Hunter Who Once Owned A Pet Bear Swears What He Saw Was No Bear


This encounter happened back in Summer 2010, but recently submitted to the BFRO last November. For those interested, the location is in Schoolcraft County, Michigan just outside the Seney National Wildlife Refuge. The encounter happened across from Clear Lake a few miles off highway 94, next to Green Lake.

According to this report, a hunter and his son-in-law were out coon hunting at 1 o'clock in the morning when the hunter had his encounter. While trying to get a good reading off his tracker, the hunter came face-to-face with a Bigfoot. He managed to get a really good look at the creature and gave an interesting description.

What lends credibility to this man's story is that he was once a proud owner of a pet bear-- and one of the first questions another person would ask a witness is: "Are you sure it wasn't a bear?"

The man swears it wasn't a bear. "I have hunted bear, bobcat coon with my hounds, i am a trapper and outdoorsmen. my church is the timber. i had a legally owned pet bear. I trully understand ol ursus americanus. This wasnt ursus," he said.

Here's his report:

My Son in law and i were hunting across from clear lake a few miles off hwy 94 next to green lake. We were running our hounds on coon that night. There is a lot of country past green lake up into the hicki marsh and eventually the seney. I had noticed partridge remains where we parked. i didnt think about. The hounds were gamey right out of the box. i cut a young hound and proven hound in. Both with a lot of grit. When they struck i had the feeling we werent running coon but rather a bobcat. It took about twenty minutes and they treed.

We proceeded into the dogs and right before the tree the critter bailed. Cats bail when they see lights like bear do at night when we run them. The dogs pulled tree and gave chase again. Treeing deeper. Way deeper. My sonin law went to the truck to holler me out if needed. i kept the the tracker with me. Im now in marsh with a mixture of spruce, cedar, bog and popple. The dogs treed deep. i went to a high spot to vantage my hearing on them. a Thick wooded ridge. My radio tracker could barely read them and barely read the extra collar at the truck. Its range in wooded areas is about 7 miles. i kept swinging it around slowly trying to gain a good reading.

i could smell something foul but thought it was myself after falling in swamp muck on more than one occasion. Again while swinging my tracker my coonlight in the direction of the antenna i noticed in the spruce a set of eyes next to the deer run on this ridge. Coonhunting you see a lot of different eye shine. i shrugged and swung the tracker when i swung back into the trail toward the truck the trail was filled with animal twenty feet in front of me. It was around 8 feet tall long arms with fingers,barrel chested and pot bellied. The eyes were close and deep set but aggressive in its gaze, the mouth was agap. My goodness the ears were small. I froze in my tracks, i lost my training of the hounds call. we just looked at each other frozen. it grabbed a very large spruce, wrapping its hand around it. its hair was black to brown not long, not short, the nose flat, with a face not covered in hair like its body.

i really don't remember how it left. i remember the smell followed me almost all the way to the truck just up a trail where my son in law met me. He commented i passed gas jokingly. i was very shaken. i had a hard time reading my tracking system on the way back, i doubted my compass. it wasnt the straightest path back. To this day i havent ran the hounds up there for or or bear since. As well it was the only time i left my hounds in the woods. in the morning after sleeping a bit i rode up {nervous as hell } to try and find the hounds by myself as my son in law went to work. Thank the lord they were treed in the beechwoods 30 feet off the gravel road with the prettiest sleeping bobcat you ever seen in the tree.


ALSO NOTICED: I have hunted bear, bobcat coon with my hounds, i am a trapper and outdoorsmen. my church is the timber. i had a legally owned pet bear. I trully understand ol ursus americanus. This wasnt ursus.
OTHER WITNESSES: 1
OTHER STORIES: Not in this area. But back in the mid ninties we had a couple hounds chased back to truck by something and they were seasoned, had been under many a moody bear. That was up off the river road and the cc bridge in schoolcraft county.
TIME AND CONDITIONS: 1:00 am
ENVIRONMENT: hardwoods that crept into marsh and conifers

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Caroline Curtis:

I spoke with this experienced hunter at length. He hunts often and even takes his dogs with him all over the country when he is on the road working in construction, making his home in the UP of Michigan.

Just before the sighting he was a bit nervous, where he was is not where one would want to lose oneself or your dogs. This area in the UP is well-known for large areas of nothing but wilderness.

He blamed the sweet, musky smell on himself, having gone through and fallen in peat bog muck. With the 24-volt white belt light on his head, the reddish silver eyeshine is what he first noticed. In addition to his description he added that it had a "mountain beard" and "the coat looked like that of a summer bear, brown-black with some blond." Shoulders and inside its thighs were darker in color. He noticed some skin and less hair under the eyes, along its sides and near the armpits.

I asked him about the aggressive eye contact and he said it was looking at him with the expression of "what are you doing out here?" He stated that he didn't remember how it left, but he does recall that it went down, possibly stepping downward and out of his light.

His son-in-law waiting at the truck by the boat launch was a bit shook up also, especially after asking if he had hollered back. He had not.

They have had possible Class B encounters while hunting with their dogs. He explained that the first hunter back at the truck will often holler to help the one still in the woods find their way back. The responses they receive are not always by fellow hunters. He also described to me that when they have a raccoon treed they will often tap the tree to get the coon to look in their direction so they can locate the coon by the eyeshine. On occasion they have heard a "pop pop pop" in response to their taps. I asked him what he thought at those times. He explained that after spending that much time in the woods and experiencing everything he has, one just knows.

This witness was between the Hiawatha National Forest and The Seney National Wildlife Refuge.

Comments

  1. The witness seems like a no nonsense independent kind of guy. Tough and experienced. The story was quite compelling. Interesting that we have yet another report of eye shine.

