Most people who claim to have seen 'water moccasins' (their official name is 'western cottonmouth') actually see banded water snakes, which are harmless.
They are out there, though, so it pays to be careful.
(Not saying you didn't see one, chris, but I've seen people kill harmless snakes before out of their misidentification and general snake phobia).

Very true! We have people all the time kill 'water moccasins' in the neighborhood and they are actually just water snakes or rat snakes.

This one is a diamondback watersnake and is very common and often mistaken for cottonmouths. Drscribed as non poisonous but very aggressive. I've had them strike at me while bank fishing. Scare ya to death even if non poisonous.

one of the ways you can determine if its a moccosin is that itt'll shake its tail the same way a rattle snake does when you spook it.... it doesnt have rattles though obviously, but if its in some dry grass it might shake the grass and make the same noise.

the one that almost got me was inside of a box in a boat house storage closet on LA. i was going into the closet to locate a sink i was supposed to be installing in a granite top in the boat house. when i opened the box it heard the rattle and damn near jumped out of my skin! when i went back to investigat i realized that it wasnt a rattle at all, just the snake rattling its tail up against the side of the box. he was in there eating a clutch of baby mice. i had no idea what kind of snake it was untill i did some research on it. when i told a co-worker he said it might have been a moccosin so i looked it up on the internet and found a positive id. had i know what it was i wouldnt have tried taking it out of the box!

I was always taught to look how they sit in the water. Harmless* water snakes swim in the water while moccasins swim on it.

*they still hurt like heck if they bite.

I caught a 9 lb 6 oz bass on dough last spring. Bass guys in boats were catching zip...

^ this guy has the best forum name ever