Been years since I've seen one here in town, but in the wild I leave them alone if I can. I caught one last year at my friend's pond where I fish, but that was so I could re-locate it. If my friend had seen it there would have been a pattern of buckshot on the water around it.
We have few poisonous snakes around here, and what few there are tend to be very reclusive. I've actually seen only a few copperheads in the wild, and heard a rattler only once or twice. The worst snakes are the water snakes. Non-poisonous, but very aggressive. I've had one of them actually try to get in a canoe with me, and I'd judge it wasn't in a good mood by the way it was acting. That one was over 5' long and it got the edge of a canoe paddle right behind the head which calmed it right down (clear down to the bottom of the creek
![Wink :wink:](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
).
Another time I was gigging in the riffles on a local creek at night for forage fish and felt something hitting my hip boot about calf high. Turned my light on my boot and found I had stepped on a very large water snake and it was coiled around my leg and striking my boot in an attempt to bite me. I calmly shook it off my boot. (If you call screaming and lowering the water level of the creek by a few inches by kicking the water out on the banks calm!
![Laughing :lol:](./images/smilies/icon_lol.gif)
) Shows you fear can overpower common sense easily! No way it could of hurt me with the thick rubber boot on my leg, but I wanted it off - QUICKLY!!!!!!!!!!!!