Reptile Fight Club - Haranguing the Herpers w/Caleb Bellizio

Episode Date: June 20, 2026

In this episode, Justin and Rob have another installment of Haranguing the Herpers w/Caleb Bellizio.Who will win? You decide. Reptile Fight Club!Follow Justin Julander @Australian Addiction Reptiles-http://www.australianaddiction.comIG https://www.instagram.com/jgjulander/Follow Rob @ https://www.instagram.com/highplainsherp/Follow MPR Network @FB: https://www.facebook.com/MoreliaPythonRadioIG: https://www.instagram.com/mpr_network/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtrEaKcyN8KvC3pqaiYc0RQSwag store: https://teespring.com/stores/mprnetworkPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/moreliapythonradio

Welcome to Repta Fight Club. I'm Justin, and with me here is Rob, your hosts for the night. And thanks for listening. Tonight we're going to be chatting with Caleb Belizio. Did I say that right? Okay. Should have checked before we started recording, but you know how it goes. So, yeah, thanks for being here and looking forward to chatting with you a bit about herping.

Absolutely. I look forward to it. Yeah, where are we finding you today? Okay. Okachovie, Florida, actually. So pretty down there, south central Florida. Okay. Cool. I think my last foray into Florida was down, like, we went down the Keys and down into like the Everglades down in the Southern Point over into Flamingo and stuff. Pretty cool spot. So, yeah, you can't go wrong down there. It's awesome. Yeah, it's a good time. And my wife enjoyed the Keys. So, yeah, it wasn't like a necessarily a herp trip, but she, She was pretty game to go out herping a couple nights, so we found quite a bit of stuff. It was pretty sweet. I was thinking it was so hot like in July that we wouldn't find anything, but it was pretty good.

In my experience, summertime down there, as long as you avoid the Python challenge and everything, is actually the best. Okay. Most people go in the winter, but summertime, after rains hit and everything, it can pop off down there. Nice. When do you typically get a lot of rain in south central Florida? Typically, we start to see those afternoon showers starting up in May pretty good. And then they'll last through probably early to mid-November. Okay.

And that's typically what I consider the hottest time of year, depending on obviously what you're targeting and what you're doing. Right, right. I still need to see an eastern diamond back. So that's one of my goals next time I'm out. that area. Yeah, hey, hit me up. Let me know.

There's a lot of good areas for him down here. Cool. Yeah. We looked a bit for them, but just maybe weren't in the right area. And my wife wasn't really anxious to hike through the area. So we did a lot of road cruising. And yeah, it was fun, though. Got to see that big crock with the missing bottom job.

Yeah. Yeah. Famous. Classic. Yeah. Good stuff. And saw some baby crocks, too. That was pretty cool.

Oh, that's cool. I haven't actually seen too many of those down there. Yeah. The mother was kind of hanging out in this area. And then I was kind of filming her and I noticed some little things moving. And she went up and kind of raised up onto this branch. And there was a baby sitting on there. And then I noticed two or three others.

I'm like, holy cow, there's a whole group of babies in the shallows here. Oh, that's an awesome observation. I like that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we kind of lucked into it. We just stopped at this lake. there were a bunch of people looking over the edge and we're like, what are you looking at?

Oh, there's a crocodile here. Oh, cool. Yeah. Yeah. Spend a little time and you get to see, yeah, see other things that people miss. If you're an EMP, you got to see the crocs for sure. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah, it's such a cool spot. But anyway, yeah, thanks for being on and we're looking forward to hearing. So I guess how do you fit in in herpet culture or how did you get into this? So I really got into it probably similarly to a lot of other people around COVID time. I've always been a big outdoor person. I've always gone outside. I've always loved looking for salamanders when I was little. And I lived up in Tennessee for a while.

Snakes or something I liked but never had a particular interest in. But really, it was just the social media, like seeing YouTube. videos and I watched one video of someone finding snakes and I was like you know I kind of want to go try that um this was the I'd say this was December of 2020 okay um I went out my first time and I had no idea what I was doing so about a five foot yellow rat stretched out across the trail I was hooked ever since that's awesome oh that's cool yeah that's uh that seems to be like yeah a lot of people got out during the COVID time so that's uh yeah Well, it seems like you've taken it, you know, full force now and doing a lot of herping. I absolutely love it. It's a lot like fishing in a lot of ways. So I think that's why it kind of appeals to me. It's, you know, the hunt and different species, different places, different habitats, different patterns to learn. So, yeah.

That's cool. Yeah. How long have you been down in Florida? Sorry, Rob. Yeah, so I was actually born in North Carolina. I only live there for the first couple months of my life. I've been in Florida, pretty much my whole life, sans a few years in Tennessee and Indiana. My family's four generations before me, Florida. So it's always been Florida for me. But essentially my whole life with a few years exceptions, yeah.

