With the smell of decaying swamp matter reaching their noses, Angelo and Rico knew they were close. Running through the Arboreal Arch as fast as they could, they reached a sandy beach in less than a minute.
“Look Rico it’s there, just like the book said – the fallen log that stretches into the water like a pier,” said Angelo, his excitement mounting.
“That’s the log that that Jimmy Catfish sat on just before all the trouble started,” Rico replied. Sun-bleached and worn smooth from time and usage by the catfish boy, the log ran from the beach in a sixty foot arc to the water where its tip dove beneath the surface. “He stretched out on that log one day back in the 1960s and summoned the monsters from the lake and they killed everything in sight.”
“That’s the story that the book tells,” Angelo stated, “but it does seem unbelievable that there could be 300 pound catfish in a Cape Cod pond.”
“That’s not the amazing part. The weight thing is easily explained,” Rico replied. “There’s plenty of food for them here and no competition for it, so they just keep growing as long as they live. What makes these catfish so extraordinary, is those razor sharp teeth that they supposedly have.”
“That’s something we’ll have to see to believe,” responded his partner. I’ve been wondering Rico, if there are giant catfish in this lake, how are we going to catch them with the tiny little worms we got from the bait store?”
Jimmy Catfish Beach, Cape Cod. Photo copyright by Bill Russo from “The Revenge of the EIEIOs” - 2017