Believe it or not to the bank
I am 60 now but back when I was around 27 I was fishing a small lake, not sure of the size around 200 acres maybe. It was daylight but very early in morning in the early fall, leaves had begun falling but there were plenty left on the trees. I was fishing a little cul de sac off the main body, maybe 60 ft deep by about 30 to 40 feet wide. When I heard the unmistakable sound of something coming through the leaves on the ground, so I stopped fishing and was trying trying to see what it was. It was a big ole rabbit. When he got to the water he didn’t stop but entered the water and started swimming. His intentions were pretty clear by the course he was taking, he was swimming in a half circle so to speak, with designs on hitting the other side of that cul de sac. As I mentioned it wasn’t that far. I had ceased to move just watching and then when about 15 to 20 feet away he spied me. He turned and retraced his course but to my surprise when he reached the tall grass growing out from the bank he just floated there, not even trying to return to the bank. I was a bit puzzled but only for a moment, I heard something else coming through the woods and leaves. 2 big black dogs. Not beagles or hounds, can’t say for sure what kind they were but they weren’t barking, just trailing him. They sniffed around the edge of the water for a bit then lost interest and left. This whole time the rabbit was just floating there in the grass and weeds. Then I got my net and thought I’ll just dip him up, of course that didn’t work, when I got anywhere near close enough he swam to the bank and was gone. I grew up in the country and owned beagles and rabbit hunted and had always heard that a rabbit would swim if he could hit the water to lose the dogs but I never thought to witness it.
Also, several weeks later I was fishing the same body of water and was running the gas motor when I rounded the bend where that cul de sac was. There was a log out in the water, not attached to the bank and on it was sitting a rabbit. The same one? Who knows. I never slowed up, just kept going. I know it’s a lot to believe, not sure I would myself had I not witnessed it. But me the rabbit and the good lord know it to be true.
