BOWHUNT FOR THE RIO GRANDE
by Robert Hoague

The Last Afternoon - Part 2

DAY 8 - Will A Snake Get In The Blind ... With You?

On a hot day, if the blind is not in the shade, the sun heats it up. It can be, and was today, a very sweaty proposition.

In front of me sunlight shown brightly through a thin, 4-inch place where the bottom of the blind was not touching the ground. I didn't think anything about it. But in the future I will.

Minutes after the hen left something caught my attention in that tiny 4-inch slit of light.

A snakes head!

About 2 inches wide. It stuck its forked tongue out. And shoved about 8 inches of, its wider than its head, body into the dark inside of the blind.

At this point, a prudent man would have considered his options. First on the agenda would be to ID the snake and determine if it was poisonous or not. Next would be to make a decision about what to do if the snake came all the way into the blind. Tipping over the blind was not an option because I had nailed it down solidly with tent stakes. So I suppose one could yell, or poke an arrow at it, or stand on the chair.

That's what a prudent man would have done.

But I was not in a prudent frame of mind. The snake was coming in and I didn't want it too. I jumped to my feet and slammed my right foot down on the intruder. Amazingly, it yanked its body out before my blow struck. At once, I jammed my head out of the bind's window and looked in front of the blind. No snake.

I looked ahead and to the left and right as far as I could see. Again, no snake.

Frankly, I would have much rather seen it.

After I pulled my head back in the blind I sat in my chair, continuously watching the bottom edges of the blind. Before long a hen walked out of the woods..

It strolled past the cedar tree you see in the picture above, which is where the hen had stood in the shade only 12 yards in front of the bind. Suddenly the hen "Putted" loudly. I thought, "rats, I can't believe that hen saw me." 

But it hadn't.

Putting wildly, the hen charged towards the cedar tree. A big snake, underneath the tree, six foot if it was an inch, and as big around as my wrist, rolled and tumbled to get away from the hen's attack.

The snake took off into the woods with the hen hard after it, putting and pecking at it. I tried to get my camera on them but it all came down too fast.

Wow!

Since then I've asked several old timers and they confirmed that wild turkeys will kill snakes, even rattle snakes.

I saw one more hen in a few minutes and I think it was the same hen. As the shadows filled in and daylight began to fade gobbles rang out from the nearby curve in the river.

Oh, what a day. Ending with gobblers in the nearby trees. A perfect end to a super wild turkey bowhunt.

Life is good.

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