Around 2003, me and two buddies were fishing down around the point of little caney when the guy in the back says you see that cottonmouth swimming towards us, I said swat it when if it gets to close. It kept swimming towards the boat got about 5 yards and the guy yells at me and he goes to swatting. I turn the trolling motor up to 100% and start to hit it when he screams it�s in the boat. It struck two or three times at his rod and swam on the set back plate and curled up there. By this time all three of us were on the front deck. At the this point I thought well hell what do I do now. Finally after what seemed forever, probably a minute or two I�m thinking how am I going to get this behemoth out of the boat, mind you the three of us are not small guys, two of us over 200 and the guy in the back was well over 300. I finally decided we�ll start the main and see what happens. Luckily it swam off. To add insult to injury about 5 minutes later the game warden pulls up to check us and I go to telling him about the experience and looks at me and said �so you are the guys, you mean to tell me that your 150 wouldn�t outrun that snake.� The story had already spread around the lake that 3 grown men were squealing like little girls on the front deck.

cottonmouths and rattlesnakes swim with their entire body on top of the water whereas watersnakes swim mostly submerged with only head out of the water....
lived for years and fished oxbow lakes in Miss. Delta where there were a lot of snakes because we didn't have alligators at the time...we also would hang stringers of fish over the side of the jon boats we fished out of..cottonmouths were real aggressive about trying to get in the boat...like all the fishermen during that period,I've slapped a lot of snakes with a sculling paddle to run them away from the boat....

Yes Sir it's getting that time of year. Snakes will be on the move!

well played pumadon

I had a water snake crawl up the transom and get in the boat with me on Cypress Springs a couple of years ago. I saw it coming and tried to troll away but couldn't move fast enough to escape it. I broke a rod trying to pry it off the bottom of the outboard.

I've broke several rods swatting at those dang snakes, and yes, I'll do it again. I have a phobia.

Kill em all, and if they get in the boat, just burn the whole thing. I HATE them suckers. I carry a pre-rednose pellet pistol on the boat just in case such a thing should happen.

I've thankfully never had a cottonmouth chase us, but I did have a pygmy rattler swim out of some reeds right past my engine last summer. I didn't notice till he was past us and heading for open water, full 18-20" of his body on top of the water. Had my kids in the boat with me too so we hightailed it out of there. Scary thing is we usually jump in the water when someone needs to "go potty", shake a leg, then jump out and dry off. We had just jumped back in the boat less than 10 feet from that spot.

That's the day I found out that pretty much all rattlesnakes love water and don't mind swimming around on it, chasing families all over creation and scaring Daddies just to get their kicks.

Had about a 4� diamondback water snake tag along with me beside the boat for about 30 yds on Hubbard Wednesday. I guess he didn�t get the memo that the water temp was 52 degrees and he shouldn�t have been out playing...Never seen a snake that active before in that cold of water.

I wish I could've stopped myself from reading beyond the title of this thread.

Glad to see you saw it in time before it was too late take care buddy.

Have any of you guys ever been bit by a cotton mouth? I have read million posts about them, and I got a few stories myself, but have never heard anyone post about gitting bit. I have read about dogs getting bit.

Oh my, that ski boat needs 10 gallons of gas and a match. That's a mess of snakes!!