Having a joint by the river, it's often in the water (5)
I believe the answer is:
hippo
'it's often in the water' is the definition.
'having a joint by the river' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'joint' could be 'hip' (part of body) and 'hip' is present in the answer.
'river' could be 'po' (Italian river) and 'po' is found within the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for hippo that I've seen before include "Massive thick-skinned animal of African rivers" , "One thick-skinned" , "African wallower (abbr)" , "Semiaquatic animal" , "African animal (shortened)" .)