Just watched an episode of River Monsters filmed in New Zealand. In this episode Jeremy Wade hunted down the longfin eel, which turned out to be quite a beast! 
It got me thinking. Has anyone encountered any giant eels, or any other creepy creatures, while panning for gold in the river? Please, feel free to tell your stories 
Yeh I have… one… and not it is not the D10 dozer needed to pull it out of the river story
BTW… where did he catch the eel?
I was dredging in my river and moving rocks and cobbles out by hand… and had been backfilling as one does… about 2 m down. Anyhow, I came back to carry on dredging beside the same pile of rocks a few days later… slow as , so that I did not notice the movement… a huge (and magnified under water) FO head of an eel with horns and all appeared maybe 12 inches in front of my mask…#$%^&**(&^&%$#…
However he was a peaceable chap and after my heart beat settled down I began plugging up the opening on my side of the pile of rocks… it seemed to get fed up and eventually swum away in a calm and un hurried manner… I could watch it for about 15m… allowing for magnification under water and removing the fishing yarn exaggeration factor, I would say it was a good 4 to 5 inches diameter and pushing towards 5 feet long… Scored a 6.5 on my OS! meter.
Great story mate! I can just imagine what a surprise it must have been to suddenly be face to face with an eel like that. Maybe he was just looking for gold like you… 
I think that he was fishing in Lake Manapouri. The episode is the first one of season 3, if interested 