Here's the story of the chase/attack...I don't know if y'all know that moccasins/cottonmouths have a odor to them, the dogs will scent them and kill. Thank goodness for that, cause I would had been bitten many times, I've seen the dogs bitten lots of times too.
Ok, you know I live in the swamps on a river, so I have my share of these nasty critters. On this particular day, I had been keeping a close eye on a cow that was having a calf. She had moved to different locations and finally right on the river bank. I left her alone for about 2 hours so she could clean her calf up, and after the calf was up & nursing I would come back to drive her away from the riverbank. Well, when I was ready to head back down there, I heard her mooing & snorting like crazy and she was pawing the ground & charging at something. When I got there (on the ATV), I saw the cottonmouth striking at her and she was trying to protect her baby. Well, the cow dog (Ike), who is a snake killer knew well enough to stay away from a cow that just had a calf, so he was no help to me at the time. I picked up the longest, biggest cypress limb, now that thing was about 12' long...the limb, not the snake. I walked toward the snake and slammed the stick down on his head or was it the body

Anyway, the 12' limb broke so it was now about 8' long well, that snake was charging me I just kept slamming down on him as I was scooting backward. My heart had already jumped out of my chest, cause I was backing into water, I was literally scared, my knees were knocking like crazy & my whole body was shaking. Well, I had managed to grab another thicker limb and really crashed him in good & dead. It took me about 4 hours to calm down, even after I walked into the house I was still cautious of a snake lurking behind a chair ready to jump at me.

To this day, I always carry a .22 rifle or pistol with me.

RR