A Fish Tale

The day began with such heavy air and dark clouds you would get wet just sitting around. The humidity was ridiculous! As the day progressed it was mentioned that it would be a great day for fishing by my husband; I readily agreed and suggested taking the boat since we had just gotten it fixed. We decided it would be best to go someplace close to home just in case. This is when he called his buddy  to see if him and his wife wanted to join us fishing on the private lake they have (and give us permission) access to. A few minutes later the buddy called back and said “Yes” and told us the times he and his wife would be home. So we got things together and waited for the “We’re ready!” call.

We headed to our friends house where we finished loading up the boats and getting EVERYTHING into our boat. They had theirs ready to go already. We head to the boat launch. She unlocks the gate and they put their boat into the water with no problems getting it to the other side of the dock so we could unload ours. At this time my husband says “we need a new rope for the front of this thing!”; he backs the trailer into the water and the boat starts floating off with the aid of said “bad rope” and me on the end of the dock. The boat starts floating as it is now off the trailer; just as I start pulling it back to the dock so we could get in, the rope breaks and I am standing there holding a short piece of rope and all I could say was “um HONEY, WE HAVE A PROBLEM!”, our daughters are standing behind me telling me to jump into the water and go get it! Our friends, kids and I are laughing hysterically while all my husband said as the boat is floated away with all of our life jackets, camera, fishing gear, etc is “I’m glad I put the plug in!” We all laughed even harder. Our friends loaded my husband into their boat and took him out on the lake to recover our free floating boat. Finally we headed out to fish…

We caught a few small bluegills, small perch (bait), and some sunfish. It wasn’t bad as we floated along and fished away. As the sun sank we had floated almost the full length of one leg of the lake. By this time we were catching some good sized pan fish, seriously I caught several that I couldn’t wrap my had around to get the hook out of!

Our cohorts pull back up to us and suggest we head back to where we started fishing since that’s where all the big ones went during that time of day. Our plan was to fish maybe another half hour or so, it was only 8:30 after all and summer! We were happily fishing away catching fish after fish when we hear “HEY LOOK AT WHAT I GOT!” It was a big enough fish that I could see that it was in fact big without my glasses on! Then “SPLASH” and a few curse words, my husbands buddy lost his big fish! The taunting began; anything of size was held up for the others to see, and actually we were fishing about 50-75 yards apart so we could see pretty well and hear REALLY well. There was another small boat in our area and some people standing on their dock laughing at our antics.

This is when a snapping turtle decided to start attacking our friends boat. It was hitting it so hard we could hear the “THUD” from where we were at. They had to pull their fish basket out of the water and put it into the boat since the turtle was going after it. It was chasing the fish they where reeling in and at one point tried to climb in with them!
Hubby's buddy began attacking back with an oar in an attempt to get it away from the boat, his wife was not happy about him provoking the turtle and was telling him to stop because she did not want in their boat with them! We were laughing so hard we could hardly contain ourselves! We did catch some short video footage of the attack and resulting broken oar where you can see the broken piece floating away. There is a second short video called that we caught while the buddy was dangling a fish above the water and the turtle comes out of the water after it!

After teasing our friends, entertaining everyone on the shore for a half an hour or better we went over to their boat with ours, there was only one option left…tag team it and get it out of the lake. We figured as big as it was and as aggressive as it was it was our only option since MANY kids swim in the lake as well. On the way there I grabbed our BRAND NEW net and dug out one of our oars. We got within 2 feet of their boat with the snapper between us. The buddy had a fish on his hook and says “Ok, when you’re ready let me know” my husband says “Now” and buddy drops the fish into the water, the snapper headed straight for it and just before it got to the fish my husband stuck the net in and the snapper swam right into it!

The next thing I hear is “GET TO SHORE NOW!” I am sitting on the handle of the net and holding it with my husbands help WHILE he’s driving the boat to the launch. I was using the oar to keep it from climbing out of the net and that was not easy. I could hear our friends wife laughing as I was yelling at the turtle to stop it and moving to keep it in there. We made it to shore and my husband grabs both the net and the oar and jumps out of the boat like his butt was on fire! He got it up on shore

the above picture is of it under the net while we waited for our buddy to run home and get something to kill it with, in the mean time the broken oar came in handy as my husband shoved it into the turtle’s mouth to prevent it from biting anyone! Our buddy arrives back with a knife that really didn’t do much but made it angrier! It was hissing around the stick even!

After all the photos were taken my girlfriend and I used the broken oar in the mouth, the good oar and the net to get it into the back of the truck!  We shoved it in the bed as far as we could and it was still trying to attack us! When we FINALLY got it and the fish home an hour or so later that thing was STILL MOVING!

The moral of this story...sometimes a fish tale turns out to be all about a snapping turtle!