Nice. Yeah, very cool. Your Instagram, CFL Herping, you got a ton of cool finds on there. Is that your principal mechanism for sharing what you're finding? You didn't go into the whole YouTube bit and all that? No, it is. I've thought about making reels or doing YouTube videos. I don't have a GoPro set up now,

and I really don't know if I have enough time to maybe go all in on the YouTube thing at the moment. I'm hoping to be able to potentially get to a point where maybe I could start that, because at the very least, even if I never got a big following, And just going back and looking on your own videos is always a class. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. That's one of the, the only reasons I film is to remember, you know, what I saw and kind of the moment, I guess. It's pretty cool.

But I do forget to film a lot. Usually it's like the release of anything we find or just a short video while we're checking it out. But, yeah, not many flip clips from me. Yeah, I struggle with that. I'm always like, I got to get the first. flip clip but I just get out there I start going and I always forget to record and I'm like damn I miss another good one but yeah yeah that's cool absolutely what uh so where did you learn to herp then was it from seeing that and you just sort of applied your fishing knowledge or yeah so I mean really I

didn't know anyone in the herping community I never have had family that was into it the first year or so it was winging it um all I knew was, you know, road cruising at that point, really, or hiking. Go find a dirt road, preferably down here. It's so busy in South Florida and the traffic, a dead end road. You know, go hike good habitat that's well maintained. And it took a few years, especially to find certain species, you know, to really get a grasp of it.

But it was kind of self-taught. And then the more people I talked to. and got to know through the account, the easier it got. You know, you just share information. You start talking to people and you learn a lot that way as well. Did you find people were kind of tight-lipped with the information, or did you just find the right people that were willing to share? Yes and no.

I actually appreciate when people are a little bit tight-lipped. You know, to an extent, obviously. I think reptiles and amphibians in general are just such an easily exploited animal that I completely understand that. Right, right. And here more than even most places maybe, you know, things can get kind of out of hand and bad with that sort of stuff. But a lot of people, if they could tell, you were genuinely just interested in finding

the animal. You know, you just love it, get pictures of it, do your thing, let it go. You go out with someone, you build a little bit of trust over one or two times, and people are pretty willing to share information after that. Right. Yeah, I guess it, you know, sometimes it's a little harder than others to get people to trust you and show you their good spots. You know, it's like they'll show you the spots that everybody knows.

But yeah, you really work for it a little bit. No, no, no, yeah. You go on Facebook and someone asks, oh, you know, like, where do I go? And everyone's like, oh, just loop road, loop road, you know, just span that answer over and over. but it's understandable though. Yeah, the worst is when they send you in the wrong direction deliberately where you're not going to find anything, you know, then you're wasting gas money and that kind of thing.

Yeah. In that case, I think it's just best to just say, hey, you know, like I'm not willing to share too much information but I'll point you in the type of habitat you should be in, you know. Yeah. Where all have you been herping so far? So most of it's happening. kind of south central Florida, but where else have you gone?

Yeah, good question. So I, like I said, I spend most of my time in central South Florida, basically south of Orlando down to the Everglades-ish. But I haven't actually been too many places in the past five or so years. I spend a lot of time in Alabama. My buddy, Mark Alabama, herping, and I do a lot of stuff of him. I got family in Tennessee, so I do a lot in East Tennessee when I go out there. But outside of those three places, really non-existent.

I've never hurt outside of those three states, Georgia for a few hours coming and going, but nothing really, you know, there. So, yeah, there's still a ton for me to learn and a ton of places to go and check out, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. In some ways, that's really exciting, right? is there's so much more potential. And it's really cool talking to you because I haven't done much in Florida, haven't done anything in Alabama.

It just came back from Mississippi and haven't banned to East Tennessee. So, yeah, I mean, it's so exciting to hear about these new things. And I mean, I've said it many times, hopefully the listeners will oblige me, but I want to tell you, right, I have to have, I think, one of one, not that it's a good thing, but just with where I've been in Florida, that I've hiked to Siamis, found a pine, multiple corals, and Ike and a coral, hiked and cruised eastern diamondbacks, and I've never seen a live corn snake or a yellow rat snake.

That's unbelievable. I guess North Florida is a different animal than central and south Florida. But, yeah, I mean, corn, excuse me, in the right area, they might be, I mean, aside from racers and maybe ringnecks, the most common snake in some counties. My experience, though, with North Florida is there tends to be a drop off in density north of Orlando until you get, like, past Alachua County and into the panhandle, it starts to pick up again. And it really seems to be taken over by rat snakes, you know, in that pantherophous genus. I don't know how much truth there is to that, but that seems to be my case.

But down here, around the lake, they are everywhere. Yeah. Do you have one last thing on the corn piece. I saw you had several, you found several of the enterthristics. And I know that there's some populations, right, where that's a pretty prominent trait within those populations. Do you find that to be true? It's interesting. It's still true despite having been kind of known or talked about for a long time.

Yeah, yeah. So I found them in three counties, I believe. And they seem to hold a pretty consistent pattern of being about. even with the lake on the western side all the way down into the northern glades maybe it's 75 or so um and kind of more like right in the center of the state that seems to be where you find the bulk of the anatheristic corn snakes never seen one north of that west of that stretch or east of that stretch before but that's just my experience with them interesting go ahead justin sorry about oh yeah i was just going to say you know Do you have like a goal to, you know, are you looking for all the, you know, reptiles in Florida?

