Originally posted by MikeNArk Nice capture. That snake looks like it could be aggressive. Are you certain that snake is not poisonous?
I always thought that a triangular head = poisonous, so if I were not standing on a wooden walkway with railing, I would not have gotten that close!. Definitely a triangular shaped head on this guy! But...according to several websites I found, the brown water snake is often confused with the cottonmouth. The key in identifying the two is whether or not you can see the eyes when looking straight down at the head from above, if you can see the eyes it's not a cottonmouth. Anyhow, they also stress that this snake will bite you if you mess with it, although not poisonous you will know you have been bitten!