Rat Man
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Sorry, this tale is another repeat, but many of our current members weren't around the last time I told it. My late wife Marie was eight and a half months pregnant with daughter Kate. We were fishing from the shore at beautiful Batsto Lake in the Jersey Pines. Marie was kicked back in a shays lounge and I was monitoring some rods in sand stakes. In a very startled voice I heard Marie say "Get it! Get it!" I thought she was talking about a rod getting a hit so I said "Get it yourself." I looked over at her just in time to see a huge rattlesnake, the likes of which I'd never seen before, slither into the brush. While a very pregnant Marie was sunning herself the snake came up in her chair to join her. She did everything wrong and it's a miracle she wasn't bitten. I had been drinking some as I was prone to do while fishing back then, but that snake didn't make sense. Even though I just got a glimpse of the last foot or so of it, the thing was huge. Plus it was spotted sort of like a Leopard but with less spots. And it was definitely a Rattler. Well I know there are no rattlesnakes that big back in the Pines and I know there are no spotted ones so I blew it off. A few weeks later Marie and I were back in the Pines again, this time at a place called Caranza Memorial. This is ten or twelve miles from where we were fishing. We were just kicking around and there was the same kind of snake again. This time I got a better look at it. It was ridiculously large, spotted, and definitely a Rattler. WHT? Marie and I saw it one other time at a campground. A few years later, when Kate was about eight, her, my father, and I were shore fishing at Beaver Dam Pond on the Mullica River, again back in the Pines. We were there for a while having some success. We looked across the pond, maybe two hundred yards, and there was the same kind of snake Marie and I had seen, entering the water. He was swimming straight toward us. This was going to be no fleeting glance this time. Unfortunately this was before the age when everyone had a cell phone camera but we all locked eyes on it. We wanted to be sure we were all seeing what we were seeing. It took five or ten minutes for the snake to make the swim. Finally it slithered out of the water just a handful of yards from where we were standing. How I wish I had a camera!!! We were all completely sober and there was no mistaking what we were looking at. I owned very big snakes so I can judge their size well. The thing was huge, sixteen to eighteen feet, light skin, almost white, with dark spots. And it was absolutely a Rattler. Of the four of us who saw this species of snake just Kate and I are alive now. If I saw it four times I'm sure others have too. They probably didn't report it because they didn't want to seem crazy, or if they did report it they were ignored. There is no spotted snake in New Jersey. Our biggest Rattler is the Pine Rattler, a close somewhat smaller cousin to the Timber Rattler. A big one would be maybe four feet long. In fact no where on the face of the planet is there a rattlesnake anywhere near the size of what we saw. If someone told me this story I'd certainly have my doubts. But I have no reason to lie or make up tall tales. This story is true. Do you have an unbelievable but true tall tale to tell?
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