Almost no one outside of the South believes cottonmouth stories. When I was a kid, we'd go fishing from the banks at nearby stock tanks. One day there were two large water mocassins on a pile of branches in the middle, about 50 ft away. I looked later and only one was on the branches, a ripple spreading out from where the other was. Next thing I know, this snake comes onto the bank right in front of me. I panic up the side and it was still coming. I picked a big rock and threw it down. The snake slithered back into the water with a serious kink in its back.
They attack fish on stringers right at your feet. Saw a catfish get attacked and it had two puncture marks on its back. Didn't die so I guess the snake didn't inject it with poison.
Water mocassins/cottonmouths will come after you, unprovoked. I *really* don't like 'em. Rattlesnakes are nothing, they run as fast as they can. You have to step on one to get bit. Mocassins hunt you down...
And the mocassins can swim!! When we would visit my grandparents out in the country, I hated the swimming hole. I just knew they would come get me. And waterskiing,,I always fear skiing into a nest of them. It happened alot when I was growing up,,people ending up in a nest of mocassins and dying.
My sister and I were hunting dewberries in a large field in Houston when I stepped on the head of a water mocassin. I was 8 or 9 and didn't weigh all that much. I told her to run to the 7-11 that was up on the road because I wanted her out of the way and also wanted her to bring back an adult if needed. Once she had gottten far enough away, I jumped and ran as fast as I could after her. Thankfully, I didn't get bit and that was the closest I ever got to one of those!
I do see them up here in Oklahoma when we go fishing but usually they're after your bait and don't bother you. Course, I don't take any chances either.