I say this as I'm knocking on wood....I've only had one close call, and that was close enough.
I was walking around Lake Wapapello in southern Missouri last May. The lake was up and I stepped up onto a boulder, luckily I didn't step off the other side. I caught a cottonmouth's head move to display its nice white mouth.[:-] Had to be 3 to 3-1/2 ft long and as thick as a baseball. The St. Louis Zoo has one in its reptile house that looks like it's twin. I haven't been back to that lake since.
