River Road.

But yeah, it wasn't all that snaky. And it seemed like the weather wasn't really helping. We were getting rain and then it was cooling off as opposed to getting. that, you know, subsequent heat to really make it a promising night. Or at least this is all the things that I tell myself. Yeah. No, that for sure happens. I do tell people that June-July window is good.

You know, that is why a lot of people come out here in that window because there's a lot of snakes moving them, but also the weather is a lot more predictable than. Earlier in the year, you can have free cold snaps, and then certainly, you know, even starting in August. It can get cold for a week at a time. And if you planned your trip for that week, you're kind of, kind of screwed. But some years, September is really good. You just never know. Yeah. It was wild, the difference. So we then came, you know, because it hadn't been all that successful, we were like, okay, we got to turn it around, get right back. And we were then there, I think probably right at the front end of June. It was probably a little bit early then.

at least with the way those conditions were working out, but it was wild. The sort of the culture vibe difference between, when we were in there in September, I don't, I think maybe we ran into you. But other than that, we basically didn't see, well, we ran into that same group sort of repetitively. But other than that, we didn't really see anybody. And then we came in June and it was pretty wild, sort of the, you know, how many folks were out. and all that. And it was cool in its own way.

The only thing I know came to, Justin was getting in his own head about this was then we would, we stayed at the, um, the oasis in Sanderson is out the snake, you know, and, uh,

it wasn't good for his mental health to then be hearing people the next morning talking about going. We went to lack gap and they went to wherever and that they turned up a milk snake, but I could see that that, that was not working well for him. Yeah, that's hard. That's hard when you're seeing all these cool finds and we're like, yeah, I don't have much, but what do you do? There was one time I stayed at the Oasis on a trip out here. And I didn't find much that night and I woke up the next morning and I walked out of my room. And the guys that were staying in the rooms on either side. I mean, both of them had found alternative slow night before. That was rough.

Yeah. It just seems to be just such a luck of the draw thing sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. You've got to be the right place, the right time, and just happen upon it. Yep. Because we were on the right cuts. I mean, I think they found the snakes at the cuts we'd been checking out, at least the alterna that had been found that trip.

I don't know. The milk snake maybe was further far afield, but yeah. So just one of those things. Yeah. Something I've learned along the way. You can't compare your list to other people in the same area because, yeah. I mean, yeah, I see people come out here and find Alterna on their first night in West Texas. It took me over 100 nights to find my first one.

Right. Yeah, it is definitely a luck-of-the-drawn kind of deal. Right. I think it's also exacerbated, right, in the sense that there is much more of a... It's interesting. Maybe some of it is a function of legality. Maybe some of it's function of Alterna. But there's much more of a spirit of collection.

than there are other places that you can be. And again, maybe it's happening, but people aren't as willing to show us in places where it wouldn't be permissible or whatever. But it almost seems that much worse when they're actually showing you the snake that came from wherever, as opposed to just talking about it or there's a picture or whatever. They're pulling it out of a pillowcase and handing it to you. Right. And saying, yeah, this is what you could have found last night if you had been somewhere else. If you chose this instead, yeah. Yep.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, we really appreciate you coming on and sharing your knowledge and experiences in West Texas. It's such a herp destination, you know, that I think this can be very interesting for a lot of people. And hopefully, well, hopefully it doesn't inundate your area with many more people. I don't think we have that much power. I don't think anyone's listening is that already familiar. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think a lot of people have the goal to make it out there at some point. It's kind of one of those. you know, herpetological destinations. It definitely is a different vibe, different, uh, unique thing,

at least based on the places that I've been. Right. Yeah. So yeah, it's always great to have that insight from somebody who lives there and has lived there for many years. So thank, thank you.

Yep. Thank you for, uh, inviting me back onto the podcast. Yeah, of course. Um, yeah. Well,

with that, it will, well, thank you for listening and, uh, thank Eric and Owen for, housing our podcast and we'll see you next time for Reptile Fight Club.