Nearly a Wreck

[Gary Roberson]

Last Saturday I loaded three blue potlickers and drove to the ranch west of Devine. My trip was two fold, one to visit my aging folks and the other was to try to find a bobcat track or at least catch a coon or something else that would run.
After visiting with my folks, I decided that I needed to let my dogs trot as they had been in the pickup for 7 hours. I drove down to a stock tank in the pasture and kicked them out. I roaded about 200 yards where my road intersected Black Creek, turned and paralleled it for a while. It was near sundown and over 90 degrees when Hondo struck along the creek and then treed. I waited until all tree dogs were convinced there was something there and we walked in and found two big coons. I shot one out and planned to leave the other but my nephew Nathan and Rick Stewart decided to squall it out while the dogs were finishing off the other. The coon hit up on the bank and left there as if his tail was on fire. After a couple minutes of lead, I crossed the creek and got near to where the coon left out. I hollered and clapped my hands and Old Lizzie came in and picked up the track joined by the two youngsters.
They were out of hearing going east in a matter of two minutes so I told the boys we needed to cut the distance. We jumped in the truck and drove a half mile where we heard the dogs bark treed and then sounded like they were fighting the coon. Nathan and I went to them and found them piled up in a log jam in the creek. As we stepped off the creek bank, all hell broke loose as there was a rattler in the log pile, jockeying for position. We started yelling at dogs and backed the snake under the pile just a little so that I could climb over him and start catching dogs. I did not have a lead so I grabbed Lizzie who is the leader and oldest and got her up on the bank and sent her to the truck. Thank goodness the others fell in and followed.
I know that I saw the snake strike at the hounds on three occasions but the dogs were just out of reach and Lizzie was pretty quick to jump sideways. If the snake had connected, it was going to be bad news as the snake was a "high striker" and was aiming for the body. A body strike on a hot dog is usually ingredients for a dead dog but somehow we escaped.
We got up at 4:00 AM the next morning and did not really hit a track until 8:00 AM. Dogs trailed down the creek for about 600 yards before making a little circle and then getting the coon jumped. As luck would have it, the dogs ran through a herd of brahman cross cattle that broke up the race.
Adios,
Gary

[JasonBB]

man you got lucky there i hate those damn snakes they are all over the place down here along the rivers!!!!