Remember when I posted about small game hunting in Arizona? Well, I took my own advice and went small game hunting recently, hoping for a mixed bag of delicious game meat that I’d be able to butcher and cook. With me on this trip was my brother, of whom hadn’t been to this region of Arizona. Our ultimate goal was to get him on a badger, as I’ve taken one badger out of this area, and assisted with the taking of another.
We arrived to the region in the afternoon – it wasn’t feasible for us to arrive in the morning due to long commutes. It was warm, but definitely cooler than Valley temperatures. A storm was brewing upon the horizon, which can be either a good bad thing for animal activity. I could tell that the area had been hit hard with rain previously, perhaps within the past few days. We continued upon our journey, looking for promising badger areas.
We finally got to an area where that I knew had badgers, it would just be a matter of finding one. We got out of the vehicle and started a short trek. We were walking towards a small ridge that would give us a good vantage point that we could both call and glass from. We get near the ridge when all of a sudden, I’m seeing badger sign galore. Badgers usually use their large claws to dig up insects and such, and that was exactly what we came across. The area we had just walked into was filled with soil that had been dug into. Could this be javelina? I’d normally say yes, but the soil was soft enough for easy tracking, and there wasn’t a javelina track in sight.
Just then we turn and sure enough, a badger hole. Badgers are really the only animal in the region to dig holes that are large like this – coyotes will dig dens but they’re usually somewhat large and distinct in features. I had no doubt that this was a badger den, but it seemed lightly used.
We kept venturing, and not 15 yards away was another badger hole. This hole, however, was freshly used. When I say fresh, I mean within the past 24 hours. The very loose, fine dirt surrounding the den had badger tracks within it, and I could get occasional whiffs of the oh-so-distinct badger smell.
“Well Jake, how do you know the badger wasn’t in its den?” I didn’t. Regardless as to whether the badger was in its den or not, it didn’t matter, as there’s no way that I’m going to just coax out a badger. With this said, we decided to sit about 20 yards from both dens and predator call. We faced opposite directions so as to have a complete 360 degree view, and used the Primos The Third Degree call to make a 25 minute stand.
We called in nothing.
At this point, we were starting to lose light, and I decided that we should go back to the vehicle to check out one other spot. We drove only a short distance to the next location, and got out to look for badger sign. Unlike the last spot, this area had zero sign. We decided to return to the vehicle so that we could visit an area that I knew had some great jackrabbits. As we were walking back, a cottontail spooked in front of us. Yes, our first chance at a harvestable animal! With a .22 rifle, my brother made a solid shot and took the rabbit down. First shot and we had a rabbit in the cooler.
We were now losing light quickly as the clouds continued to build upon the horizon. Rather than going to look for more jackrabbits, we decided to head back to the badger den. Upon arrival, we had little light left, and it was at this moment that we knew that a badger wouldn’t be harvested on that day. We decided to continue upon the dirt roads to home, looking for snakes while we were at it.
We drove and drove with no success. At one point, I drove past a stick, but decided to stop just in case.
“Is that a stick or is that a snake?” I asked.
“I don’t see anything…” My brother said.
“THAT’S A SNAKE!” I yelled, as I realized that the stick was no stick, but a rattlesnake instead. A smaller Western diamondback rattlesnake was upon the right hand side of the road. We got out to take a look, and my brother decided to take the snake. We harvested the snake quickly and safely.
Adrenaline pumping, we continued driving. We were excited to have finally come across a snake, and were hoping for another. Not 5 minutes later, I saw another small snake in the road.
I got out with my snake hook, knowing that the snake was too small to harvest, but wanted some pictures. I hadn’t come across a baby (neonate) diamondback in a while, and wanted some good pictures. Well, it wasn’t a Western diamondback, but rather a Mojave neonate, which I’ve never seen before. I was pretty excited, took some solid pictures, and continued with our journey.
Neonate Mojave Rattlesnake (Crotalus scutulatus)
But just as we were about to get back in the vehicle, something caught our eye. Across the road was the slender profile of another snake, but this one much bigger than any we had seen. We quickly made our way over to the snake, only to realize that it was a large gopher snake. I was just thinking earlier in the day how I’d like to find a gopher snake and there we were with a large gopher snake in front of us.
I decided to pick up the gopher snake, being careful as to not get bit. While gopher snakes aren’t venomous, they can still give a good bite. I managed to pick it up to give it a quick evaluation, and sent it on its way about as quickly.
That was the conclusion of our action that night. We drove backroads until we got back into town. The storm had moved in and threw dust and dirt at us during the entire drive, which isn’t good for snake activity. Though our day wasn’t as action packed as we hoped, we still had a good outing with a cottontail and rattlesnake in our cooler.