It was black with copper rings... I did not kill it. I can not find a good pic online. I could not tell about eyes, it looked to have a very pointed tail. (Lake Fork area)
Does anyone know if it is poisonous?

Cotton mouth will be black with copper ri gs, looks like a dark copperhead. They are usually fat, and fairly short, maybe 3 ft long. Best way to tell is to measure how deep the hole is after a bite. So just stick your hand out and wait

did it look like this?



if so no not poisonous

banded water snake, harmless

had one on the back of the boat last week that I had never seen before, black/skinny/3-4 yellow bands and about 3.5' long.

just hung out and sunned for a while then left.

Hop
That is a northern watersnake. We dont allow northerners here in Texas. You should know this

Woulda got killed if it woulda snuck up on me. Harmless or not I don't like snakes. They look like demons.

Hopalong I wish it looked like that!
Outfishday described perfect
I tried to kill it in shorts flip flops and a shovel. OOPS!

Notice the head. Triangle shape is bad.
They swim differently too. Watersnakes you normally see 1/3 of body outta water, mocassin looks like it floats more. Most of it will be visable on top of the water. This is not fool proof though
[img]http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTUAJYu7qidYn15NOtx_LxYsGurWFw-oll8I8PmBRZM7ssLj1M4qQ[/img]
Notice it floats

I would not kill if was harmless.

You can also tell by the shape of the head. A common water snake has an oval shaped somewhat narrow head and a cottonmouth will have a triangular shaped head and will be wider than it's body. A cottonmouth will also give you the open mouth warning if threatened, hence where the name comes from........

It looked like it was triangle shape. It was really pretty... Very black with very copper rings a couple inches apart.

That picture is the shape for sure.

pics of water moccasin/cottonmouth.

https://www.google.com/search?q=water+mo...ih=785#imgdii=_

It was not happy, it was obvious it knew where it was going.