Monday, May 30, 2011

Lake Champlain's Champ




I wrote about Champ before but now more and more people have seen him/her in Lake Champlain.
With the flooding in this lake and the Richelieu River, we have no way of knowing where he is. He is as elusive as Big Foot which more and more people see as well, and believe that now
Big foot might be either Indian Shamans, sent into the wild for ten years becoming wild or a man we have forgotten existed and lives in the wild.

Well Champ also has this same kind of story. They believe he may be a left over from dinosaur times.
Having done a lot of swimming in this area myself, I do know one thing which no one talks about.
Apart from the many different kind of fish this area holds, such as bass, sunfish, perch, pike,sturgeon and walleye, it also sports eels.
Not many people eat eels, nor do they eat the other fish because of pollution, so the fish in this lake and river could grow to be very big as well.

This Champ, looks snake like, almost like a huge eel.
Size changes behavior and we did have a boat broken in half in which fishermen like ourselves, were fishing in. Could be they caught themselves one huge eel and it broke their boat in half, killing the boaters, who were never found.

I remember snorkeling once in murchy water because a storm was brewing and the waves were getting to be high for the area.All of a sudden I came face to face with an eel.
It couldn't see me and I couldn't see it and we bumped mask and muzzle.
It got scared as did I and we both got out of each others way. lol

Snorkeling allows you to see eel behavior . On the US side they have Fort Montgomery along the edge of the shore line. I am not sure if the US did anything to rebuild it like we did Fort Lennox just up the river a bit, but if you snorkel it's easy to see one of these eels digging with such exuberance underneath, at the stone wall with their mouths and noses, to get at something.
You can't help but think, I am glad that's not me they are trying to get at.

There was a time they had huge cat fish who would come to shore and grab ducks.

This Champ just might be a huge eel, which means people need to be careful in good ol Lake Champlain and Richelieu River because just maybe, if there is one such huge eel, then there might be others and that's not even mentioning the catfish and other big fish growing and untouched due to toxic food intake.

Man sure gets a prize for killing nature. People used to drink this water and this area had so much to offer to growing families who brought their children out to enjoy life at its best.

I don't live there anymore but I sure do not forget all the time I spent on this river. In some ways I was Huckleberry Fin because I could have lived there for ever with the bull frogs and tad poles and so many different fish fries.
I do not forget all the dreams I had there and how I played out the historical dramas of Samuel de Champlain and the Iroquois. So much history can be found by Ol McCallums farm.

They were all good people . All gone now leaving their places and history to those who do not appreciate it as much as it should be.

So ol Champ makes his debut once in a while, to tell us all to be ware. He is still there. He is not afraid and he is still watching,taking care of his lake and river.

Some say that along this area are swampy bogs which go in so deep, that once you go in, you will find it hard to find your way out. Lots of things grow in there and it would be a terrific place for eels such as ol Champ to nest in.

Have a wonderful day :)

4 comments:

Gattina said...

Your story makes me think of the monster of Loch Ness in the UK, that's also a legend, and some people pretend they have seen it.
So yours could be a monster eel, why not ;)!

Akelamalu said...

A huge eel could explain this monster and the Loch Ness Monster too. :)

A Lady's Life said...

Gattina - Its funny but today I saw a documentary and they talked about eels.
a three foot eel is 30 years old and they live past 100 years old.
They grab lab sized dogs, sheep and even people and each eel lays 600,000 eggs.They can crawl across land to get to another water edge because they have a keen sense of smell and if the smell blood they attack like pirhanna bite and turn to rip the meet off or they dig into the body to the liver.

A Lady's Life said...

Akelamalu - I think you are right. Eels blood is poisonous but its tasty meat.
No one eats fish anymore so they will grow to tremendous size and we will not be able to swim in the rivers and lakes anymore.