My Night Fishing Fright Night

I wanted to share this story with everyone, it's true, it happened and it scared the bejeebies out of me.

Jellico TN- Last Fall (2020) after a long fight with the COVID pandemic I decided that it was time to get out of the house and get some fresh air. I enjoy fishing and so does my wife. The only difference between us is that she likes night fishing and I like the sun on my face. I decided to take her night fishing in a little pond near the park. I gathered up the poles and she made us a snack to take with us.

We arrived at our fishing spot around 8:00pm and I set out the lanterns and began preparing the fishing poles. We settled into our lawn chairs and was preparing for a nice relaxing time outdoors. It was a nice night, the stars were out and there was a nice breeze. To be perfectly honest, when we go night fishing we do more talking than fishing. I really wouldn't have it any other way. Some of our best talks have happened on a creek bank.

As the night moved along we had caught a couple of catfish. My wife was beaming and considering herself the fishing champion. We was laughing and having a good time. It was pretty much one of those perfect Fall nights that just makes you feel good to be alive. We had just retrieved our snacks and opened a thermos of hot coffee. Off in the far distance we heard a roar. I thought that it was coyotes or wild dogs but it definitely shook my wifes nerves. She looked at me and said "that was not a coyote or a dog, they don't roar like that." although I knew that she was right, I tried to remain positive and not ruin our good time. After all, it was far off in the distance.

It was now around 10:00pm the sky and water was dark and we could only see a small distance around us. My camping lantern bounced light off of the pond and that was the only light that we had. We sit quietly watching our lines waiting on that huge lunker to bite. All of a sudden we heard it again, that loud roar only this time it was closer. My wife began to reel in her line and was ready to leave. I finally convinced her to give it just a few more minutes. It was night time and wild animals was out roaming but they wasn't going to come after us. She only half accepted my plea because she never did throw her line back out. She just sit there and watched me and looked around in the darkness.

We noticed a few ducks swimming in front of our lantern. This seemed to calm my wife down and she was tossing them bread left over from our sandwiches. The ducks enjoyed their late night snack and moved on into the darkness. About 30 minutes later we was startled to hear ducks off in the distance squawking and beating the water. Again I came up with a clever excuse. "One of those big catfish has came up to the top of the water and spooked them." This time she wasn't settling for my pleas to stay just a little longer, she had put her foot down and began packing up. That's when something scared us both to the point that we didn't go night fishing again.

In the dark wooded area around us we heard heavy footsteps running toward us. I reached for the pellet gun that I always carried with me on our nightly fishing trips. Of course it wouldn't kill anything but it sure would put a hurting on them, and that's all I wanted it to do. As the footsteps continued to come through the trees toward us we could hear limbs and bushes breaking and cracking. I knew for sure that this was not a person. A bear crossed my mind, it was definitely something large. My wife was now running toward the car and I was grabbing our poles and lantern. As I turned to follow behind her I could sense that this creature was right behind me, even though I couldn't see it in the dark. I could hear it panting heavily but it seemed to have stopped running and was just waiting there in the dark trees looking at us. I shined my lantern around but I still couldn't see anything.

We was sitting inside of the car looking out across the dark pond and the trees. We was both rattled and shaken and trying to figure out what had just happened. We was whispering, tossing ideas and thoughts back and forth. I rolled the window down about half way and listened but it was silent, what ever we had heard must have left. By now we both agreed that it most likely a panther or a bear. As I started the car up and switched on the head lights a huge shadow came out of the tree line and hurdled the length of the car and made its way to the trees on the other side. My wife screamed and I can't be certain but I believe that I screamed as well. This thing must have been 8ft or larger. As it leaped over the car it scratched across the hood leaving a big, deep scratch all the way across.

I quickly ruled out the thought of it being a bear. I don't think that a bear would have jumped over the car. Some sort of panther? But again, I am not sure that a panther would have been barreling through the woods, snapping limbs and bushes along the way. My wife swears (still to this day) that it came running on 2 legs as it hurdled over our vehicle. What in the world did we see and hear that night? I've had several people mention the Varmit creature to me. Was that it? I have no clue but it was surely something very large, agile and scary.