I was hunting in the sandy, shinnery country so prevalent in West Texas and parts of New Mexico last weekend, and I saw more rattlesnakes than I have ever seen in my life. I have probably spent thousands of hours exploring that country over the last 20 years or so, and I have almost never seen snakes in November, even when the wheather was warm. Last Weekend, when the tempature reached around 70 degrees Farenheit at about noon, I was on average stepping within striking distance of about one snake an hour. The snakes were sunning themselves and not moving, so they were incredibly difficult to see until they began to rattle and coil. Other hunters told me they were seeing as many snakes as I was. I am always aware that snakes are around when I am out there, but I have never had this many close calls.

Does anybody know enough about rattlesnake habits to tell me why I was seeing so many of them this year? Under these conditions how do you avoid stepping on one?

BTW, I had login problems, so I changed my name from Mr MD.

MRMD, I lived in El Paso for about 40 years,hunted Texas, and New Mexico for deer, bear, elk and prong horn, and I can't remember a November Mule Deer season that we did not see rattle snakes. In the mountains where you have caprock, the South faceing canyon walls are working alive with the Buzz bombs in mid day. They come out of the cracks in the rocks for the wormth, and when you walk next to the caprock, they are usually weist high, and most bites are on the arms, and hands.

This is the first time I have seen anyone mention the snakes of November on these sites, and it is a gunuine concearn for those hunting November in this area. Be careful!

Interesting you mentioning that they can be close to the hands. I was walking through a narrow gulley in some really rugged sandhills and a snake sunning himself on the side of the gulley coiled and began to rattle. The snake was about a foot from my right hand. I'm not proud of my reaction but I will mention it anyway: I squealed and ran about 10 feet. Pretty scary.

Strangley enough, I have spent a lot of time out there, but have not seen that many snakes in November. A friend of mine did have a propensity for stepping on them if there were any around though.

Inspite of the snakes, I did see quite a few deer and had a great time on that hunt.

Chances are, you were moving through an area that has several dens. The snakes disperse during warm weather and den up during winter. I recall one ridge in eastern Kansas that was chock-full of timber rattlesnakes and copperheads in October into November, and my spaniel got bit in the face during the first week of quail season.

FWIW, I was deer hunting two weeks ago north of Ottawa, Ont., Canada. On Thursday morning it was about 17 F (-15 C), but it warmed up in the afternoon. We were walking down the trail back to camp around 4:00 and there was a garter snake sunning himself.

The next week I saw another garter snake sunning on the sidewalk leading up to my office in Toronto.

I recall coon hunting in Texas one night on mule-back in November. The cardinal rule once you were in the brush in the ravines was not to get off the mule. I never saw a snake that night, but I also never got off the mule.

kk

Climate changes in that area push snakes in and out of hibernation, when it warms enough to heat the sand and the highway the snakes crawl out of the den and bask on the warm sand and warm pavement...In the country you mention that is not as uncommon as some think..Naturally some years are worse than others.

This is common from the lower reaches of the Big Bend to the area of Southern N.M.around Lovington and Jal NM, Kermit, Midland, Odessa and as far West as El Paso and along the Mexican border in Ariz. and Calif. basically the Southwestern part of the US.

The strangest snake-day I had was when I was living in Hobbs, New Mexico. It snowed heavy during the night (about 8") so I started calling my friends to set-up a blue quail hunt the next day out west of Jal. We knew the little boogers wouldn't be able to run in that deep snow.

That plan lasted until about noon. The front had passed during the night and by noon the sun had burned the snow off, and we were hunting in mud, stripped down to t-shirts.

By mid-afternoon we starting jumping snakes. They were lethargic and wouldn't rattle much (until you disturbed them, but they were everywhere.

Within two hours we'd killed nine. It seemed like everywhere we jumped quail, we "jumped" rattlers.

I've only run into one rattlesnake in my life (in the wild) and it was in a very strange place given the time of year/weather.

I was hunting teal in Kansas in early September and it was actually a bit cold for the time of year. We were hunting out in a unit that was easily 200 yards from the nearest dry ground and the water ran maybe 2 feet in depth.

My buddy sailed a teal into some cattails and went after it to retrieve it. He was digging through the cattails when he found a little Massasaugua (sp?) rattler coiled up floating on top of the water. It was still alive but it basically wasn't moving as it was just so cold, both the air and water.

They've had warnings in that area about rattlers but we always assumed it would have to be fairly hot to see them. Sometimes teal season is very much a shirt sleeve proposition, but not this time. This was the only time we've ever found one.

It was tempting to help the little booger out but we were right in the middle of the hunt and it just wasn't worth the potential trouble. Natural selection in action no doubt...for both of us.

Reed

Kensco,
The weekend I saw all the snakes, I was hunting close to the area you are talking about near Jal. I have hunted the area around this particular lease road since about 1987 and to this day it is probably my favorite hunting spot when I go back to Lovington to hunt with my dad. In the past, I have seen very few snakes in November at this particular spot. The conditions were similar to what you have described when you saw the snakes at Jal. It had been cool and rainy for the previous three weeks, but when I was there, it had warmed up and was getting into the 70s. I was seeing a similar number of snakes to what you described, and they were also behaving much like the snakes you saw that day at Jal. They were not moving or rattling until I stepped within a few inches of them.

What years did you live in Hobbs? I grew up in Lovington. I lived there from 1979 until the mid-1990s.

Ray,
I think you're right. The conditions were just right for the snakes to be out. Strange though, becuase I have spent hundreds of hours hunting that area when the tempature was similar and seen few snakes.

I'm probably old enough to be your daddy. I lived in Hobbs from 1973 to 1976, then lived in Odessa from 1978 to 1991 and hunted back in New Mexico some. (Hunted dove a lot east of Eunice on the Texas side.)

I had some of my best dove days back in that country northwest of Jal as well.

I was the Drilling Manager for Delta Drilling Company. We had twelve rigs scattered through West Texas and Southeast New Mexico. Every day they called in their morning reports. Every day, during hunting season, they told me what they were seeing in their area. If it sounded good a few of us would load up and head that way.

I loved some of those tanks along the Jal cut-off. I'd pull up there some evenings, particularly if there hadn't been any rain recently, and wait for the dove to roll in. They would fill the sky about thirty minutes before dark.

I killed my smallest rattler on the Jal cut-off. Not very proud of it really. I was sighting in my deer rifle. After shooting a series I was walking back from the target and nearly stepped on a rattler that was about 3" long and about as big around as a small pencil. He had one button on the end. I walked on back to my car, and fired a few more times at the target, then picked that little pecker-head up in the scope and fired one just to harrass him as much as anything else.

I felt like shit when I walked up to him. Just dumb luck, I'd picked his head off. That was the only rattler I ever killed that I regret. (I was surprised I couldn't find more of those little ones that day. I can't believe he was more than a day or so old and close to the nest.)