Some of the areas I work and tend to are infested with serpents (mostly cottonmouth water moccasins with a healthy number of copperheads in the mix). The cottonmouths are particularly irritating because they mostly stand their ground. Generally I just go around them or wait them out. I've also found that even when cottonmouths are ready to strike, usually they don't unless you actually get very close to them or touch them. I cannot tell you the number of times someone has stepped within an inch of a cottonmough and not been struck. I do not and will not allow my crews to hurt them. My thought is that if you let them live, maybe someday they'll let you live. However, we do sometimes paint them with tree marking paint going in so that we can better see them on the way out. You can smell cottonmouths, and that distinctive smell is one way I know to be extra alert on some of the existing trails. Even on colder days I don't lower my guard all that much because they can be out sunning them selves higher up in the taller grass. Don't think your safe just because your looking down while your walking. Be on the lookout for the kinds of things snakes eat, because if you see a lot of that (such as frogs - at least in my area), your going to sooner than later see a lot of vipers. One remote tract of land I tend to is traversed by a bayou named Serpent. I found it is aptly named, in that in a single day you can see over a hundred cottonmouths there. If you stop anywhere while working there and don't see one, look out because you may be standing on it.