Northen water snake

No problem Joel, I've been caught by that forum button too. You might want to search some of the old threads on resizing images for presentation, your larger photo is smaller than the 720 pix on longest side original. Getting things set up initially comes with a learning curve but once you get past that it's quick and easy.
I don't shoot reptiles much, mainly because I so rarely encounter them. Ok, I'll add, I'm not too fond of them either. But their secretive nature and their noticeable lack of legs obviously makes them very challenging to shoot. I'm sure you would have appreciated him showing his head a bit more, or at least I do. You did capture the eye between the blades of grass, so that's actually pretty cool. The holy grail of nature photography, sharpness, seems to be eluding you a bit on this one Joel. Even the sharpest photos require sharpening in post to get the most out of the file. Usually I selectively sharpen the subject, maybe a little extra for the eyes if needed. In some cases, like here I "might" sharpen the entire image, as long as it doesn't create too much noise. You got a good low point of view in this photo.