Fishheads dangerous fish story!

Two of my friends decided to go cat fishing one night below the Meldahl dam on the Ohio River. The names have been changed to protect the innocent! One of my friends has a 15ft 70’s style bass boat about 6ft wide. The trip started innocent enough with the two of them launching without incident, motoring up to the dams tailrace and actually catching a few decent cats. Suddenly George feels a heavy surge on his fish pole, “I have a big fish on” he says to Shane. The fight is on. George was well armed with 50lb test on a short but limber boat rod, he fought the fish for nearly 10 minutes before the fish came close enough for either to see. The one thing they forgot was a hand held flashlight, but they both had those little hats with flashlights on them like miners hats but with very low lighting. Now George is standing up in the boat, pumping and reeling the fish up near the middle of the boat, Shane has the net and is peering into the dark waters to get a look at this fish. All of a sudden the fish comes bursting out of the water right at Shane who lets out a terrified shriek, “SSSNNAKE” and falls backwards on his butt. George says “That’s no snake it’s a giant Gar, net him“. Now the net they have is about 3ft around and Shane says “ I don’t think it will fit in the net.” George tells Shane to try to get the net under the tail when he pulls the head out of the water and lift it into the boat. “OK, Ill try.” says a slightly hesitant Shane. George starts to pump and reel this fish up to the boat. The fish surges again right next to the boat, but this time George swings the fish halfway into the boat and Shane unfortunately succeeds in getting the net under the fish, to this day I do not know how. Flop, into the boat comes a 6+ ft long gar and it is madder than hell at being there. Shane is screaming for his life trying to get away from the gar as it flops this way and that and appears to be chasing him toward the front of the boat. Meanwhile rods, tackle boxes, coolers, etc. are being knocked all about the boat, some stay inside the boat some go out of the boat. George has found refuge from the havoc in the bottom of the boat standing on top of one of the seats leaving Shane to battle the fish inside the boat. “Get that Fxxxxxx fish out of the boat.” Shouts George “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” screams Shane crawling on hands and knees on the bottom of the boat. Shane is quickly running out of room in the boat in which to escape this thrashing 6ft long prehistoric creature from hell. Suddenly the fish is on Shane: “HE'S BITING ME, HE'S BITING ME!!!!” screams Shane George now finds the courage to climb down from the seat and grabs up the net and flips the thrashing fish out of the boat rescuing Shane from a certain fate worse than death. As they both sigh a breath of relief, one of the rods, the one the gar was and is still hooked to suddenly surges from the back of the boat nearly hitting George as it streaks toward the briny deep. Neither fisherman attempted to grab the rod and sacrificed it for the good of the crew.

Well, the two of them came straight to my house to tell me this fantastic story of which I did not believe, “Gars don’t bite people.” I said. Then they showed me the boat and the wreckage inside of it, still not believing Shane pulls up his shirt and sure enough, the shirt is shredded in two places and there are two very distinct beak like bite marks of mammoth proportions on Shane’s back and to this day Shane will cut his line if a gar gets it and becomes shaken at the site of gar even in a 20ft bass boat.