afish,
I'd like to have a stick too, have something to poke it away with. But snakes, especially pit vipers (like rattlers), strike at heat as opposed to by sight. If you've ever used a stick to mess with a snake, even non-poisonous ones, its hard to get them to strike it, and thats why.
tom, yeah, people are making too much of snakes. A little caution is warranted in snake rich areas, but theres no need to not go there or walk around paranoid all the time.
As far as ticks or bees, so long as your not allergic to bee stings, then I see them as much more likely to cause you problems, but the resulting problems are not nearly as severe as a snake bite. Lime disease can be pretty serious, but I'd still choose it over bite from a timber rattler. I haven't had much of a tick problem from fishing, but I used to get them fairly often when I did more small game hunting than I do now.
As far as time of year, I saw my first snake last year in March. But the few rattlers I've seen have all been mid-summer.