Duct tape racers beware of the RR Ogo Pogo monster

Jack Elliott
Contributor

Three years ago Great Beavers, muddied the serenity of Rainy River‚s peaceful waters and the mystery was put to rest only when Rainy River’s Town Crier, Doug Giles and our own Mad Trapper‚ Wayne McCarthy managed to capture a Great Beaver. Their plans for fame and fortune were short lived, however, when animal rights activist Jordon Beller, engineered a jail break for the beast, and spirited it away back to the remote headwaters of Miller’s Creek. Since then only sporadic sightings of the elusive creature have been reported. The only permanent sign of this adventure has been a statue of Millie the Beaver‚ gracing the lawn in front of the Town office.
Now we have reports of another monster lurking in the channel above and below Rainy River. First reports by an excited Eltjo Wiersema just upstream from the Town, were almost incoherent and initially dismissed as the after effect of fumes from a pile of last year’s fermenting Giant Pumpkins, Wiersema had dumped behind his workshop.
“I tell ya, it was a monster!” sputtered Wiersema over his third cup of high-test coffee one morning at Mom’s Restaurant, as he described his harrowing experience.
“I was just reeling in the biggest, nicest walleye you ever saw, when there was a swirl under it and the biggest monster mouth full of teeth you ever saw, swallowed it right down, snapped by line and almost capsized by boat,” he explained, gasping for breath as he got carried away with his own recounting.
“Now young fellow, just calm down! Just calm down!” cautioned brother Archie, “Your risking a coronary. Risking a coronary!”
Later that day when questioned about Eltjo’s experience, neighbour Steve Yeryk, remained non committal but glanced nervously at the dark river water, as he tightened the straps on his new life-jacket and prepared to launch his boat.
More evidence surfaced that very evening, however, when Mad Trapper‚ Wayne McCarthy, aided by Town Crier, Doug Giles stumbled into the local hospital, Mad’s hand swathed in a mess of bloody rags.
“I was just washing my hands off after landing a really nice walleye, when something grabbed me and nearly dragged me out of the boat,” recalled Mad‚ through a pain-killer induced haze, following emergency surgery.
“It was the size of a ..” he slurred as he drifted off into drugged oblivion.
“You should have seen the size of those bite marks! Why it near took his hand off! Looked like something right out of jaws!” ranted Giles, getting really wound up.
So what is this latest apparent monster? Another mutation? Something threatening our famous walleye fishery? More important will this terror be neutralized before the summer swim season gets underway?
And what of the Great Beaver Cardboard and Duct Tape Boat Races? And just when you thought it was safe to go in the water.