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12-22-2017, 02:12 AM

Man, this brings back some memories!

When I lived in Maryland, I used to take fairly frequent trips down to Hatteras, especially looking for king snakes. At that time L.g. sticticeps was quite the rage, and after buying some from a local guy, I decided I wanted to try my hand at finding them myself.

So I did find quite a few kings in the Buxton area, but never saw one on Okracoke. Best I could do was to find a black racer on Okracoke, which kind of blew the original writeup by Barbour and Engle (sp?) claiming that sticticeps was the ONLY species of snake on that island. So I eventually became convinced that there really was no such thing as L.g. sticticeps at all.

But it was a pretty neat area. I think the area I spent most of my time at was what I see they are calling the "Old Doctors Rd" off of route 12. There were several trash piles back in there that were fun digging through, and I found several kinds there. In one instance in particular, there was an old car seat someone had dumped that looked promising, so I flipped it over to see if anything was underneath. Nope. So as I was flipping it back in position as I had found it, a big old gravid female king came rolling out from inside the seat.

I too found a yellowish rat snake out there, but that was the only one.

Saw several cottonmouths, which I thought were noteworthy because of their decidedly greenish coloration.

And at one time find a DOR canebrake rattlesnake a little north of Buxton right on route 12.

I'm actually surprised that that Buxton Reserve still exists. Back when I was frequentlng that area, there were already plans on the books to convert it all to a major golf course with surrounding condominiums and upscale houses. So I'm glad that plan got scuttled somehow.

Connie and I have been talking about going back to Hatteras for years now. We did pass through once on the way back from Delaware several years ago, and took the ferry route back to the mainland from Okracoke. We had the Jeep and I had wanted to run it out onto the beach, but those days of being able to do that for free are now apparently over with. I wasn't about to pay $50 just to take a one hour side trip onto the beach. I actually got pretty ticked off about that for quite a while. Now that I think of it, that incident that left such a bitter taste in my mouth afterwards is probably why we haven't really had a lot of incentive to go back there. Being able to freely drive on the beaches there without hassles and crap was one of the major attractions of Cape Hatteras. We used to just drive out onto the beach with our Bronco, drive until you could just barely see anyone else on the beach in either direction, and then plop ourselves right there on the beach. Heck, I wonder if I could even get back on that Old Doctors Rd any longer, as perhaps it is posted with NO TRESPASSING signs now.

Anyway, thanks for bringing back the memories for me.

12-22-2017, 02:12 AM	#5
WebSlave	Man, this brings back some memories! When I lived in Maryland, I used to take fairly frequent trips down to Hatteras, especially looking for king snakes. At that time L.g. sticticeps was quite the rage, and after buying some from a local guy, I decided I wanted to try my hand at finding them myself. So I did find quite a few kings in the Buxton area, but never saw one on Okracoke. Best I could do was to find a black racer on Okracoke, which kind of blew the original writeup by Barbour and Engle (sp?) claiming that sticticeps was the ONLY species of snake on that island. So I eventually became convinced that there really was no such thing as L.g. sticticeps at all. But it was a pretty neat area. I think the area I spent most of my time at was what I see they are calling the "Old Doctors Rd" off of route 12. There were several trash piles back in there that were fun digging through, and I found several kinds there. In one instance in particular, there was an old car seat someone had dumped that looked promising, so I flipped it over to see if anything was underneath. Nope. So as I was flipping it back in position as I had found it, a big old gravid female king came rolling out from inside the seat. I too found a yellowish rat snake out there, but that was the only one. Saw several cottonmouths, which I thought were noteworthy because of their decidedly greenish coloration. And at one time find a DOR canebrake rattlesnake a little north of Buxton right on route 12. I'm actually surprised that that Buxton Reserve still exists. Back when I was frequentlng that area, there were already plans on the books to convert it all to a major golf course with surrounding condominiums and upscale houses. So I'm glad that plan got scuttled somehow. Connie and I have been talking about going back to Hatteras for years now. We did pass through once on the way back from Delaware several years ago, and took the ferry route back to the mainland from Okracoke. We had the Jeep and I had wanted to run it out onto the beach, but those days of being able to do that for free are now apparently over with. I wasn't about to pay $50 just to take a one hour side trip onto the beach. I actually got pretty ticked off about that for quite a while. Now that I think of it, that incident that left such a bitter taste in my mouth afterwards is probably why we haven't really had a lot of incentive to go back there. Being able to freely drive on the beaches there without hassles and crap was one of the major attractions of Cape Hatteras. We used to just drive out onto the beach with our Bronco, drive until you could just barely see anyone else on the beach in either direction, and then plop ourselves right there on the beach. Heck, I wonder if I could even get back on that Old Doctors Rd any longer, as perhaps it is posted with NO TRESPASSING signs now. Anyway, thanks for bringing back the memories for me.