I often wonder how yakers can paddle around in many places as often the cottonmouth wants to rest in my bassboat splashwell.Have to shoo them out ,with rod or paddle.
As for types virtual smorgasboard,copperhead,timber rattler and pygmy rattler in the trace and lbl,and the canebrake in west tn.
West tn and just above in ky contain the highest populations of cottonmouths in the world with Murphies pond ky tops,thats just above Reelfoot and the end of the obion watershed chain which extends a long ways to Paris and slightly beyond.
Murphies pond the stats are unreal something like one every 200 sq ft.
If seen best to leave alone,and avoid,as a younger individual in W.Va was taught to step over sticks on the trail,and have looked back and seen I had stepped over a copperhead once then knew why.
Venomous snakes have a vertical eye pupil but best to leave all alone.