I finally got around to going fishing this morning but after a while I ran out of worms.
Then I saw a cottonmouth with a frog in his mouth, and frogs are good bass bait.
Knowing the snake couldn't bite me with the frog in his mouth, I grabbed him right behind the head, took the frog and put it in my bait bucket.
Now the dilemma was how to release the snake without getting bit.
I grabbed my bottle of Jack Daniels and poured a little whiskey in its mouth.
His eyes rolled back, he went limp, I released him into the lake without incident, and carried on my fishing with the frog.
A little later I felt a nudge on my foot. There was that same snake with two frogs in his mouth.