The problem with Cotton Mouths, is that they can sometimes be aggressive!
I've hunted in areas like that when I was younger. I was dove hunting, along a canal bank at a Friend's dairy, and must've killed a dozen or more Pygmy rattlers. Seemed like every where I put my foot one was pretty close. Glad I wasn't fishing, and decided to sit down!
We do have some nasty little critters down here, and getting imports to boot!
And to think when I was a kid, my Friends, and I would wade the irrigation ditches, on a Friends Tomato farm, and whack cotton mouths, and copper heads with sticks. We would get quite a few of them sometimes. Not in the mood for that now. Something to do with growing older, and getting a touch of intelligence, now and then.
Wayne