Good Snake

I was going through some photos of last season and found one of my daughter with an Indigo Snake. We've got a few left, but you can slowly see an increase in the rattlesnake population as you see less and less of these.

Holy crap.

I love blue indigos.. see a bunch in Brady. Your daughter is already quite the huntress.. Congrats

Cool photo!!! Those snakes are one of my favorites, but I don't see them much anymore at our place either.

Like to see Blue Indigos around. I had about a 6'-7' hang around the house all the time in La Salle County. Most of the ones I seen were always on the bigger side till I got rid of 360+ hogs in 3 yrs.

That girl has bigger bucks on the wall than many people ever will.

We have a couple Indigos that hang around camp in Laredo. Come mating time, they will wrap up one another, and stand over 4' tall while intertwined.

I haven't seen an Indigo snake since I was a kid living in FL

Southtexas36,
You imply that you have declining numbers of indigos; do you what the cause is?

Yes, it is my opinion that numbers are declining, based off of visual observations alone. I've been fortunate enough to hunt the same ranch for the last 30 years, so what I do know is habitat has not significantly changed over time. Our hog population is not a problem, we have a few, something is keeping them in check, they've pretty much gone unchanged in the last 15 years. Yes, we have a good supply of road-runners, but this has always been the case. Rodent and rabbit populations fluctuate, primarily based off of rainfall.

I have seen fewer and fewer Indigos over the last 15 years or so and at the same time, I'm starting to kill or see more and more rattlers. For years, we wouldn't even see a rattler, I was on this ranch for 10-15 years before I saw my first one.

These are my observations only, I am not at the ranch enough to make an educated guess on why they might be declining, this would take more time investment and research to come to some logical conclusion.

I don't know, has anyone else noticed the same?

Did you saw how long that one was? Wow

Yes, that's a baby 5 fter. I've caught them much bigger, in the 8-ft range.

unfortunately the DBs of this world think every snake they see needs to be killed and soon these super beneficial indigo snakes will be gone.

Now that is a cool daughter. Does she hunt with you?

It's great to see a girl holding a snake the would scare the dookey out of most of these guys!

AND good to see a snake that someone didn't kill just because it's a snake.

I can't hardly go anymore without hearing it from her. This is her first buck, killed the second year she started hunting with me, now she's hooked.

Stx36,
That's certainly an interesting observation and over that long of a period it doesn't appear that it is just lack of sightings by chance. I'm not sure where your place is but I hunt in Webb Co. (east of Laredo) and have actually seen more Indigos (and other snakes, including rattlesnakes as well) the last two years. During the past two years, our hog population decreased significantly and I am unsure why(drought, disease, ???), but whatever the reason I am not complaining. The hogs appear to be making a comeback this year according to the amount of sign and sightings thus far. Hopefully the Indigos in the region will hold their own.

Cool pics, nothing like hunting with your daughter

puckered up huh?

Webb Co too, off of 359, 10-11 miles outside of Laredo

Lol you know me well....

X2

Thank you. Nice knowing I'm not the only one

Those are beautiful. Need to kill the rattlesnakes to make room for them.

Nice

Like said above, great to see folks letting snakes be. Indigos are declining and mostly because they require a very large area to live on. Unlike many other snakes that sit and wait for meals to happne by, Indigos are true hunters and cover a lot of ground in search of food. Because they need large areas to roam and hunt on, urban development and more frequent encounters with snake killers (most people), they are running out of room. The Eastern Indigo in FL, has become very rare and can no longer be collected for this reason. Population growth= less indigos. Beautiful snake...and quite the brave young lady. I have been on the receiving end of an indigo bite and they have large teetch and strong jaws. My own fault though, i was handling it. And of course they arent venomous.

We seem to have a helthy population of them around our place. We see them regularly... I see more of them than I do ratlers. A real big one likes to hang out down by our tank, about 8-foot or so, and we have seen several smaller ones. This one came in to one of the water tanks for a drink this spring.



matt

Yeah...you'd never see me holding that snake. You go girl.

Some how I expected the picture to be of a dead snake. Generally I leave them alone, and appreciate the fact, that they keep the rodent population down.

One of my favorite snakes. Only seen a couple in the wild. Wish there were more around.