Driving down a ranch road, and I mean in the ranch, on Saturday and one of the guys "mowed" up a Timber Rattlesnake. Ranch is West of San Saba, not near the river(either one).
I didn't think they were much West of I-45!

Oh, and shot two limits of birds with a 28 gauge and NO MOJO or other decoys.

RobK can probably give you a better answer, but they are periodically found west of 45 (and occasionally 35). This map doesn't get them to San Saba, but getting closer.

"Ursus", pm me when you get a chance sometime. I'm sure you and I have some mutual "bioligist" friends in TP&WD.

Yeah, when I first pulled up on the snake from a distance I thought it was anything but venomous; however, I'll swear it was a Timber Rattlesnake. Same general pattern on it's scales, but almost blue in color. Black tail, no "coontail".

The one's I've seen don't appear anywhere close to "blue", but the tail description is about right.

"Velvet tailed rattler" is another name they can go by, along with cane-brake.

Very few things take me back in the pasture.
But, this one was a "head scratcher"!

Doc....Let's see you caught a bunch of reds several weeks ago....you have a new Panga, got two limits of dove and saw a snake that you can't ID. The rest of us are trying to enjoy the outdoors vicariously thru people like you and all we got was a crappy cell phone pic.

Buy a camera tightass! If you don't know anything about them send me a credit card number and I'll pick you out a decent one.

Not my photo by a long hot.

I realy do not like the range maps of the tu collections website. They are full of errors, and sometimes I just do not understand where they get their info (definatly not from collections). Anyway

The closest speciemen I can find came from Eastland cty, however that was one animal and I have no idea when it was vouchered or what the circumstances where. San Saba cty would represent an impressive range extension. It would have been nice to have a photo voucher of the specimen. However the Northern blacktail has several vouchered specimens from southeren San Saba cty. That would be my guess without being able to positively identify the snake. The Nothern Blacktail is still a significant find in that county.



IS there a crappy cell phone pic of the animal in question? if so post it up.

[This message has been edited by Robk (edited 9/6/2010 8:09p).]

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of those maps either, just the best I could dig up in short order.

That's him boys!
Thanks!
Now, is he a Northern Blacktail?

Yes it would be a northern blacktail.

Thanks Robk, you taught me something new!

So that is where all the dove went.

Those are purty snakes, I would love to catch one and get some good pics of it. (fify protected) for the verts.

[This message has been edited by c-jags (edited 9/7/2010 9:08a).]