....I give you props for bravery...or insanity. I thought all aquatic snakes were poisonous? Like a water moccasin

No, I don't think so. This one had a head that definitely didn't look like a venomous... And the locals told us that they were safe. I'm pretty sure it is a Northern water snake which is nonvenomous.

Ironically the first day we saw one, I only saw the tail and mistook it for a small Copperhead. I tried to get a good look at the head, to be sure... Since we were planning on fishing the entire weekend and in my excitement to try and see it... I stepped on a bad part of the old dock and partially fell through. I looked at all of them closely before I tried touching them though.

Well, I must commend your bravery. I sure as hells wouldn't have picked it up out of the water. Then again, if I couldn't identify it immediately, I wouldn't have approached it to begin with. Anything with poison in it disturbs me

lol The water snakes around here have nasty attitudes. Every time I catch one they try to maul me to death. @Vawkis, most water snakes are harmless.

I actually was told that the ones up there were known for being aggressive but we saw four and none of them seemed to be. The largest one I saw was just very curious and let me touch it with no problem. The medium sized one I was able to get close to was skittish and the one pictured here was a little timid but didn't even try to strike at me. It did open its mouth to try to scare me off when I first grabbed it but quickly realized I wasn't trying to harm it.

that looks like a cottomouth....0_____e bad idea to pick it up if you aren't 100% sure it's not poisons....

The one pictured here has coloring that resembles a young Cotton Mouth but it is not a Cotton Mouth. The eyes of a Cotton Mouth are "cat eye", not round. The head of a Cotton Mouth also is triangular or arrow head shaped and is much thicker than the body making it look like they have a "neck." The older larger snake I touched looked more like one by color, but its eyes and head were again not right. I made sure to look at them before I got too close to them, even using our camera to zoom in and get a closer look.

I also talked to locals about the one that I saw the previous day... The two lighter ones are younger and you can tell that not only by the size but also the color. Just like Cotton Mouths they get darker as they age. I originally thought one of the smaller ones was a Copperhead because of the markings and colors but discovered later, because of the head shape and everything that it couldn't be one.

true. I would still just opted to poke it with a stick and go fishing....XDDD

at least it didn't musk like some snakes do....TT^TT you can't get it off.....I picked up a ring-neck snake and it played dead and the musk it had didn't wash off for at least 4 days after....TT^TT it was horrible....

Oh, gross! I've held babies of that species before... They were so tiny! But I haven't seen an adult in person.

I wanted to fish but we only had one working rod... And my girlfriend is much better at it than I am. She caught a ton of Sunnies, one medium small mouth bass and a very large large mouth bass. :P So I went after the bull frogs, snakes and newts. (caught a tadpole too.)

XDD find any snails? X33 I've found a bunch of them in a pond near where I love~

i love the shirt :{P

I was so mad I was wearing a Twilight shirt the day I caught my little buddy... But my name is Leah so it was always a joke that I was a Werewolf like Leah Clearwater. :P