My boys love snake too, even though they don't come across them very often here in the suburbs....
Mostly garter snakes around here. They have a unique defense...pick them up and they will defecate white really really bad snakey smelling stuff all over...yuck!
We spend some time in Gulf Shores for spring break, and my wife and I had seen a couple of snakes, and there are poisonous snakes down there, and the first thing my boys wanted to do was to go tromping through the tall grass and weeds looking for them !!! (we discouraged that, they also wanted to go into the weeds and lake looking for alligators!)
This summer while swimming in a local lake, my 9yr old stepped off a small log apparently right onto a small water snake, which then bit him on the ankle several times. At that point most people (myself included) would have run screaming like a girl (apologies to the girls out there!). But no, he reaches down to tries to catch it and gets bit in the hand several times....
Ahh..the young and fearless....