Mike Siegel, a freshman at Kubasaki High School, holds what he believes is a giant eel that he caught last week in a small stream between the high school and the Kishaba Housing area on Okinawa. (Courtesy of Marine Col. Rolf Siegel)
CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — Mike Siegel loves to fish, and unlike most fishermen, his whopper of a story is true.
Late last week Mike was walking from Kubasaki High School, where he is a freshman, to meet his dad, Marine Col. Rolf “Bugsy” Siegel, just outside the Kishaba Housing gate. As he passed a small stream in “Habu Valley,” he noticed a deep spot and saw several large fish.
It seemed as good a place as any to try out a new 8-foot rod, so he and his father went to the spot Saturday. After less than five minutes at the fishin’ hole, Mike said they saw something black — and not shaped quite like your average fish.
“As it was coming out, we were going through all the possibilities of what it was,” said the 14-year-old. “We saw the tail and it just kept coming and coming.”
The creature raised its head to the surface, and Mike took advantage. He took his hot-dog-baited hook and dropped it right on its head.
“I don’t think he was hungry, but since he was the biggest thing there I think his instinct was to just attack it,” he said. “It happened in a split second — as soon as it touched his head, he attacked.”
Mike said he jerked his pole to set the hook, and the fight was on.
“I’ve never seen a fish move that fast,” he said.
After an epic struggle — including Mike leaping into the water to shove his catch into a net — Mike and his father started trying to identify it. The facts: It looked like an eel, was about 5 feet to 6 feet long and weighed between 50 and 60 pounds, Mike said. He nicknamed it the Kubasaki Lake Monster.
Mike and his dad took photos of the catch then returned it to the stream. The next day they asked the chef at a sushi restaurant whether he knew what it was.
“He said his guess was that it’s a big eel,” said Mike, who added that the chef said it would fetch a nice price at the local market.
Masanori Nonaka, from the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium, finally put all the questions to rest on Wednesday . After looking at Mike’s photo, he pronounced the catch a “great eel,” typical around the waters of Okinawa, but usually only getting to be about 3 feet to 4 feet long. Mike’s was a “real big one,” Nonaka said.
Mike said he’s surprised the eel was in the stream as he’s been told it sometimes dries up. He said a debris line above the bank suggests a recent storm surge could have flooded the area, trapping the eel there.
Mike plans on snagging the fish again. If he can catch it this time, he plans to have a “fish print” — the Japanese art of inking the actual fish and creating an image of it on paper — made so he has a record of his catch. He’s already gone back once, but the eel has evened the series at one apiece — Mike wasn’t able to find him.
But he’s confident he can get the better of the eel.
“If I can see him, I can catch him,” he said.
