By Nigel Maxwell

Fishing for the Turtle Lake Monster

Jun 30, 2013 | 11:49 AM

Scotland has the Loch Ness Monster. The Ogopogo reportedly lives in British Columbia’s Okanagan Lake. Cottage owners and visitors to Turtle Lake have wondered for more than five decades if a Turtle Lake Monster exists.

“I was at the boat launch and I saw this thing coming towards the shore. It looked like a great big fish, like a whale; then it went down,” said Charlie Kivimaa, one of many local residents claiming to have seen the monster.

“I would say it was probably 10 or 15 feet long,” said Kivimaa who figures it was likely a large sturgeon.

Myrna Coulson is another resident who claims to have experienced something fishy. She was at a friend’s house, sitting on the deck, when all of a sudden they could see something in the water.

“The ripples got bigger, it was headed towards the reeds, I could see darkness, but couldn’t get a look at it,” she said.

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The Ministry of Environment has been monitoring fish populations in Turtle Lake since 1964.

“We haven't confirmed any occurrence of Sturgeon in that lake from our test-netting results but the potential does exist for Sturgeon to be in there because it is connected to the Saskatchewan River where Sturgeon do reside,” said Murray Koob, a fisheries specialist.

When asked if it's possible that a Sturgeon could get as big as what Kivimaa had described, Koob said Sturgeon can in fact grow to be eight or nine feet long.

“They'll live for 150 years. They are a slow, maturing, old fish , that in the terms of weight may reach 140kg.”, said Koob.

The Ministry of Environment would not go out to Turtle Lake, specifically looking for Sturgeon, but Koob said should a sturgeon get caught it would get sampled and analyzed.

nmaxwell@panow.com

On Twitter: @nigelmaxwell

by Nigel Maxwell

Fishing for the Turtle Lake Monster

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