\n<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0I’ve seen every documentary about the Loch Ness monster and all of his cousins ever made.\u00a0 Shows about “Champ” from Lake Champlain or “Ogopogo” from Okanagan Lake in British Columbia will always get me to watch.\u00a0 There is even the legend of “Peppie” from Lake Pepin right here in Minnesota.\u00a0 When I lived in Northern Minnesota I heard from more than one source of an alleged thing that lived in Farm Island Lake by Aitkin.\u00a0 Every winter it supposedly would show up at someone’s spear hole and scare the hell out of them.<\/span><\/p>\n
Now\u00a0I won’t go so far as to say that I’ve actually seen a version of Nessie, but I’ve seen some things.<\/span><\/p>\n My kids say there is no such thing as monsters.\u00a0 I disagree.\u00a0 Check out a tiger, a great white shark, a grizzly bear, an anaconda.\u00a0 These are all monsters as far as I\u2019m concerned.\u00a0 They will all kill and eat you.<\/span><\/p>\n Same for crocodiles.\u00a0 I saw one once.\u00a0 This was an American crocodile, not known to be as vicious as their Nile or Aussie cousins.<\/span><\/p>\n This one was in the Flamingo Marina.\u00a0 Sarah and I rented a canoe to take out into Florida Bay.\u00a0 \u201cIs that a crocodile I just saw?\u2019 I asked the gal at the concession.\u00a0 “Oh yeah, that\u2019s Sarge, just stay away from him and he won\u2019t bother ya.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Not my picture , but this is a croc at Flamingo<\/p><\/div>\n I\u2019m pretty bold when it comes to approaching various creatures, but I\u2019m going to go ahead and steer clear of the 12-foot-long friendly dinosaur living in your marina, especially when I’m in a canoe.\u00a0 Sure enough, we quickly and quietly paddled by while Sarge glared at us from fifty feet away, avocado eyes and his algae covered scutes barely showing above the dark water.<\/span><\/p>\n Another time farther north along the Gulf Coast a giant manta ray coasted silently past, just above the bottom in the clear water where we were staked out for tarpon.\u00a0 My friend John, who is as cool as they come, said in his understated way of talking \u201cWow man, that\u2019s some Discovery Channel shit right there\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n A guide once told me there are no giant manta rays in Florida<\/p><\/div>\n The thing was as big as the boat, and I was fully puckered until it was well past us. \u00a0\u00a0It looked super sinister, perhaps deserving of its nickname \u201cDevil Ray\u201d, but we all know they are harmless.\u00a0 But what if it jumped and landed on your boat\u2026?<\/span><\/p>\n Now this next sea monster isn\u2019t so easily explained. It wasn\u2019t exactly a monster, but could be perhaps better described as a freak of nature.\u00a0 I was much farther north, on Big Boy Lake near Remer, Minnesota.\u00a0 I was out with a couple of friends, mostly fishing for bass, mostly catching pike.\u00a0 My friend Dan was driving his Tuffy boat from one spot to another, I\u2019m sitting on the front deck.\u00a0 He happened to be looking back at the wake when something caught his eye.\u00a0 He cut the throttle and went into a hard turn. He was looking back, yelling something and pointing to where the boat has just been.\u00a0 \u201cWhat\u2019s going on, what did you see?\u201d I yelled.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t know\u2026 I think it was a\u2026a\u2026a\u2026muskie?\u201d \u00a0[He later said that what he saw was WAY too big to be a muskie, but it was the only thing he could think of at the time] That\u2019s all I needed to hear, the boat was coasting to a stop and I had already stood up and was casting a black Eagletail in the direction he was looking.\u00a0 Muskies are known to come up in a boat wake, so this isn\u2019t unheard of.\u00a0 What is unheard of is the thing that came up next to the boat.\u00a0 It was a turtle.\u00a0 A snapping turtle.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n We\u2019ve all seen big snappers before, I\u2019ve seen hundreds, maybe thousands of snappers in my life. I\u2019ve been known to grab one on more than one occasion.\u00a0 This thing was so much bigger than any other snapper I\u2019ve ever seen, it was like a different animal. \u00a0It was over two feet across, and its head was the size of a football. It dove back out of sight almost immediately, not before we could all point and yell \u201cAAAAIIIGGGHHHHH!!!! Look at that!!!!\u201d.\u00a0 Let me say again, all of us in the boat are very familiar with snapping turtles, and we all got a good look at this one.<\/span><\/p>\n Wes Prewett’s Alabama record 200 lb Alligator snapper. This is the size of what we saw that day.<\/p><\/div>\n If you look at a picture of a full-grown example of the common snapping turtle\u2019s southern cousin, the alligator snapper, you get an idea of the size of this thing.\u00a0 Our northern snapping turtle, called \u201ccommon snapping turtles\u201d have a max weight of 75 lbs.\u00a0 Coincidentally I had a magazine back at camp that had a picture of the Minnesota state record snapper, which was around 75 lbs.\u00a0 That night I dug out the magazine and we laughed–the thing we saw was easily twice the size, probably more.\u00a0 Alligator snappers often achieve triple-digit weight, and reports of them up to 400 lbs. are out there.\u00a0 Was what we saw a lost alligator snapper?\u00a0 They are known to be as far north as Illinois.\u00a0 Maybe someone transplanted one.\u00a0 Or just due unknown circumstances did a common snapper greatly exceed its normal lifespan of 100 years?\u00a0 I was on this lake with my kids last summer.\u00a0 When we were swimming I couldn\u2019t help but wonder if this creature was still prowling the lakebed.<\/span><\/p>\n To this day Dan and I will reminisce about that day and what we saw. \u00a0Ask him, his story is the same as mine.<\/span><\/p>\n Next sighting was even farther north.\u00a0 On Lake Chauekuktuli in Alaska.\u00a0 Tikchik Lodge alumni know this lake.\u00a0 It\u2019s nestled in the Taylor Mountains, 23 miles long and 900 feet deep, it is one of several big deep lakes in the headwaters of the Nuyakuk River, which feeds the Nushagak River. \u00a0It\u2019s a 20-minute boat ride from the lodge, and is home to abundant lake trout and char.\u00a0 On the day of the sighting the weather was very uncharacteristic for Alaska-bright sun, no wind, temp in the 70s.\u00a0 I had two guests in the 18-foot Lund, we passed through a connecting river known as the Northwest Passage and were headed across Chauekuktuli to fish in front of the Allen River. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n![\"Not](\"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/monster-loch-ness.jpg\")
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