Or do you, do you herb to a list? Or what do you have anything like that, any targets? Oh, man. I do have targets for sure. I actually just recently got my first Florida cane break a couple weeks ago, which was a big checkmark for me. So, you know, there's some subspecies and stuff. And there's some species in northern Florida, like, Apple. Appalachicola Kings, but I'd obviously love to go target one day.

But as far as, like, realistic targets for me in the moment, really it kind of comes down to short tails. That's really the only big target I haven't seen that's within a two to three hour distance of me. Okay. Nice. Yeah. Well, yeah, that's good to have kind of those more difficult targets left.

But, yeah, that's a good goal to have. 100% yeah and of course there's a ton in many other states and like i said north florida's a different thing i've never seen a simus either so that's you know obviously something else i'd love to see um but then again like their range is just like short tail i guess it's it's pretty far um but you know i know during season they're relatively targetable so absolutely what would you say is the toughest thing you've chased and found based on looking at your page i have a couple i have a guess or two but you go go ahead oh man for well tough for how ridiculous it is that i don't find more mud snakes um i know it sounds like a crazy answer in south florida i only see maybe half a dozen a year i don't live in a

great area for them because there's not many roads that traverse through much watery area um but i should see more. But in terms of like the hardest, I'd say South Florida Mulking. I mean, I live point blank in their range. I've seen three. Two dead. And I go out of quite a bit for them.

But you know, they're an enigma of a species and maybe my favorite just because they're so so mysterious, you know, so little's known about them. Yeah, it's kind of the one, that would have been my first guess. So that's what I figured you'd say.

You did have an Instagram post where he talked about that, and I thought actually your accompanying commentary was really cool, talking about sort of the enduring value of herping, you know, as exemplified by that. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the chase is, like I was saying earlier, as part of it. And when you accomplished that, especially after your first one, being a massive D.R. doll, it was really almost euphoric,

getting a live one, you know, you start to think after you go for about two years, three years and not see one, like, is it actually going to happen? You know, you spend a lot of time out there. And again, like, I'm in range. A lot of people have to travel for those. But that was just, the first one I got was just one of the greatest experiences I've had in herping. I mean, it was just pure joy. I'd be lying if I say I'd almost lose my voice because it had been about two and a half, three years running for me trying to get one. That's cool.

Did you find it in habitat or through cruising? It was cruising, unfortunately. No, I want to flip one. That's my big goal. I'll take one anyway I can get one. That was cruising. But yeah, it was in some pretty heavy agriculture, really. They use a wide variety of different terrains and habitats, I think, more so than people

actually give them credit for. It's probably a good thing or else they'd probably disappear pretty quick if they didn't use modified land. Yeah. No, I was just wondering how much natural habitat is down there in your area. There's in Okoshobe and Highlands County, southern Osceola, it is a lot of agriculture. You do have your areas, especially highlands, of course. You have the ridge. There's a lot of protected land there.

But even on the western side of that, it's a lot of agriculture as well. Really, what's left is you have like the cypress domes and then some hammocks. And then, of course, like your state parks that everyone knows about. But generally speaking, it is that agriculture, that ranch land, which may not be as ideal as like natural habitat. But it's grown on me, and it does support a wide variety of species that do exceptionally well in it. That's cool. Yeah. Do you find a lot of – I hate the term, but bycatch when you're looking for mole kings, you see plenty of other things.

Oh, well, aforementioned corn snake all the time. You get a lot of corns. There's a lot of rats. Not as many big adult yellow rats as there were even when I first got into it, unfortunately. You get a ton of aquatics if you're in the right areas like swamp snakes. Garters are very, very common. You know, you get your diamondbacks if you're in the actual habitat. They're fairly reliable.

Pygmies used to be pretty common. The last two to three years, they've really dropped off a cliff around here. Kind of like everywhere else, but it's really sharp. I haven't even seen one in almost a year running now. Wow. Yeah, it's pretty sad. But, you know, your water snakes, of course. All the neurodia that we have, they're very, very common.

Corals are fairly common in the right areas and Scarlet Kings as well. If you're around some water source, they tend to be pretty common, too. Okay. What do you attribute the drop-off in rat snakes and the pygmies? Well, pygmies, I would almost certainly say, based on people who know, better than me, it's probably the penistones seem to be really wreaking havoc on him. Combined with, of course, other things, but the rat snakes are a little more baffling. I would assume that it has a lot to do of road mortality and just habitat loss in general,

because they are fairly adaptable snakes, and they live in that agriculture, and even around loose suburbs pretty well, but the road mortality down here is just brutal. I mean, the roads have gone up in traffic every single year exponentially, even here in Okachovie. Right. No, it's frustrating to see, yeah. Yeah. I guess people need to live somewhere, but it is hard to see your favorite animals getting, you know, plastered on the road. Yeah.

