Lake Monster Story Lures Divers

PURSUING THE MONSTER CAT' OF ROOSEVELT LAKE

“This monster, I'm telling you, it was so big... I don't know how many feet. I got got a good look at it, and its mouth was big enough to suck you and that chair you're sitting in right up. You want to talk about monsters, I'm one man who can tell you they exist." Fevered like Dr. Abraham Van Helsing in obsessive pursuit of Count Dracula, I leaned forward and gripped the arms of my patio chair. "Tell me more," I demanded of my fisherman friend, Randi Rosenkoetter. My mind positively swooned at the vision: the fiend

more anxious, I swam closer to him, peered into his mask, and could tell by his slanting eyes he was smiling. We gave each other the okay sign to signify we were fine and willing to proceed.

I turned around in search of Kida. Just then the water became turbulent and cloudy, wiping out all visibility. I steeled myself, imagining the worst of what could be coming next. Then my fin touched bottom. I realized then that we, not a monster catfish, caused the turbulence by raising the fine mud dust at the bottom of Roosevelt Lake.

I held my depth gauge up close to my mask. We were now on our knees on the bottom at 35 feet.

Kida swam in close and gave us the okay sign, expecting us to return it if we were all right. He pointed north, and we swam on, skimming the bottom, heading for the nearby "cliff" Bill Cox spotted on his depth finder.

On our way toward the ledge, Kida stopped several times to photograph us scouring the bottom for cats. Ramsey told me later we were followed to the ledge by two huge largemouth bass. He stopped to look at them, and they peered into his mask.

My depth gauge showed that following the bottom had drawn us ever deeper - now near 40 feet. Ramsey touched me lightly on the back. I turned around, and he pointed to his mask and mine. They were fogged. We settled on our knees and "cleared" our masks, a technique that involves breaking the top seal of a dive mask to let the water rush in, then breaking the seal at the bottom under the nose and blowing air to blast the water out.

We'd lost Kida, but we could make out his regulator bubbles ahead of us, so we knew he was close-by. We headed on.

Suddenly Ramsey pulled back my shoulder and pointed down. One side of the lake bottom was muddy green and sprinkled with freshwater shells. The other side was black as a moonless midnight sky.

We'd reached the abyss. On our knees, we peered over. The idea was that we'd descend alongside the cliff and try to feel our way to the monster.

A sudden turbulence hurled Ramsey and me together, pitching us to the dark side of the deep. Then I felt a clamping around my right calf. Panic tingled up from my heart to my scalp. Desperately I tried to pull my leg free, but whatever had me kept hold. I banged on my tank to signal trouble and Ramsey rushed in.

Terrorized at what he saw, he frantically yanked my arms. Then Kida was below me, and, suddenly, my leg was free. But now Kida was thrashing around like something had him. I moved in closer. It was there: a jade-green dragon of a catfish with giant tentacles! We've had it, I thought, despairingly. But then . . .

Okay, okay. That's the thrilling climax I wish I could tell. The fact is, Ramsey, Kida, and I sat on that cliff edge for some time, deciding it was better for the catfish to come up from the abyss rather than for us to go down.

But he never came. And, just for the record, Arizona Game and Fish administrator Patti Sheerin says the biggest cat ever caught in Arizona's inland waters was a

THE MONSTER CAT"

65-pound, 52-inch flathead out of San Carlos Lake in 1951.

So what. That doesn't mean the monster isn't there. If I'd had just an ounce more grit, I'd have found him. And here's something else: Minckley doesn't believe in Roosevelt's monster cat, but he says there's a 30-foot sturgeon in the depths of Lake Havasu. For my part, I'm ready for Nessie.