I don't mean to contend with Faulkner. 1. because I like his posts and 2. because I don't know who's right. That snake is very common down hear in warm water. The backwater lakes off the Mississippi are full of them. 6 feet long specimins are common. Summer days would see the trees draped with them as they digested the lumps that segmented their bodies. Most old river rats called 'em Water Rattlers. Then more educated folks called them Banded Water Snakes. I've never known which was right. Snakes that I knew to be Cotton Mouths by the smell, fangs, and white mouth were mostly single colored, brown or black. The longest was 4 feet and most were less than 2. They share the diamond shaped head. The true Cotton Mouth swims with his whole body on top of the water. This fellow doesn't. They both have a nasty disposition. My buddy and I were catching frogs one night in Lake Enterprise, as far South as you can get and still be in Southeast Arkansas, when a heavy, flouncing, thumping hit the mid-section of the Jonboat. Neither of us could get our lights on him but both could remember the huge snakes that draped the limbs over our head in daylight. Luckily it turned out to be a 6 pound bass that had jumped into the boat. I'm not saying that this caused it. But I became a drinker for 20 years and my pal is still in a Baptist pulpit almost 60 years later.
