- Yup, it was spotted again - the Flathead
Lake Monster.
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- After no sightings for five years, this
some-would-say-mythical creature was spotted again on Aug. 18 in the vicinity
of Gravel Bay, just north of Skidoo Bay, on the northwestern Montana lake's
eastern shore.
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- Jeff Herman, at the Missoulian, reported
on the sighting in his fishing report for the newspaper last week. He quoted
Jim Vashro, regional fisheries manager for the Department of Fish, Wildlife
and Parks in Kalispell, who received the report from an angler whose name
remains anonymous.
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- In this report, an angler was reeling
in a small lake trout that had been hooked about 120 feet down. As the
fish was coming up toward the boat, a large form - judged to be several
feet long - was observed for several seconds tracking the hooked fish as
it neared the surface.
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- Vashro said, the "shape ... and
tail fin were characteristic of a sturgeon."
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- Was it a sturgeon? Was it a monster?
Was it the monster?
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- Who knows?
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- It was the first sighting of a monster
in Flathead since 1993, when 11 sightings were reported. In all, FWP has
received information from a total of 78 sightings since 1889.
-
- Vashro said that of those sightings,
25 would fall into the category of a large fish that might fit the description
of a white sturgeon. The other 53 reports, again according to Vashro, generally
describe "a creature greater than 10 feet long" - even up to
60 feet long - characterized by "humps and smooth skin" whose
shape is "snake-like or eel-like."
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- What does Vashro think about the whole
thing?
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- "Something certainly seems to be
going on," he said. "Very credible people have seen something
variously described as a large fish or some kind of monster-like creature,
usually quite long in length."
-
- That doesn't mean Vashro necessarily
believes there's a monster in there. But he's not discounting the notion
either that something huge lives in the depths of Flathead Lake and shows
itself, from time to time, to the fishermen who venture out on its waters.
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