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    Replies
    1. I can attest that the Upper Peninsula folks are of the character you describe. It comes with the isolated territory they live in.

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    2. Red to white eyeshine too. Consistent with other reports. Given the extreme rarity of eyeshine in primates; this is puzzling to me. The detail is too consistent to ignore. A great sighting, and I agree Phil, this guy comes across as a no nonsense type of well seasoned hunter. A person with this kind of familiarity with animals and the forest; giving a detailed account of an encounter with this creature is awesome.

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    3. Can't imagine running into this imposing creature/being in the middle of a swamp,at night, twenty feet away !
      Good report.
      Stinky

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    4. I dont think these creatures are Primates as everybody think's they are. Think they are something completely different !!

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    5. Primates cover a wide variety of things. All nocturnal primates (lemurs and monkeys documented) give off eyeshine... I can't think of a nocturnal animal that doesn't, actually (maybe not in the sense of what describe in BF). Most nocturnal primates are colorblind, though... Makes me curious about wether Sasquatch can see as many colors as we can. (?)
      David from the PAC/NW

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    6. I think they can see in color, just as we can see color. Because, I think these creatures are part Human ! And part something else and its not Primate.. just my thoughts on it !!

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  2. The chart at the top gives a pretty good comparison between the animals and shows why seasoned outdoors men are not mistaking sasquatches for bears, especially at close quarters. The six foot man is actually larger in stature than a typical full grown NA black bear, and of course the full grown sasquatch will simply dwarf either. However it does not take a seasoned outdoors man to know the difference, and I'm sure over 90% of people at close quarters would know they are not seeing a bear or another person. However the skeptics would lead you to believe otherwise.

    The area this took place is familiar to me. My wife's parent have a summer house on Manistique Lake (10,000) acres, about 25 miles SE of the Seney Wildlife Refuge. I fish this Refuge every summer, as they let you keep any Northern Pike you catch in order to provide better breeding grounds for geese, ducks, and other birds, and a Northern Pike is a very tasty meal. This whole Upper Peninsula area is a world to its own, and is basically rugged forests seperated by endless mosquito infested cedar swamps and bogs and marshland, with hundreds of lakes and many river watersheds. Very Squatchy. In the summer of 2007 there were many sightings of Bigfoots, mostly at night crossing into the Seney Wildlife Refuge mostly at night by motorists. There were also people seeing them between Newberry and the Tahquamenon Falls. The reason there are not more is there are only 200,000 permenent Upper Peninsula residents, and although tourism is a large part of the economy, there still are not that many of them.

    In the July of 2010, while I was snoozing in a recliner at the cabin on Manistique Lake 10:30 PM ( It still is a little light out at that time of year and there is a back mercury light always on ) my boy ( 7 at that time ) woke me up to say there was a Bigfoot in the back yard behind my uncles boat looking at us through the 6 foot sliding glass door,( about 30 feet away ) but then turned and walked off. The next day I looked and all the 2 foot tall grass in this area had been trampled down. He pointed to the height it stood, which made it close to nine foot. You snooze you loose.

    Chuck

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    Replies
    1. Great report! The U.P. Is definatly a squatchey place. With this mild winter there should be plenty of deer to keep the Sas, and the wolves fat and happy this year!...Ken

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  3. Love seeing reports from Mi. Lots of deer, wolves, and bears in that part of the U.P.!!......Ken

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  4. The story is very believable. The hunter obviously knows his wildlife, and he seems to be very intelligent. Cool story. Scary though.

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  5. A cool story it'd take a devious mind to fabricate that, sadly many skeptics think that's what you are if you're a Bigfoot witness. Skeptics are just dumb sometimes, they always seek solutions not even a child would choose and then act like it's smart, they're really being obnoxious and an insult to most people's intelligence. It's fine to be wondering but it's not ok to be objectionable for the sake of servicing oneself, claiming the righteous stand through the most banal of possibilities when there's just too much going on to ignore something's there. Even if it seems outlandish to them, it sounds like the guy probably saw what he says.

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  6. Hey all, hunter here. My son-in-law follows these websites since our experience, told me our report popped up this morn. I didnt send my report to try to prove something, but just in case other scientists or anything might be able to benefit from the report. Narrow down their search or what not.

    As far as seeing the thing in person, it was like my one and only time seeing a panther in Melbourne, FL. Was doing site prep work clearing 52 acres for single family houses, got their early to prep the water truck, and saw a panther walking across the access road. I just froze, even as a hunter my first thought was I'm seeing something special that I could never hunt. Same with the creature down in Seney.

    I hope scientist find these soon, just so I know what their area is so I know where to avoid on hunts. Wouldn't care to run into one again.

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    Replies
    1. Hunter, would you say it was more Ape or Man-like?

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    2. Hard question to answer. Looking at it whole, definitely more manlike. But just one part, say just the head, or just the torso, more apelike. If that makes any sense.

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  7. I'd believe this story over grainy vids and fuzzy trail-cam pics any day. We shouldn't discount the evidence of a good story, but what it's evidence for is anybody's guess.

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  8. Hunter, can you comment on the facial features in the drawing featured above?

    Or which drawing here comes closest?
    thepaintedcave.com

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  9. Thanks Hunter. One thing you stated that I hadn't heard before was pot bellied. That was new to me.

    I'd also like to know which drawing comes closest. Thank you so much.

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    1. Pot bellied. Gee he must be stealing a lot of beer from somewhere. To get serious Hunter could it possibly have been a pregnant female?

      Chuck

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  10. Here's a link to Charles Middleton's many drawings of Bigfoot. He asks anyone who has seen one to please call him and let him draw what they saw.

    http://www.charlesmiddletonart.com/photo.htm

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