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While fishing around Ontario Wi. Using a Rooster Tail I had a HUGE rainbow about 4-5# beach itself at my feet chasing my lure.      I then nudged it back into the stream.    That would have been a great fight on an ultralight rod!     CARPIO 

I suppose the best story comes from the Mecan River.  

A trout fisherman noticed a water disturbance that turned out to be a young hippo.
He exited the water and had a difficult time convincing the warden there really was a hippo in the Mecan.

Turns out the hippo had snuck out of a game farm and found it's way to the Mecan.

If I recall, theses events unfolded around 30 years ago.

Truth is stranger than fiction.

Your water snake story reminds me of the time I watched about a 6-8 water snakes clumped together on a branch above BEC.  I‘m sure they did it for warmth.  I’ve never seen it before or after that.  It was just east of Selmo Pond.  I’ve also had Bull Snakes shake their tails in dry leaves to sound like a Rattle Snake when I got to close.  I tapped a Musk Rat with my fly rod in a stream and he jumped out of the water and bit the crotch on my waders.  Glad I was wearing them! 

This was quite a few years ago but I was in a small stream fishing and all of sudden something catches the corner of my eye. Here it was  what looked like the biggest water snake  floating by me not more than 5' away. Needless to say I shot out of that stream like a rocket. Had a good laugh afterwards but my head was spinning like a owl the rest of the day.

I was waist deep in a trout stream when a huge beaver swam right by me under the water.  He did not notice me at all.

One other time, I released a trout and it swam behind me and used my leg as a current break.  

Fishing a small stream last fall. A small frog jumps into the water swims from rock to rock makes it 30 feet from shore. Rests on a large flat rock in a  half inch of water. I watch all of this thinking the beauty of nature. He swims another foot and vanishes with a big swirl. I cast my fly to  that spot a few seconds later and it explodes with a big brown leaping in the air it hits the water and my line goes slack. I real in and notice a small tug on the line I swing it up and on the line is the small frog hooked by the back foot. My son is standing there and says luckiest frog in the world .