Lake Washington has monsters, and I met one the other day.

I often prowl the shallows of Washington Park Arboretum in Seattle along the margin of Lake Washington, in a small boat, pitting my considerable stealth against an ancient order of coldblooded creature with brains the size of raisins, and no teeth. Sometimes I win; sometimes I get shut out.

Spring and early fall are the easiest times of the year to catch turtles: either before the lily pads have reached the surface, or after they have died, enabling your boat to glide in quietly; and on cooler days, the turtles are sluggish and often perched on logs, trying to soak up what little sun there is. Canoe or kayak is the preferred vessel, though I actually succeeded in grabbing a snoozing slider fro a racing shell last week (tougher then it sounds: with a shell, you've got these metal riggers that stick out a couple feet on both sides, a well as oars that stick out about six feet beyond the riggers. One set of these, almost unavoidably, has to pass directly over the turtle before you can reach for it your target must be either comatose or very mellow to not flee for its life).

Anyway, I was reaching for the tail end of a Western pond turtle that had, very mellowly, slid from its log only to cruise right up next to me (often, they seem to perceive only what is moving as the threat, in this case, the blade of the oar, rather than the bozo perched atop the boat, as long as that bozo remains quite still) when this odd shape emerged from below the boat. I first mistook it for a chunk of wood that the boat had perhaps dislodged, until its eye looked at me. Then the leading edge of a turtle shell emerged from directly under where I was sitting. In retrospect, I am reminded of the opening scene of the very first Star Wars movie, where a rebel ship roars past overhead, impressively, for some time, followed before you have a chance to draw a breath by an imperial battle cruiser, which roars past in pursuit, passing overhead for what seems to be several minutes, establishing scale quite effectively.

So I'm sitting there, yelling "ohmygodohmygodohmygod ... ", with the hand that had almost been in the water now held somewhere over my head watching this manhole-cover of a turtle continue to emerge from beneath me. Finally the shell tapers, and a stout tail about the length of m outstretched hand passes from view as the creature heads back down in the murk and muck. I would estimate the length of the shell at two feet. That ended my turtle hunt for the day.

Turns out that snapping turtles, of which this was most likely one, have been showing up in the Lake Washington drainage for years, brought to us by the same well-meaning, mischievous and possibly just plain ignorant fools who introduced rabbits to Australia, deer to New Zealand and cell phones to Hondas. But, so far, the snappers may not have done any harm.

There is now a breeding population of snapping turtles in the lake. A Seattle Audubon Society book, Reptiles of Washington and Oregon, cites a female snapper observed depositing 78 eggs (average clutch size is actually 20 to 30 with a maximum of 80: this was a big one!) into a nest at Sandpoint along Lake Washington. Several others have been spotted elsewhere along the lake, as well as in adjoining Lake Sammamish. The species can reach a shell length of about 18 inches and a weight of 75 pounds, but when I called the local Audubon chapter they didn't discount my sighting, as most reptiles continue to grow as long as they live, though growth rates do slow.

Russell Link, urban biologist for the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife, told me that snapping turtles are not considered a harmful species, so their presence is simply being monitored. They're doing plenty of good: they have been eating young sliders (another introduced turtle species), which have been threatening to displace native Western pond turtle populations. And they take baby ducks and goslings, too (Bully, I say! Who'll miss 'em?). Link said that if the snappers start preying on the Western Pond turtles, which are currently listed as a threatened species, individual snappers might be moved or relocated.

Link, when asked about any negative effects the snappers might h on life in the lake, offered the idea that they might actually be beneficial to the lake system. Inasmuch as Lake Washington is an artificial, closed system (the lake's natural outlet dried up eightysome years ago when the lake's level was dropped at the completion of the Ship Canal. Its sole outlet to Peugeot Sound is now the Chittenden Locks.), it accumulates a fair amount of organic detritus on the bottom without much chance of it being flushed out to sea. So, we could always use a few more bottomfeeders (aside from smaller turtles and ducklings taking care of carrion is the snapper's stock in trade).

BIG-ASS STURGEON

Speaking of bottomfeeders, chelydra serpentina macrobuttox (with sincerest apologies to Linneaus) may not be alone down there.

There was once a breeding population of white sturgeon, by far the largest freshwater fish in western North America, in Lake Washington, but the Department of Fish and Wildlife believes that there is no longer, though there may be a few relict individuals snuffling along at the bottom of the lake. The demise of the breeding population was likely the result of changes brought about by the aforementioned alteration of the lake system.

There are anecdotal reports (remember: all fishermen lie!) of sturgeon as large as 20 feet and 1800 pounds, as well as more reliable reports of 13 feet and 1300 pounds, aged to 104 years. So we shouldn't really be surprised by the 11 foot, estimated 1200 pound dead sturgeon hauled out of the north end of Lake Washington by the King County Sheriff's Department Marine Patrol in the early 90's.

Sturgeon take a wide variety of fish, as well as poke around on the bottom for worms, crustaceans, and mollusks. The stomach of one was even found to contain a house cat. Here, kitty, kitty!

From time to time, if you're really observant and lucky you may get to see a duck get snatched under the lake's surface, never to reappear. In the 18 years I've been puttering about in small boats I've seen two ducks yanked to their presumed doom. It's somewhat disconcerting, especially if one is sitting in a small boat at the time.

A Realtor, shooting video outside a houseboat on Lake Union in the mid801s, caught one such event on tape. This duck, however, had the misfortune to be dragged and thrashed along the surface for several seconds before disappearing from view, much like that poor girl at the beginning of Jaws. So, for the next few weeks the lake was all a-chop with TV news reporters on chartered Bayliners, poking rowers and kayakers with boommikes and asking questions like "Are you afraid of the Lake Union Monster?" (I actually made it to the 5:00 news.)

As I told the reporter, this was likely the work of a river otter, whose modus operandi for catching ducks is to yank one under, drowning it, and to then swim to some secluded spot under a dock somewhere for the actual rending and masticating (I bet you didn't know that otters masticated, and with other species, too!). furor didn't completely die down until an old and diseased found dead on a nearby dock. This poor specimen had likely weakened to hunt in a more surreptitious and discreet manner paid the tragic price of being a media scapegoat.

Call me a sicko, but I like living in a place that's wild enough that it still might have monsters sliding along below the surface unbeknownst to most. Maybe because it's Hallowe'en and the wind is rattling the windows. Maybe I find it oddly reassuring that we haven't catalogued and pigeonholed everything that's around us, and that the unexpected can still occasionally scare the crap out of us.

Author Dave McBee's search for monsters began with looking under his bed, and continues with occasional trips past the editor's kitchen sink.