I was out boating in the flooded woods of southern Arkansas County (near the White River NWR) yesterday and had a few interesting experiences.  I expected to see A LOT of snakes in the trees and on logs trying to escape the floods.  However, I think we only saw a grand total of around 6 snakes, 4 of which were small banded water snakes.  We also saw one rat snake crossing the road.  The most interesting encounter almost sent a buddy to the hospital.  We were using a jet driven outboard and it kept clogging with debris.  We paddled the back of the boat near the shore at a bridge crossing so we could get out and clean the intake of leaves and sticks.  My bud went to jump on shore and then hesitated at the last second.  I turned to look in time to see a pretty big snake slithering away (as big around as my arm).  I immediately thought it was probably a cottonmouth, although it appeared very patterned.  He was pretty shook up and proceeded to tell me he was about a millisecond from jumping right on top of a 5' timber rattlesnake!  We finished what we were doing and gave him a minute to calm down.  We were able to track where the snake went under the bridge and got some photos of it before it went into a dark crevice under the bridge.  I can think of a few high spots down there right now that would be real herping hotspots   We also saw a deer swimming across a flooded field and a family of beavers seeking refuge on a floating log.  The weirdest (and creepiest) thing we saw were fire ants EVERYWHERE!  They formed floating masses that were visible all over the place.  As soon as I get the pics from my bud I'll post them.