During the summer of 2002, Capt. Hirschi had the most terrifying experience of his life.
While anchoring the boat at sunset a couple hundred yards offshore in about 40 feet of water, Hirschi saw two dark humps appear astern. "The small ripples in the lake were breaking against the humps making them stand out," Hirschi recalled, and he thought it was a lost water ski and its boots. Then the humps disappeared below the surface.
"I thought this was strange," he said, "but I had seen stranger things on the lake."
Something scraped the bottom of the Monster Boat, lifting it out of the water -- and an 8,000-pound boat "doesn't just get lifted out of the water easily."
Suddenly, not 50 feet away, a huge animal shot out of the water, creating enormous waves that rocked the boat violently. "I grabbed the rail to keep my balance as I tried to keep an eye on whatever had just come out of the water," he reported. It was a serpentine creature about as long as his 65-foot craft. "It had a skin color of dark slimy-green, beet-red eyes, and sort of a mist coming out of its nose," Hirschi claimed. "At first it made low throaty rumbling snarls and then finally a terrible squeal like a roaring bull as it submerged back into the water."