This summer in Austin has been brutally hot. Painful. So there are really two choices for a comfortable day...inside in the a/c or outside in the water. A few weekends ago my friends and I chose the latter. We rented a canoe, strapped a life vest on Burt and headed out on Town Lake. There is a part in Town Lake where the water becomes shallow and weeds grow to the top of the water. We went through this patch and were looking at the weeds. All of the sudden, we all gasp. We saw the most motley, prehistoric beast of a fish I had ever seen. It was hideous and it was huge and it was swimming along the side of our canoe. We stared stunned. When we finally returned the canoe, we were so amazed that we grabbed the smart phone and started googling images of fish. No question the weird beast we saw was the Snakehead. This isn't good news for Town Lake. This fish is notoriously invasive and has ruined eco-systems specifically in MD where its been in the news repeatedly. It is a native fish to Asia, and prized for food. People have smuggled them into the U.S. and let them free and they've reeked havoc. The scariest part, evidently they are capable of walking on land! (although their muscles are not very strong so can't get far) I hope our eyes deceived us because this could be really bad for Town Lake but it looked exactly like the ugly creature in the photo above.
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