Growing up water skiing in Texas, we always told ourselves the story (Texas myth?) about the skier who fell in the ball of water moccasins and never made it out alive. The Lonesome Dove crossing-the-Nueces scene only reinforced the legend. Regardless, I've always thought there was something more sinister about cottonmouths than any rattlesnake. I expect some OBs have some good and hopefully not apocryphal stories about the species?