They Went Fishing in Louisiana… Only the Creature’s Footprints Came Back
In August 2003, something happened in the black-water swamps of Honey Island, southern Louisiana—something the Sheriff’s Office still won’t talk about in detail, and something no one has ever explained in a way that fits the evidence.
Two experienced fishermen left for a routine night trip.
They never came back.
And when their boat was found drifting the next afternoon, what was inside forced the search team to confront a possibility nobody wanted to say out loud:
Whatever took them wasn’t an alligator… and it wasn’t anything the swamp was supposed to have.
1) The Kind of Men Who Don’t Get Lost
On August 21st, 2003, around 8:00 p.m., Robert Deloqua and Mark Tibido pushed their small aluminum flat-bottom boat into a narrow channel in the northeastern stretch of Honey Island Swamp.
Both men were locals. Both were over forty. Both had grown up around those waters the way other people grow up around streetlights and sidewalks.
Robert worked as a mechanic at a shipyard.
Mark ran a small tackle shop and knew every lure, every knot, every lie fishermen tell when they don’t want to admit they got skunked.
They’d been fishing together for more than fifteen years—especially night sessions, because Louisiana summers don’t really cool down, and the fish often bite best when the swamp gets quiet.
Quiet, that is… for humans.
Honey Island Swamp isn’t a “swamp” the way tourists imagine it. It’s a sprawling, tangled wilderness—dark channels, flooded timber, thick walls of cypress and mangrove-like growth, water stained near-black with tannins. The kind of place that swallows sound and directions.
Deep in there, cell phones were useless in 2003. The towers sat around the perimeter, and the signal died once the vegetation got dense enough.
But Deloqua and Tibido weren’t weekend campers.
They were the kind of men other people called when they got lost.
They told their families they’d be back by dawn on August 22nd.
They weren’t.
2) The Call That Started the Clock
By 9:00 a.m., Robert’s wife started calling him. No answer.
By 10:00, she was worried enough to call the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office.
The deputy on duty didn’t panic at first. Fishermen ran late all the time—engine trouble, fog, a bite that wouldn’t quit. But by noon, with no sign of either man, the mood shifted.
A search team assembled: four officers, plus two local guides who knew the channels and could read the swamp like a map.
They took two boats, heading toward the area Robert and Mark usually favored.
The heat was brutal—August in Louisiana isn’t just hot, it’s wet hot, air so thick it feels like it’s pressing down on your lungs. Fog rolled low over the black water, blurring the tree line and shrinking the world to a narrow tunnel of visibility.
At around 2:00 p.m., they found the boat.
Drifting at the edge of a tight channel, snagged against a submerged log like the swamp itself had hooked it and held it there.
From a distance, it looked normal.
Up close, it looked like a crime scene.
3) The Boat That Didn’t Match Any Attack
The first thing they saw was the scratches.
Deep, parallel gouges along the left side of the aluminum hull—four long grooves, cut clean through the metal plating like something raked it with purpose.
They weren’t low near the waterline where an alligator might bump or scrape.
They were about 30 centimeters above the waterline, and they ran roughly half a meter along the side.
Then they saw the inside.
There was water mixed with blood pooled in the bottom of the boat.
Dark, caked spots smeared the back seat.
Blood speckled the inner sides like something had sprayed it during a struggle.
Fishing gear was scattered as if the boat had been shaken hard:
Two rods snapped
A bait box dumped
One life jacket torn open, not split at a seam, but ripped apart like fabric had been pulled through claws or fingers strong enough to shred it
A flashlight lay in the bottom with its lens cracked.
And then they found the detail that made the scene feel deliberate—almost planned.
A portable voice recorder, common in the early 2000s, sat wrapped inside a plastic bag in the front compartment.
Protected.
Ready.
Still recording.
Its battery light was flashing red.
The timer read 23 minutes.
Someone—either Robert or Mark—had turned it on before the worst began, as if they knew they might not survive long enough to tell anyone what was coming.
4) The Swamp Gave Back Almost Nothing
The team searched the banks within a couple hundred meters.
They pushed through the reeds and low brush, scanning for signs—clothing, footprints, drag marks, anything.
They found only one personal item:
A baseball cap, caught on a snag not far from where the boat had been drifting.
Robert’s wife identified it immediately.
Nothing else surfaced.
No bodies.
No gear trail.
No floating debris.
Divers were called in. For two days they worked blind, hands probing the silty bottom with zero visibility.
Still nothing.
And that should’ve been the end of it—another terrible “swamp accident,” filed and forgotten.
But then they listened to the recording.
And the swamp spoke back.
5) The 23-Minute Tape
It starts quiet.
You hear the normal night soundtrack of Honey Island: insects, crickets, frogs, distant birds, the soft slap of water against the boat.
Two men talking in low voices—casual fishing talk. Where to cast. Where it was biting yesterday.
Then a pause.
One of them says something like:
“You hear that?”
The other hushes, listens.
And you hear it too.
A rhythmic slapping sound—slow, measured, heavy—like something large moving through shallow water:
Slap. Slap. Slap.
Not splashing like a gator’s sudden lunge.
Not the random thrash of a fish.
It’s steady. Intentional. Like footsteps in water.
One man suggests it might be an alligator, trying to keep his voice calm, trying to make reality fit something familiar.
The other sounds uneasy and says they should leave.
You hear the engine attempt.
Starter turning.
No catch.
Another try.
Still nothing.
A curse.
“The spark plug is flooded,” one of them says, voice tight.
The slapping gets closer.
Louder.
Then another sound joins it—something that makes every hair on your body stand up if you listen with headphones:
A harsh, animal breathing, heavy and wet, almost like a horse blowing through its nostrils.
And in the brush: branches cracking, not small twigs, but thick growth being pushed aside as if something big doesn’t care about staying quiet anymore.
One voice, now fully alarmed:
“What the hell is that?”
They start rowing.
Oars creak.
Water churns.
But the slapping keeps pace—parallel to the boat, matching their movement like a predator escorting prey to the point of exhaustion.
Then the sound that doesn’t belong in any Louisiana wildlife guide:
A low, guttural roar—somewhere between a howl and a bellow—drawn out and aggressive.
Not an alligator hiss.
Not a bear (and bears aren’t common there anyway).
Not anything you can name with confidence.
They scream.
Row harder.
Then—something hits the boat.
A massive impact. Metal screeching. Grinding.
That’s when the scratches were made.
The boat tilts. Water splashes inside.
You hear a body hit the aluminum floor with a dull thud.
The other man yells a name—“Rob, get up!”—and shouts for a knife.
There’s struggle. Chaos. Water surging near the boat.
Then the roar again—right on top of them.
A scream cuts off with a sharp cracking sound.
A wet crunch.
Then that horrible heavy breathing—close, not human, and steady like it isn’t panicking at all.
A whispered voice, shaking:
“Oh God… oh God, no…”
The water moves again.
A desperate “NO!”
And then another short, wet crunch—like bone breaking.
Silence.
Only water.
Only frogs and insects returning to their normal soundtrack as if nothing had happened.
The recorder keeps running for about fifteen minutes after that.
Nothing else.
Just empty swamp noise until the battery dies.
6) “Alligator Attack” Didn’t Fit the Evidence
The recording was sent for analysis. The official language that came back was careful, the kind of wording agencies use when they don’t want to create panic:
“Sounds of unknown origin requiring further investigation.”
Unofficially, one expert admitted the roar had been run through databases of known North American predators.
No matches.
And then—three days after the boat was found—searchers found tracks on a muddy bank about 170 meters from where the boat had drifted.
