Fishing trio rescues 38 dogs from drowning in Mississippi lake

Insurance agents Bob Gist and Brad Carlisle headed out to a Mississippi lake with fishing guide Jordan Chrestman hoping to catch some crappies.

They came back with nearly 40 dogs whom they saved from drowning, according to the men, who took photos of the dramatic 8 June rescue and have since been feted as heroes on the local and national media circuits.

“Opportunities to help somebody are in front of us all the time,” Gist said in an interview about the dog rescue episode that the Associated Press published Friday. “Sometimes if you see something, do something.”

As the group first recounted to JonesboroRightNow.com, a news outlet in Gist’s Arkansas home town, he and his friend Carlisle took a recreational trip to Grenada, Mississippi, about 100 miles south of Memphis, to fish for crappie in a lake there.

Chrestman was guiding Gist and Carlisle on a motorboat when, early in their outing, they spotted what appeared to be a head bobbing in the water nearby.

“What is that out in the water?” Gist recalled saying, according to JonesboroRightNow. Chrestman reportedly yelled back: “I think those are dogs!”

It soon became clear there were numerous other heads in the water, too – and they all belonged to hound dogs who had plunged in while chasing a deer during a fox hunt.

“There were dogs everywhere,” Gist said to the AP about the bizarre scene greeting him and his companions. “They were kind of swimming in circles and didn’t know which way to go.”

The dogs’ owners were watching from the shore in horror – roughly a mile away – when Gist, Carlisle and Chrestman realized they had to act if the creatures had any chance of surviving their plight. The dogs were visibly growing exhausted as they frantically paddled.

Chrestman pulled the boat up to each dog while Gist and Carlisle grabbed as many as they could, as JonesboroRightNow reported. They brought some aboard and boated them back to shore.

Then, according to the AP, they made two more similar trips, ultimately rescuing a total of 38 dogs.

Gist took a photo during one of the trips which showed Carlisle standing, looking back and smiling while donning sunglasses. Several hound dogs with numbers painted on their sides for the fox hunt surround Carlisle and Chrestman, who is at the wheel of the boat.

Afterwards, the hunters and dogs’ owners offered to pay Gist and his companions. They estimated that the dogs had been in the water for up to an hour, and they were almost certainly doomed had it not been for the insurance agents and their fishing guide.

JonesboroRightNow reported that Chrestman turned down the offer, instead telling the dog owners: “When you see us in trouble, y’all come help us.”

Gist told the AP that he deferred to Chrestman.

“The hero here is Jordan” for recognizing the peril the dogs were in and speeding his boat over, Gist said. “If it wasn’t for Jordan, there would have been 38 dead dogs.”

• The AP contributed reporting