The Legend Of Meredith Mike…Is It Over? Or Not?
Loch Ness Monster? Hardly. Meredith Mike is just a catfish of abnormally large size and unusually keen survival skills. When you cast your rod and wait for the fish to nibble and you see that sudden flash of fish scales in the murky deep.....is it a mirage, or is it the legend live and in the scaly flesh?
Elusive, Illusive, this is the legend of Meredith Mike.
It's a legend that started over 50 years ago. A giant catfish that has managed to troll and survive the waters in Lake Meredith. Now, that's not without saying he hasn't survived unscathed. As the legend would go, Meredith Mike was indeed once caught, but released back into the water to go about his life. So say someone WAS to catch him again, how would they know it's indeed Meredith Mike they've got on the hook?
Well one way would be by the sheer size of the fish. Estimates put him around 50-60 pounds at this point, so you could feel pretty good about it being him based on that. There's also another rumor that lives out there stating that the person who initially caught him tattooed the letters "MM" on his lips before releasing him back into the lake. Is that true? Well as of now, we don't know as no one has been able to reel him in since.
It's not just the legend anglers are after when it comes to Meredith Mike. Oh no, there are supposed bounties out there for anyone who lands the giant fish. Reports of anywhere between $1000 and $1,000,000 have surfaced, but no one really knows if the bounty offers are real...just like Mike.
The real question we have to ask ourselves though is this. Is Meredith Mike still alive and trolling the waters? Well the big drought a few years ago dried up Lake Meredith pretty good, and while the legend of a plane crashing into Lake Meredith was put to rest (you could see a plane tail in the ground), Meredith Mike was nowhere to be found.
Did he find a channel to somewhere else? Did someone catch him and not say a word? Or is Mike somewhere underground resting comfortably? As of right now, we don't know...and we may never find out.