Yeah, not just snakes. I mean, you see river otters and bobcats and, you know, all sorts of things. Just big breeding, Florida soft shells. common snappers just all the time it's it's very very unfortunate how often are you stopping to help a turtle across the road like is that mainly egg laying season they're they're heavily early on yeah oh yeah mud turtles uh stray mud turtles uh stray mud turtles all the time obviously any of the sliders and uh florida soft shells are very common snapping turtles i don't see as many of them as i did when i first started either um maybe that could be attributed with a lot of other things to the drought the past two years has been absolutely abysmal from spring into early summer. So it's kind of hard to say where the drought impacts it versus the actual decline of numbers of some of these species because we have had really bad droughts in the past two years.

That's unfortunate. Did any of that rain and snow? I mean, did that make it to you guys during? this last winter? We got almost no rain all spring, and we got a really good amount in about a three-week span, and now we're kind of on another dry spell. Hopefully some of that moisture from the Caribbean comes up, because we're about, I know we're well over 30 inches in a deficit, and we're in June.

So I don't know how that's going to pan out if this carries over into a less sufficient rainy season and then another dry season after that that would be three years running um so it's concerning it hasn't slowed some species down but some it definitely has yeah yeah we've had a pretty mild winter and dry you know spring and winter didn't get much snow here at all so yeah we're filling it as well it's not great yeah where were you from i forgot to ask i'm sorry oh yeah i'm from utah and Rob's from Colorado. Okay, okay. Yeah.

Oh, it's snowing on. How do you find that rain impacts herping, right? It's interesting in the, and I guess I principally mean in the moment or kind of shoulders coming off a dry, do you find that stuff is out when it's raining in an area that naturally gets a lot of rain, or do you find that it's sort of after rain, preceding rain, but you can feel the buildup in the air? What's sort of the different, within those different windows? Is it different species that are active or when it's actively raining, you just hardly see anything?

Yeah, those pressure drops, anytime you get the storms building, especially late afternoons, always seem to be pretty money. Those are always a great time to target. If you can get there an hour, hour and a half before that pressure drop and just cruise while those clouds build, that's usually a good time. those spraying fronts that come through with a big line of rain, those are always really good. In my experience, about a day and a half, a day out, not so much the day of. And then, of course, after a heavy rain, especially in the summertime,

if that road has a chance to dry off before the sunset, you're usually going to be in for some good movement as well. That's cool. So when you're out in Habitat and hiking around, do you have a, do you like to walk slow? Do you kind of cruise along the trail or what are you, what are you, how are you herping, I guess, when you're hiking through Habitat? Yeah, I usually tend to take it fairly slow. I go off trail a lot, depending on where I am. But if I'm on trail, I usually keep it a little bit faster just because I can see my,

my feet. I've had a few close run-ins, particularly with diamond backs. Okay. A couple of cons, too. But, yeah, typically I take it slow. Those diamond backs especially, they really tend to tuck up sometimes. They don't tend to rattle either, right? They're pretty reluctant to rattle.

Yeah, they do not always rattle. In fact, I would say more often than not, they're not going to rattle unless you're you've touched them first, which by that time, if your foot's there, it's already potentially too late. So, you know, the burden of responsibility is definitely on you to be looking at that point. Yeah. Are you hiking with a hook? So you got that in front of you to kind of, you know, maybe a little bit of warning. Yeah. As long as I'm not, you know, some places I'm like, they're a little weird about hooks and stuff, which I understand. But generally speaking, I do try and hike of a hook because you know how it goes. If you don't bring it, something's going to come up where you need it, which has that happened plenty of times as well.

But yeah, hooks always incredibly helpful for sure, especially for those larger fibers. Right, right. Yeah. So in addition to Instagram, do you ever post things on INAT or HurtMapper? Do you utilize those as a user, if you're not posting? I don't really post on INA. I do go on there a lot. I, you know, I see where things are found, check out where people's pens are and stuff. I do think it's interesting to see where people find certain species. I know sometimes it's mislabeled and maybe even purposely and improperly placed, but it has been really helpful, especially when I first started out in herping, you know,

just finding the clusters. And even if you don't even go to that area, you just kind of figure out, okay, they're in this habitat. What can I replicate closer? to me or somewhere where I want to go that's not as hit, you know, where things might generally be similar. So it's been very helpful in that regard. Absolutely. When you are posting stuff on Instagram, are you doing that kind of real time or kind of a couple months out during the offseason when you're doing less?

Yeah, so it really depends on the species. You know, sometimes I'll go for stretches where I don't see a whole lot that I am willing to post or, you know, got good pictures of or whatever the case may be. Generally speaking, if it's like a really rare species, like South Florida Mulkings, I typically try to avoid posting that anytime close to season. Because I've seen it a couple times people will post something on Facebook and, hey, it'll blow up. And next thing, you know, there'll be six cars on a weekend, you know, down cruising a certain road. where people know they are, which is I get it. But, you know, like, it's just one of those things I prefer to push off a little bit for obvious reasons. But typically, yeah, I'll post within a month or so when I found something,

depending on how the backlog is. Are you for photography or are you just using your phone or you got a camera rig? Just the phone. Just wrong with the iPhone. I would love to get a camera one day, especially for, you know, know, more macro shots and maybe even different wildlife. But right now I'm just rolling with the phone, and it works as long as the lighting's good. Speaking of which, what do you prefer to use for like a headlamp?

