doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com OT: More snow headed your way Ted.

At least in SD, it's not all that hard to avoid both cactus and the places you're most likely to encounter snakes. When you find a lot of cactus, turn around and hunt somewhere else. And carry a Leatherman to pull spines. Rattlers . . . avoid prairie dog towns (which don't have any decent bird cover anyhow) and rocky areas.

One of my favorite spots for birds at Ft. Pierre is a long ridge. Good grass cover on top and a ways down slope on either side. Go too far down, however, and you'll find a lot of cactus. Stay high, stay out of trouble.

Snake story: A few years ago I was trout fishing on the south fork of the Kern river in the Sierra Nevada. I was fly fishing up stream and wading in the stream, which was only 15 feet wide. I approched a section where there was a high bank on my left side with grass about 2 feet tall. All of a sudden a rattle snake stuck it's head up out of the grass about 2 feet from my face. I lurched backwards and landed on my back in the middle of the stream. About a half hour later, a rattler swam across the stream about 20 yards ahead. That was it. I got on the trail and headed back to camp. On the way I encountered 2 "locals" and they said it was a bad year for rattlers. They had 3 at one time on sticks before they could kill them. After that, I fished near camp!

It reminds me of fishing off a pile of rocks on the tail water of a small dam. It was a fun two or three hours, lots of fish, and I was keeping a few on ice in a small cooler. A good sized Cottonmouth kept sticking its head out between the rocks and checking out my cooler. In the begining, I was using the cooler as a seat to set up my line, it kept coming back even when I shooed it away, so I started standing farther and farther away from the cooler.

When I've run into rattlers during regular bird season, it's usually a warmer day and they're out sunning, otherwise they're shutting down for the season. Snakes give me the willies, but any more I just walk around them and leave them alone. I worry more about the little ones when doing regular stuff like gardening, they usually haven't figured out that they can just slip away, and the only way they will do a dry bite is if they dumped the whole load on something else just a little bit earlier.

I live in Central Oregon surrounded by National Forest. There is no water near my house with the 135 yr old canals abandoned. No water, no snakes. No so a few miles away on the Deschutes. I was walking back to the car one evening on a gravel road and stepped on a "rubber hose" and thought it odd to be there until my brain overcame my senses and jumped away from the thing. My Mod 60 .38 with snake loads came out and made a good snake out of it. Not being usually too large around here, if I have boots on I usually just jump on top of them and gring them into the ground. However, a couple of years ago someone got an 8 1/2 footer in SE Washington. Must have slithered up from Alpine, Texas.
Cougar are another story. My horses made uncommon noises one night years ago. Nothing good ever comes out of uncommon horse noises. I grabbed a Daly/Sauer drilling which was my only loaded gun at the time and ran out in pajamas. I got into the coral with the horses who were VERY upset but saw nothing...until... one of the horses looked up just above me. I had a flashlight in my laft hand along with the drilling forearm and looked up to see a cougar who then made his last growl. I gave it both barrels from the 12 Ga and it dropped at my feet. I jumped back and realized I brought no extra ammo with me as it jumped up in the air falling back to the ground several times. I cocked the 30-30 barrel and waited until it was still for a moment and finished it off. That was 30 years ago when they were treated like prized pets by the Fish & Game. It was shoot/shovel/shut up time although I burned it instead. The F&G was anal about it. One couple shot two with one with their prized cat in its mouth. They wrote a note to the local paper not giving their names. F&G responded with a serious effort to find out who they were. They told the paper people could shoot one which had attacked their pet or livestock, but shooting the second cat was inexcusable. Some years later, Oregon passed a bill outlawing dogs and bait for cats and bear. They still allow dogs for bobcats (some of them get quite large in the remote areas .The cat population has exploded and they are a real problem to people in neighborhoods near forests (and some not so near). Dogs & cats are easier game than deer. Every Winter day now with snow on the ground, There are cat tracks over the deer tracks on the well traveled deer trails on my property. Deer come down in the morning and back up in the evening. With deep snow, they stay around the horses and eat the alfalfa/orchard grass mix. A cat averages 2 deer a week.

I took one other cat recently after my older horse. Luckily I was home and grabbed my 1928 Mod 52 (back when they looked like a Springfield). It is in my upstairs bedroom above the fireplace and is my normal coyote gun. I popped the cat at about 75 yards from the upstairs deck (40 coyotes a year from that deck). I went out and finished it off with a 1911. Old cat. They do most of the horse killing. Horse wasn't harmed much. Now with the cats being so much of a problem, They just said go into town and get a tag. They are not so lenient about wolves (much more common than they admit). So no stories about them now.

Shoot, shovel and shut up is always good advise. Friend retired and move back to Texas just above the border. Constantly seeing people cross his ranch heading north. He left them alone until one took a shot at him, just to scare Ed. Ed does not do scared. He brought out a .50 caliber Barret rifle. Said he sent a round into the ground about 20 feet in front of a fellow who made the mistake of taking a pot shot at him. Nothing too close, but it must have scared the hell out of the trespasser. Fellow went back South, quickly. Funny thing is that Ed said the traffic dropped off to nothing for a month or more. Nobody has taken another shot at him since. Most likely it was a drug mule who made that mistake. Ed only give you one. Now he has a back hoe he says. Shoot, dig, go get a beer might be his motto.

The problems y'all have with big cats sounds like us and gators. Mercy, what a nuisance they have become! One was in my front yard walking towards the shrubbery year before last, about a six footer ............ and believe me, I don't live in the swamp. The big lizards are everywhere. I have three lakes, and I can't keep 'em out of them. They're not usually aggressive ............ until they are. One showed out towards one of my church friends at one of those lakes last week. Came within two feet of him before he backed away. He's an old displaced cajun. After getting my okay on the next "venture", he'll be back.

SRH

I�m normally a live and let live kind of guy, and would just as soon let the snake go about being a snake, ditto a wolf, alligator, lion, or, whatever. But, I really don�t want to be in the crossfire of those critters doing that, and, I freely admit I am an amateur in my dealings with all of the above.

I actually do OK in severe cold and snow, and usually prefer those conditions during hunting season for the relief from the crowds. Stick with what you know.

Everybody be safe out there.

Best,
Ted

Just back home from a few days snook/tarpon fishing out of Chokoloskee Island in the Everglades National Park. And here I am reading of snow storms in the midwest. About mid day in the sun down there I was sort of wishing for a snowstorm, or at least a cloud...Geo

We're getting very rapid melting today. And rain forecast for tomorrow and Thursday. More green now showing in my yard than I've seen for a long time.