Today the kids were home from school and we were all being lazy. I watched the History Channel for hours and the show they were running was Monster Quest.

One episode was about monster fresh-water fish.

When I was a kid back in Alabama, I heard rumours of monster catfish in Lewis-Smith Lake. My grandfather still remembers the time when a diver was scouting the bottom of the lake after a car went over a cliff and saw catfish down there that scared the crap out of him. Said they were so big that they could have easily swallowed him whole. According to About.com, that is a popular urban legend. But, my grandfather swears he read about it in the newspaper. Hmmmm. Sounds like that story has been going around since before I was born.



According to the History Channel, in Thailand, a 9-foot catfish was caught on the Mekong River. Some people tell of children being swallowed by giant catfish. I know one thing, I'll never look at fried catfish and hushpuppies in the same way ever again.

Now one thing I know is true. My grandmother loved to fish when I was a kid. I distinctly remember one day she was on the boat dock
(one of those that has the opening for the boat in the middle so people can get out of the boat on both sides) and saw what she believes was a gar....a very long gar. She said that fish glided through the water slowly and started going under the dock. When it's head emerged on the other side, she could see that it's tail still hadn't gone under the dock at all. The picture above has a boat dock, in the background, similar to the one we had. The next photo is one of an alligator gar. I'm not sure exactly what she saw or which species, but they can get very long.


She wouldn't let us swim off the dock for a long time after that day.