So I have, it's just a husky spotlight that I use. I do have a headlamp. I actually don't know what brand it is. I don't have it on me or else I would take a look at it. typically i only use that when i'm like shining rocks at night which is another good strategy i think especially for central and south florida um that really when the cruising's not on that can be a great alternative where snakes will move especially in winter right okay that's cool are you usually out by yourself or you said when you know when you go to alabama you'll be out with

mark and stuff but is it kind of usually groups or solo um um I probably do about 60, 70% of myself alone. I do have friends who I go out with. They tend to live, I don't know anybody who, no one really hurts around here. But generally, like, most of my buddies, they're either down south or somewhere in Orlando area. But I am on my own more than half the time, for sure. Okay. Yeah, especially on the local sins.

Yeah. Based on your ex- Yeah, go ahead. I was going to say, which honestly, like, I love Herpin with friends, but part of it, just like fishing, I absolutely love just getting out of my own. It's just a great detox. It's great stress relief, you know. I mean, just being out there, windows down at nighttime, or, you know, shining rocks, even if you don't see much, it's just awesome being out there. Yeah.

I like that attitude. And, you know, if you have to drive a couple hours to meet up with somebody, you know, you know, that's time you could be herping instead of driving. Precisely. That's cool. I saw in your photos that you have a kayak, right? And that you're out doing when you're fishing and stuff. Do you ever go herping in your kayak?

I actually have, especially up in the springs. One of my friends, my close friends, when I lived in Orlando for a short period of time, I'll stay with him if I go up there, especially to do like a multi-fishing or herping. day thing like Ocala National Forest or whatever. But the springs are awesome, man. I mean, you go out in the kayak and, you know, it's usually not anything crazy. It's a lot of common species, but it's just a beautiful place to find them. You get the brown water snakes, the snapping turtles, the bandits.

It's an awesome place to see really anything in that setting. That's cool. Yeah. And the Diamondback Terrapins, those are something I've, tried, I've only gotten one so far, but I've tried to target from the kayak, and they're very difficult in the Indian River Lagoon, which is where I'm typically looking for them. But that's something I'm trying to learn from the kayak as well, as trying to find some of those, because those are my favorite turtle species in the U.S.

They're cool, yeah. Yeah, Rob, you guys found some, didn't you? And that was up in Pennsylvania. In New Jersey. Yeah, there's the session of the Pine Barrens where there's all the and stuff happening. You've got to move them off the road exactly that so they don't get hit.

So, yeah, I think in an hour or so we saw a dozen, 15, something like that, which is amazing. Yeah. That's awesome. They're beautiful up there too. Yeah. I left too early, so I missed out on that.

Oh, no. I'm sure I'll be back in the area at some point. Got it. Yeah. He missed the northern pine and the terrapins. Yeah. That's a rough one to miss, man.

Those Louisiana pine, or not Louisiana, I have Louisiana pines on my mind. Those pines up in New Jersey, I mean, they flip them pretty good. It seems like it's very foreign to me because it's not something you really see a whole lot down here. Yeah, it's interesting. We have flipped a handful of things. There's one particular spot where we've run into some tin that's clearly set up. And based on the habitat, that's probably what whoever said it was trying to find. that being said, yeah, the NJ Herping handle on Instagram, right?

There's so many flips. And that's a surprise based on our experience in the Pine Barrens looking for him. But it did, I think it was probably eight days in the Pine Barrens, but over the course like five years to turn one up. And that was cruising on dirt and in the same way that you probably turn them up down. Well, we have turned them up, you know. So yeah, it's interesting. Do you think that moon phases make a difference to hurt results?

I know this is controversial. Absolutely. Maybe I'm just not, I don't know, maybe it's my lack of knowledge or skill. Full moons, don't get me wrong, I've had good nights on full moons. If the conditions are optimal during one, I usually pass. them up unless I'm going to try and cruise a road maybe go south where there's more water that is heavy on aquatic species because in my experience especially muds don't seem to be quite as phased by the full moon I found quite a few adult muds on full moons but as far as like

the stuff that I try and target up here and a little bit more uplandy or Zerick or agriculture corals and pigments me and even the big pantherosis, it seems to be able to some sort of drop off for sure. Yeah. And I just got to attribute that to that predators can see better perhaps. And instinctually, like, you know, smaller snakes tend to know that and avoid moving when visibility is higher. Or at least that's part of it, in my opinion. Right.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and we just saw that, well, that being the excuse, you know, and that's sort of always some of the conversation around it, right? Is it the person looking or is it actually happening or whatever? But, yeah, we kind of had that experience or a realization on the back end of being in Louisiana, Mississippi last week. But, yeah, I would certainly, that was our lived experience as well. The other part of it, right, is when you're talking about a full moon, it's up basically all night, as opposed to when you're in that last quarter into new where it's basically up during the day. And the moon is hardly up at all regardless of the illumination.

