We have copperheads here in MD and I wear Rocky knee high snake boots mainly to protect my legs from the brush and briars I walk through and I get teased by others in our club for wearing them but Id rather be safe than sorry and I have been bitten once luckily by an 8 foot upset black snake.
Talk about tough though--my 80 year old great aunt went to her garden(Kentucky mountains) and was picking strawberries for a cake for us and she took a big glass bowl to put them in, like a fish bowl size. She was down on her knees picking and as she would put a berry in the bowl she would hear what sounded like a bell, she did this over and over and the sound rang out each time. My aunt stood up to see an 18 button timber rattler coiled up and every time she would put her hand in the bowl to drop a berry the snake would strike at her hand and hit the bowl making a ringing sound. Did my aunt run screaming like most, pfft no she went to the house and got a hoe, came back and lopped off that snakes head and brought it back to the house to show us how big it was. Dang thing was as big around as a man's arm and had to be 5 feet or more. I don't mind snakes and I give them the respect they deserve, if in my yard I take them including copperheads and move them off somewhere, no sense in killing them just because I don't like them or they aren't cuddly like a cat.
