It happens every spring.

    I’m walking through the woods somewhere in the Pineywoods and come dangerously close to a cottonmouth water moccasin.

    Last week I was out on my deer lease north of Deweyville looking for a place to hunt hogs and had one of those moments where you just know something is wrong.

    I looked down and little more than a foot away from me was an 18-inch cottonmouth coiled up and ready to strike. I slowly eased back, took some photos of the reptile and left it alone.

    In East Texas, cottonmouths are the most likely to be encountered of the poisonous snakes. There are many harmless water snakes, including the banded and green water snakes, that get shot or hacked up for looking like cottonmouths, but the real deal is not harmless at all. In fact, they are the most aggressive poisonous snakes in the United States.

    The aggressive nature of cottonmouths has to do with their territoriality, a trait unique among snakes. Cottonmouths will stake out a territory and actively defend it. Their first line of defense is to show the white lining of their mouths (hence the name cottonmouth) to try to scare off any aggressor. If that does not work, the snake will gladly bite and in some instances will not let go.

    Cottonmouths are sort of like pit bulls in that they lock in on a bite, and as anyone experiencing this will tell you, it is a very painful situation.

    Cottonmouth venom is hemotoxic, meaning that it attacks the muscle tissue and causes severe tissue damage. In nature, this helps soften up prey items so they are easier to swallow and digest. If you receive a bite, however, that means week of treatment and therapy.

    For those venturing into cottonmouth country, the only real way to identify one beyond the shadow a doubt without picking it up is to look at its eyes. If the pupils are round, it is nonvenomous, but if they catlike (vertical ellipsis or “slit”), it is the bad boy. This is true of all pit vipers (cottonmouths, copperheads, rattlesnakes).

    Most water snake species in Texas mimic the cottonmouth by showing their white mouth when agitated, and even changing their head into a pit viper-like diamond shape. They will even strike at you; although their bite can does nothing more than cause a little pain.

    The best thing to do is to leave the up-close and personal identification to idiots like me who fool with snakes. Give all the ones you are not sure of plenty of space.

    Rattlesnakes are the most widely distributed serpents in Texas, with several subspecies inhabiting different regions.

    The danger of rattlesnake bite increases as you travel westward into the territory of the western diamondback, which is common in South Texas, the Hill Country, and on into North Texas.

    East Texas has two subspecies of rattlers, the threatened timber (canebrake) rattler, and the rarely seen pygmy rattler. Timber rattlers are a shy species of rattler that most often dwells around deadfall in thick pine forests and river bottoms. They can grow to lengths of 6 feet, but people rarely see them due to their reclusive nature and low population.

    The pygmy rattler grows to about 18 inches but the average specimen is much smaller than that. I encountered one a few years ago in Newton County and had to literally kneel down and get within a couple of feet of the snake to hear it rattle. Rattles are a rattler’s way of warning a threatening figure and, in the case of the pygmy; it had better be low to the ground or have good hearing because they are not very loud at all.