Exactly. I couldn't agree more. Yeah. So when you're going out herping, are you planning or are you just kind of getting out and winging it? Or what do you usually typically do? Afternoons, if I get off, I'm winging it. I'm seeing what the conditions are. And I'm usually just going to one of half a few.

a dozen or so roads within an hour that I like. Kind of depends on what I want to see, though. I know some places tend to throw certain species better than others, even with similar habitat. But if I'm going on a longer trip, if I'm going down to the glades, or if I'm going

up to Ocala, I'm usually planning out just a little bit better. Yeah. It's still kind of flexible and moving to where things might be better. You got to be, especially in Florida in the summertime. I mean, when those rains hit sometimes they hit a road right before dark and you kind of have to pivot and get it somewhere

that's maybe drier um whatever the case may be so it does happen where you have to kind of you know change plans pretty often especially this time of year okay so rains right before the sunsets bad in florida as well because typically my experience yeah right yeah rain in the early afternoon awesome rain right before dark not great right yeah well We've seen that as well in various spots. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's cool. Do you keep anything at home?

I actually don't. I've only ever had one pet snake. It was a Florida king snake. It wasn't one that I collected. It was just one that I bought from a friend. She was captive bread. But I'm not too into keeping snakes. I mean, I did enjoy having one, but I do find a lot more, I guess, enjoyment, just seeing them out there.

But I'm not opposed. And if I do ever keep a species of snake, like I have one, I do tend to like native snakes. So I'd probably get another Florida king or like a yellow rat snake or something like that. Right. How are the collection laws out there? I mean, are you allowed to collect stuff? Do you have to have a permit? So as far as I'm aware, and I may be off, obviously most public lands, you can, as long as it's not an endangered species or it's not listed as threatened.

State parks and national parks, obviously, and no WMAs you certainly can. Yeah, I mean, you know, certain places, yes and no. but there's really only four species that are protected here. And it seems like only indigoes are taken extremely seriously. Right. Of those, I don't really see too much concern for pines or cymas or shorttails. But yeah, generally speaking, it would be pretty easy to do in most places. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

While we're there, have you witnessed... bad behavior from other herpers or what would kind of you would consider to be bad behavior relative to your herping ethic? Too, too often. I guess it's not a ton, but even the small amounts that I've personally seen is too much to me. Yeah,

down south it gets worse. Hendrik, anywhere where the cane fields is a nightmare. The Scarlet Kings get collected out of there pretty bad. You know, the Florida Kings, obviously. Yellow rats, people seem to really like those. Obviously, not everybody, but, you know, if someone wants to keep a snake here and there, I'm not going to kill them for it.

But there's a lot of guys that go out there and they'll take out. And I don't just mean snakes. I mean, everything goes in Tupperware or a bag. I mean, it's pretty rough, especially down in Hendry, Collier, Dade, Palm Beach, Broward. It's everywhere, but down there's just especially a bit of a mess, I would say. Does that correspond with various importers or folks that are flipping stuff anyway? I think not to maybe drag like a community per se, but I think it has a lot to do with the exotic

phase, like the exotic fat, I guess, down here. Um, just, you know, those guys, obviously all those are collected or imported animals, at least at one point. Um, and I think that's one reason why South Florida particularly seems to be so much worse than say Central or North, um, with collecting, um, because, uh, the exotic guys don't seem to care too much about the decline of the native species. Right. Um, they get their chameleons. And if they get a corn and they can, um, they can. get a couple bucks off it or a big yellow or a pigmy like they're going to eat. But yeah, I've seen it before.

I've seen people throw stuff in bags a few times on some of the more popular roads. Is there any sort of ethical, what you would consider ethical or unethical herping behavior beyond collection? Down there, right, it's less about did you exactly set back the rock? Obviously, if you're flipping boards and things, there is sort of a, a location that it was present or whatever, but the moisture seal is not so important as it is in the desert. I would say I'd probably think of more if I had time. I would probably say the ones that stand out to me are spot burning,

like on large social media platforms. Again, I'm all for helping the right people out. I really am. But opening up information to certain, more at risk or declining species so freely just for some views and clicks. Not my thing. Also, as someone who lays cover, I love to lay cover. That's like my favorite way to find snakes is flipping them.

It's very hard to get a hold of that stuff in South Florida, you know, 10 and stuff. It's not like Georgia or Alabama or Louisiana. but people other herpers will go and um you know take stuff from under your cover um you know they'll go like you'll bring them somewhere like hey you know let me know if you're going to go back or something like that um and and you know they'll go flip it right before you flip it and i'm like i laid all the cover out and i see on their story a snake that i recognized i flipped you know a few months ago i'm like uh i don't really want to go there again now you know right after just got flipped That happens, not putting the cover back right.

And then also just people who maybe stress the snake out more than they should for various reasons. Photos, videos that they want to take, like sensationalize stuff. That happens too often, in my opinion. Yeah, that's really frustrating. If, you know, if anybody listening is stealing somebody's board line. are still in their thunder, knock it off. You know? I've had it happen. Yeah, especially in the cane fields. It's brutal down there.

Florida Kings, like, maybe my favorite snake. I know that's a very hot take amongst LAMP people. But, you know, they're just like my local. I have to love them. But, yeah, it's brutal down there. I mean, people do anything to get their hold of cover, you know. Right. You don't have to put in the work themselves. Everyone wants to flip until it's time to lay the cover.

