Snakes... Bah!
I spent a lot of years tramping a lot of PA snake country and if anyone should have been bitten, it's me. I'm about 70% deaf and have a nasty balance problem (inner ear stuff) that means I'm always falling over into bushes and rocks and stuff. If snakes were a problem in PA, I should be dead 25 times or at least be down under 100 lb. from snakebite-induced tissue necrosis.
I think I *may* have seen the southbound end of a northbound rattler on Young Womans. Once.
And that's it.
On the other hand, in a single autumn fishing in the Pisgah NF in western NC, I saw at least a dozen copperheads. They were everywhere and you really did have to watch your Ps and Q's.
The nastiest snake I ever ran into was a water snake on LeBoeuf Creek in Erie County. I used to fish all the medium sized creeks in the area for smallmouth. They were (and probably still are) loaded with bass and some nice ones too, up to 19" on occasion. This snake was crossing the creek in front of me as I waded upstream. When I saw him, I kind of reverted to my childhood and decided to thwack him with my rod tip. That was a mistake. He swam right for me and struck my hip boot a half dozen times in rapid succession. Drove me right out of the creek, it was so creepy. Water snakes are mean..
Oddly, I finally saw my first positively identified rattlesnake about 3 years ago. In SW Wisconsin, no less. This was about the equiv. of seeing a woodland Caribou along Wykoff Run...🙂 Well, not quite. But, as I understand it, there are far fewer rattlesnakes in WI than in PA. This one was laying out on a blacktop road. I had to back up twice to be sure what I was seeing. But that's what it was, bigger than life.
I don't even think about snakes unless I am out west (Oregon high desert east of Bend) or down south in the warm season. I think the chances of a venomous snake encounter on the water in PA are probably better than meeting a woodland caribou, but not by much...🙂