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You’re right that cottonmouths are overrated as chasers

I think their stark slimy appearance and ribbon like squirmyness and quickness plus how they blend into the primordial muck makes them appear more ominous

They are like owls

By the time you see one up close he’s testing the air in your direction ready to hit

Being raised amongst cypress balds and mossy treed swamps in Mississippi and Alabama they were a fixture for us growing up

I’ve seen hundreds in the wild and almost bit as in truly almost 3-4 times and yes because I was on top of them

I was stringing old 36 inch pipe on three mile creek in mobile Alabama after Frederick came thru in 1980 and we scooped up a nest of them

Literally over 50 snakes in a medusa like clump scurrying everywhere on the creek sandy bank

They were scurrying in their chilly slumber

I lept upon the four foot tracks of the excavator

I had just been in that very hole stringing that section with a wire sling

A friend of mine was bit swimming and another catfishing

I give them a berth

Do copperheads and cottonmouths interbreed or is that light one a highland moccasin ?

That was our term for the lighter pattern water moccasin

I just remembered I had a friend bit near here in 2012 bush hogging and got out to untangle baling wire from the blade

He killed the snake with his pocket knife and got bit a couple more times and took it to the hospital to prove identity for the antivenin

He’s a self made home builder and he’s done real well but his redneck still rises to the top .. He’s pretty tough

He is from Yazoo city originally and ironically like you he’s a herp aficionado...grew up collecting all manner of snakes near Panther Burn

He was shocked he got bit by a water moccasin high on dry ground in the middle of a cow pasture several 100 feet above closest water source

I respect cottonmouths

They are as much a symbol of Dixie as a gator or a Kappa Delta