And then... Right. But, yeah, that's off-rip. That's the examples I can think of. Yeah. Those are good examples. I mean, yeah, we... I guess that's the frustration is when you're doing all the work and then people

want to just reap the benefits. That's not cool. Yeah. You got to get creative of hiding stuff, for sure. which I've gotten better at, but it's always a learning process. Yeah. You mentioned Florida Getschlebe and, you know, your favorite snakes. They seem, and maybe it's because there's been a decline historically.

They seem like really difficult snakes to find and also super variable across their range. So my question to you was going to be, it seems like you found a variety of different types, kind of in a general sense, how many different types do you find there to be in Peninsula, Florida? and how findable are they? You're referring to Florida Kings, correct? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, so, I mean, like you said, they're super variable.

There's tons of different phases. You know, obviously you got your Brooks phase, and then the typical, like, Canfield King look. Those are the two I've seen. I haven't been up to central Florida. I've never gotten on, you know, the central, like the Merritt Island stuff, and I haven't gone over to like the Hernando County, Pasco County, all that up in nature coast

that's kind of integrated with the Eastern Kings. But I always kind of subdivide them into the Canfield King look and the Brooks look. And I think when conditions are correct and if you're able to get lucky, they can be a relatively easy snake in certain areas. um particularly with cover cruising i don't care how common they are cruising is never the way to go for king snakes in my experience um you're honestly better off hiking them in good conditions than that most of the time uh i would even say the same for scarlet kings even though i do cruise quite a few of them they're just there's a lot of scarlet kings you would think you'd cruise way more but i flip them in places where i've never cruised one and you'll flip them all

the time. But as far as Florida Kings go, you like covering on the right area, especially around those cane field areas and the surrounding areas. They're actually somewhat easy. If you try and target them on the roads, they get very difficult pretty quickly. And is it mostly artificial cover that you're flipping or you flip a natural cover as well? Is there even natural cover to really be flipping. For Scarlet Kings, yes. Obviously, you got like logs. They'll hang out in dead trees under bark. If you can kind of peek behind that, you'll see them. Florida Kings, I mean, there are rocks along some of the canals, and you certainly can flip those and find them. I have never had too much success doing it. I haven't tried it too much either. I know plenty of

people who have had success with that. But I'm usually throwing out. stacked of 10 layered up multiple temperature gradients usually they'll tend to come back to a stack the more temperature gradient they have than that stack boards work really well especially because you're flipping most of your snakes here in wintertime because the temps are optimal and it's dry but the boards hold moisture and they love boards so if you get a stack of boards or a 10 stack that holds moisture of those gradients, that seems to be your best bet for Kingsnakes. And Brooks Kings, I've just flatly not had great luck.

I've seen two of them. Both of them have been road crews, but that's something I'm trying to get a little bit more onto maybe this year or next year. Very cool. Now, I don't know if it's quite as bad down by you, but certainly whenever I think of Sand Hill Habitat and it's fresh on the mind, fresh on my legs right now. What's the tick and chigger situation like? One of my favorite things about South Florida, you could crawl around the woods all day and never get one in most places down here.

You get north of Orlando, it gets pretty bad quick. But down here, I could count on two hands, how many ticks I've gotten, within a 50 to 100 mile radius in the last two or three years. So that's one of the big perks. Yeah, one of the big perks of South Florida. Ticks are undoubtedly my least favorite thing to deal with. I've heard some horror stories of people of herping South Florida, run-ins with locals or things like that.

Have you had any issues with other folks when you're out herping? or do you use Not Not too much locals I don't think I've had one sketchy experience In the cane fields

And south at Cluiston It was a It was a truck And they followed me around Pretty good I made sure to make some circles To know for sure if they were following me And they followed me around

For about 30 or 40 minutes Before I pulled in the town and I pulled towards the police station and they stopped. And I didn't see them after that. I don't know what was about. I was never out of my car at any point. They were down at the end of a road where it kind of connected to another road. And they turned their headlights on when I was making a U-turn and they followed me ever since.

No idea what was about very odd behavior. But that's the worst experience I've really had with anybody down here. Okay. Yeah, that's, I, you know, from my limited experience, it was a pretty good, good experience. Like the folks that I ran into, they were also herpers. They were happy to show what they'd found or whatever, you know, so it was kind of fun. Yeah, absolutely. You know, most people, if you go up and down, especially those dead end roads, you know, it is a little sketchy.

I completely understand if someone flags you down. You tell them what you're doing, you show them pictures. They're usually just like, well, why would you do that, you know? But they're like, oh, yeah, just, you know, be careful or carry on. They might not understand, but they're cool of it as long as, you know, you're cool of them. Yeah, and you're not doing anything nefarious or something. For sure. Yeah, they're just making sure their neighborhood's safe, which is understandable.

