I had an encounter with a Cottonmouth while fishing OHL a couple weeks ago.
What part of Old Hickory? I've never seen one there.
I've lived on Old Hickory for about 23 years - leaving only for three years of school in Knoxville and about a year in an apartment in Antioch. I moved to Station Camp Creek in 1986, then got a house on Bledsoe Creek for a couple years, and now I live on the lower end on Drake's Creek. I've spent a lot of time on the lake and there just isn't much ideal cottonmouth habitat there. It's not swampy enough.
We used to see them all the time when I lived in Mississippi, before my family moved to Tennessee. One thing's for sure - when you see one in the water, they're easy to identify because they don't swim like a water snake. If there were some around here I'd like to find them. I'm not much of a photographer, but I'd like to try to get some pictures.
bd