A multi-faceted still life, from the camera of Cecil B. DeWintersteen.

By KW

First things first: SNAAAAAAAAAAKE!

They’re still out there, those rattlers. Or at least, they were, not that many days ago.

That first big blast of cold that brought snow and dropped temperatures down into the teens, single digits and even below zero in parts of the Black Hills  a couple weeks back should have put all rattlers to bed for the winter.

At least, that’s what I thought when I was creeping around in duck-hunting heaven in a foothills stream - where rattlers are common - a couple weeks back (You know, the place where I missed the bluewings landing in my decoys).

Snakes? We don’t got no stinkin’ snakes. I figured.

Then it warmed up a bit, and Wintersteen was snooping around the same creek a few days later, hunting ducks and - mostly - flyfishing for trout when he ran into the rattler.

Darn near stepped on it. Darn near went airborne.

A rattler. Still sassy enough to rattle.

Geez. Can’ t a guy rest easy - and hunt easy - after a barrage of winter type weather? Not then, apparently, But surely by now.

Or not. At least, not if it warms up again.

I told the story to Mike Kintigh of the GF&P the other day, and he offered these words of reassurance: “Well, I’ve seen rattlesnakes out in November.”

OK, on three: one…two..three: SNAAAAAAAAAKE!

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 29th, 2009 at 5:27 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.