I guess I should say when we went snake hunting as kids , it was to play with them, not to kill them. I used to give all snakes around the house a pass, even copperheads Now I'm an old guy with a 7 year old daughter, so copperheads no longer get the pass,but the rest do. I really don't won't water snakes at the pond so they may not get a pass.
We had water (not moccasin) snakes at our place a couple of years ago. However, when the LMB got big, the snakes disappeared...
