Thanks for the info sys! Most the snakes I see are just your standard water snake variety but I've had a couple of close calls and would really like to keep my snake venom intake to the recommended level...
heh heh, i screwed up last night and assumed you were near pittsburgh, pa. i now realize that it was pittsburg, ks. anyways, the snake is prolly still a northern, but it might be a plain belly. i can't see the head good enough to tell, looks like a northern though.
good stories about copperheads. i have to say, they sound pretty unlikely, and i'd normally just say you don't know the difference between a copperhead and a watersnake. but you sound like you spend a lot of time out and about, and if you're always out observing, eventually you'll see weird stuff, so i'll assume you did see copperheads doing those things. pretty cool.