Ever been scared by something out there?

It was a cold, grey day. I decided to spend some of my afternoon fishing the beautiful Allegheny River in Pennsylvania. I was bundled against the cold, dressed in layers. In fact, many layers. Four sweatshirts and a denim jacket over my neoprene waders. The end result is that I look like "Ralphie's" little brother in "A Christmas Story", my arms stiffly out to my sides. I'm in so much trouble if I ever fall down in winter. (I must invest in some decent winter fishing fashion!)

I parked at the top of a hill overlooking the spot I was planning to fish. A trail leads down the 30 or so yards to the waters' edge and I waddled it with no real agility. (Though I didn't fall!) The area has a clear dirt beach maybe 10 feet from treeline to shore, and leading to the mouth of what I think it a runoff drain, though it's well disguised with overhanging vegetation and boulders around the mouth to the point where it would fool you into thinking it's natural until you look closely under the weeds and see the bricks used to form the opening.

I settled in and started casting a 1/4 oz Roostertail spinner, white body with a silver blade and white tuft on the hook. The Smallmouth were very friendly that day, and within an hour and a half I'd caught about 13. At this point with an icy breeze scraping my cheek I decided to take up position leaned against a large boulder which blocked some of the wind. I was balancing myself carefully between a number of basketball sized boulders, in ankle deep water. About 4-6 feet in front of me the bottom dropped off quickly to 5 feet, then after a foot or two more horizontally, over 9 feet.

The bass were hitting as the spinner skirted the edge of the first, more shallow drop. They were anyway, until suddenly there was nothing. No more bites, no chases, nothing. Ordinarily I discount this to the appearance of a predator near the school I'm fishing. A pike, or musky maybe. Oh, it was a predator all right, but not the fish I'd expected. In fact, it wasn't a fish at all.

As I mindlessly fan cast the area waiting and hoping for the bite to begin again, a small dark circle formed in the water only slightly more than a rod length in front of me, slightly off to the left. This circle got bigger, and bigger, when I suddenly realized that something large was rising up from the bottom of the river!

The next thing that happened is what really freaked me out: a black head, atop a long black neck (like those grainy pictures of the Loch Ness Monster), then broke through the surface and that neck kept getting longer. Finally, a large body broke the surface and I found myself face to face with...

...to be continued.