This thread is old, and its too late now, BUT

I live at Reelfoot Lake, and while snakes dont bother me too much, there are alot of them here.

There are alot of cottonmouths here. And yes they do hang in the trees. Usually in May and June I see one EVERY time I go fishing. There was a dead one on the ramp last weekend, not to mention that I was motoring through a ditch about an hour after I got on the water the same day and there was a big one right in the middle of the ditch. I saw him at the last second and he actually coiled up in the water and struck at the boat. A couple weeks before that we were fishing at night and when i got out of the boat at the ramp there were two small ones on the ramp. Again, I see one pretty much every time I go fishing.

That being said, Im not one of those who freaks out about it like alot of other people do here, but it is widely known here locally that cottonmouths are a common appearance here. If you keep your eyes open you generally dont have to worry about one coming in on you!