Yeah. 100%. I completely get it. And we need, like, some sort of signal on our vehicles that, you know, I'm looking for snakes. Don't. Yeah, yeah. I used to have one of those decals, like a break for snakes. snakes decal. I don't know if that would have ever helped or anything, but maybe you let the

little creed in when they see the photos and everything else. Yeah. I had a friend up in Australia in, like, Arnhem land, in Aboriginal lands, and he was a school teacher up there, and he was out herping at night, and the men thought he was, like, going around visiting their women while they were out hunting. So he had to, like, show him pictures, show him, like, snakes he was catching and stuff. to clear that's a unique situation yeah that would not be a good one yeah i'm sure that was way out in the bush too yeah yeah it's a pretty cool place but you mentioned going up to alabama how is that gone for you uh great i've been two years or i'm sorry i've been two times this year so far i usually go out there about two or three times a year when i can for a weekend long weekend um the first

Ken, we hit the Black Belt region. We did really well. Speckle Kings. We got a ton of those. We got 18 in two days. Oh, wow. You know, an assortment of canes made about half a dozen of those. Plenty of copperheads.

Lots of rat snakes, as always. And then we went up and did the same thing in May, me and a couple friends that hit a different region of the state, got some red milk snakes up in the north. side of the state and then we came down and we hit some of central Alabama again did some more of the specs where they integrate with Eastern Kings and you get to see some really cool patterns where and phases where you know that integrate zone is and they can look crazy you got the bands of the Eastern Kings the speck of the spec and it's really a cool area with lots of lamp diversity

it's a very underrated state that's cool Recognizing that legally can't pursue a loading eye, have you banning habitat? Don't believe I have, actually. I'm fairly certain I haven't, but I would like to, you know, see one for sure. I guess to that point, do you want to talk about it? So I know you found at least one pine or one pine recently-ish the last year or so. Have you found more than that? I mean, they're neat snakes, man.

Man, I've actually only seen two pines. One of them here in my area, which was the most recent one I got. I've seen a couple very heartbreaking DORs. I somehow have managed to do worse on pines than mud snakes. I've seen one up by Orlando area hiking in the sandhills. But outside of those two, it's been mostly, is on the road. It's so great on...

Absolutely. And kind of equally special, equally especially special with me since I haven't seen one. Do you see Indigos? I've seen two. Only two. And they were both down in South Florida, way down south.

Wasn't allowed to, you know, obviously we're not allowed to touch them anywhere, but especially down there. So I had to be very careful. But I just, I was able to get some short videos of them. And it was just a great experience. Just seeing them knowing that they're still doing relatively well in such a unique habitat for them.

There's really nowhere else where you get indigo's and anything remotely like you do down in the national park. So that was a really cool experience. And I mean, outside of maybe some of the South Florida Molkings, honestly, probably my favorite herping experience so far. Nice. That's great. I know you got a time commitment. I guess the last two related questions would be anything that specifically you're looking to find this year. And then is there any place sort of beyond the region that you've talked about that you're interested in going with a specific target or two?

Yeah. So this year, I'm going to make a concerted effort to go for short tails locally. That is definitely my goal, which it's kind of a separate. similar time of year where maybe you could get some cymus too might have to go another hour or so away. But I think those are my two big goals this year. It's two of the snakes that I haven't seen that I'm not too far away from. And I think, you know, you go in the fall in the right conditions. It's about as good as you possibly can do. Just give it your best shot. So that's probably my two biggest goals around here. Anything even more local than that, obviously just more mole kings. I

I enjoy seeing them, and I like getting them on roads they haven't been documented on. So far, I've had pretty good luck with that, with a couple of the ones that I've seen. So that's always a target for me. As long as I'm living in range for them, just how unique they are and how little is known about them, definitely, you know, want to continue that trend. And then wider picture out of the country or anything like that, I'd love to get down to South America. I mean, it's my favorite continent. Whether it's for, you know, fishing the Amazon

or going looking for reptiles. I mean, green anandahs are probably a top two snake in the world for me. I'd just love to see a big adult, aquatic corals, bushmasters, you know, I guess like the normy stuff for down there, but, you know, it's

such a cool place. It's the most biodiverse place on planet Earth. I can't think of anywhere I'd rather go, to be honest with you. cool yeah well that's awesome hopefully you'll be able to get down there sometime soon I'm hoping so I'm hoping so well we've we've taken up your hour and I hope we're not keeping you from herping now or oh no you're okay yeah it's been so slow recently with the weather and the drought I mean you know you get some good bursts after the rains but if you go a couple days in a row

about rain. It's just not been great recently. Right. So we're really praying for some, for some moisture, hopefully in the next month or two. Yeah. Very cool. Well, yeah, we'll, let you go. Thanks again for coming on. And I guess if people want to see what you're posting, you've got CFL Herp. Is that the, is that right? CFL herping on Instagram. That's about all I really post on maybe once in a blue moon i'll post from my personal facebook on some of the you know snake groups like florida herpers or um you know snake id um but very seldomly it's usually just the instagram for me at least as of right now right okay well check it out cfl herping and uh you can see Caleb's what he's finding out there and see all his amazing finds.

I appreciate it, guys. Thank you so much for the opportunity. It was great talking to you. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. All right, well, thanks for listening, and thanks to Eric and Owen and the NPR crew for hosting our podcast. And we'll catch you next time for Uptaugh Fight Club.