Water Snakes aren't just brown, ugly snakes. You'd be quite surprised how lovely they can be.

I'm thinking he is probably Nerodia fasciata. In your area you have 5-6 Nerodia subspecies though. I'm around 99.8% sure it's a Nerodia. After all, they are the first snakes I kept and what ultimately got me into keeping snakes. Then again, it might be something else, I doubt it though.

They are an extremely interesting species to observe (in the wild and captivity) and their diet is extremely varied; anything from fish, birds, rodents, frogs, lizards, crawfish, etc. is fair game.