02-21-2008, 02:33 AM
My brothers and I were fishing the Potomac for cats one night in Northern VA. My line started moving off up stream and I set the hook. I thought I tied into a large blue cat because it just dogged off without much worry. After about 20 minutes of give and take, I finally managed to see my sinker and leader. One of my brothers held the lantern and the other grabbed the net and waded into the muck to get the fish. He followed the leader all the way down to the hook, but we didn't see any fish, it looked like it was snagged on a big log.
He reached down to pull the hook free and the largest snapping turtle I have ever seen opened its mouth and hissed something horrible. He's lucky he didn't have his finger removed because his fist could have easily fit into the thing's mouth. The turtle just sat there with its mouth wide open. It was freaky because all you could see in the dark was its mouth.
When it hissed, my brother, who's a power lifter, must have jumped 6 feet into the air while screaming blasphemies. I think he needed to check his drawers after that one, and the rest of us were just dying laughing.
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He reached down to pull the hook free and the largest snapping turtle I have ever seen opened its mouth and hissed something horrible. He's lucky he didn't have his finger removed because his fist could have easily fit into the thing's mouth. The turtle just sat there with its mouth wide open. It was freaky because all you could see in the dark was its mouth.
When it hissed, my brother, who's a power lifter, must have jumped 6 feet into the air while screaming blasphemies. I think he needed to check his drawers after that one, and the rest of us were just dying laughing.
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