Tall tale of a dam and a jumbuck

“I was following a group of them around the paddock, when he broke away and took off.

“He jumped onto a floating fish shelter and hid there. When I pulled the shelter into the bank and tried to get to him, he jumped off into the dam and swam to the opposite bank.

“I found him hiding beside a log.”

The young wether may have realised he was being rounded up for his last journey, or he may have known about the Waltzing Matilda poem, where the swagman jumps into a billabong to escape the trooper.

(The floating fish shelter is designed to protect fish in the dam from bird predation.)