Deer Scouting and Timber Rattlers

This past weekend a friend and I went to my deer hunting grounds to set ups deer stands for the coming season. It is something I do every June. Set stands, trim shooting lanes, and open visibility in these thick southern woods. We relocated a few stands and trimmed some others. At one location, we were busy trimming lanes in a pine forest. When my friend, said in a matter of fact way. "look over there." I stopped my activity and said, "where?" thinking he had seen a deer and scanning the woods for the white tail bounding through the woods. "There is a snake." he said very calmly. I appreciated his calmness at this moment. Freaking out at a moment like that can cause some real problems when snakes are involved.

I looked and immediately noticed a Timber Rattler not more than seven (7) feet away coiled up next to a small log. Just laying there, not rattling, just watching us. "That is a timber rattler." one of us said, "be still, I will move behind him." The rattler was obviously focused on Chad, and I moved behind the snake, unsheathed my .22 pistol that I carry for just such opportunities as this, and moved in.

Approaching the snake from behind I moved to with in a few inches and shot the snake in the head with my "shotshell" .22. This is the ideal ammunition for this situation, the little #12 shot will offer a broad pattern covering a few inches, but more than sufficient for the snake. A follow up shot confirmed his demise. We then removed his head for extra security and now his skin is stretched and drying in my shop.

For a Timber rattler he was huge, tape measured to exactly 48 inches with 10 rattlers. - Note to self. Wear chaps when approaching this sand in early season. - This is the second Timber Rattler we have taken in these same woods, with the other measuring 46 inches with 8 rattles.

I will say though, this is one of the prettiest snakes in the woods, with is coloration and shape. I am glad I had the .22, but I was surprised he never rattled at us.

Chiggers and the Joy of summertime

My family and I visited my father-in-law over father's day weekend. We went to his cabin and spent some time fishing his pond, and riding his golf cart around, it was a great time with all five of my children, all of them caught some fish. The bream fishing was slow and we drowned more crickets than we should have but we had a great time. Lesson learned, when taking five children fishing, don't even think about fishing yourself. I was constantly either untangling lines, re-baiting hooks, removing fish from hooks, or untangling lines.

There are many reasons I do not like the summer woods, chiggers, mosquitoes, spider webs, humidity and mostly TICKS. I hate ticks, especially the small deer ticks that you cannot ever see! Of all of the things in nature, ticks give me the ibby-jeebies more than anything else. Luckily we did not get any ticks last weekend, but we made up for it in chiggers. When we got home and discovered that all of us are covered up with chiggers! If you are not familiar with chiggers you have not spent much time in the summer woods in the south. Locals refer to them as "red bugs" all I know is that they itch! My youngest son is covered up in areas that should not be covered up! His sisters are also covered up. My wife spent almost an hour last night "painting" them. The local remedy is to use fingernail polish and paint it over the chiggers to smother them so they will die, in the process we scratch, and scratch.

This is the greatest threat to the blackberry harvest, the blackberry's are almost ready, and the standard around here is 3 chiggers for every berry! We have to cover ourselves with deet to prevent the invasion, for some reason chiggers love blackberry patches, and so do we, we don haz-mat suits with our long sleeves, and long pants, spray every inch of our clothes and our hands, and pick berry's, seldom are we totally successful in eliminating the chiggers but the sacrifice for ripe blackberry's is usually worth it.