Howdy, y’all! This here is my second post … and I’ve added
some of my pictures to help break-up the monotony of my marathon-esque
story-line. This is kinda like one of
them “This Happened To Me” stories
from Outdoor Life, ‘cept a Hell of a
lot longer. Y’all please remember that
bein’ a graphic designer … I’m a visual sort and sometimes pay too-dang much attention
to the details. This’ll prob’ly be about
a two-beer read; but as always, I tells
it like I sees it …
In June of 2009 my (then) thirteen
year-old son and I were fishin’ the Caddo Lake Wildlife Management Area off of
Big Cypress Bayou. The lake-water level
was high, which allowed us to fish a few areas that were normally too shallow
to navigate in our 1,300 lb. bass boat. On
Monday mornin’ … June 8th, we had left our friends' dock at 5:45
A.M., and by 6:15 the visibility was already gettin' clear & sunny. I had turned off of Big Cypress into a small channel,
and my son had his video camera out filmin’ our boat ride along the way. At one point about half-way through the
slough, we passed an area that smelled awful; almost as if somethin’ out there
had died out in them woods. You can
actually hear me on his video sayin’, “Damn
… somethin’ smells nasty!”
We made it through the secluded channel where I shut-down the Yamaha and began trollin’ towards an open area with an abundance of lily pads.
This area is only accessible by boat; we
weren’t talkin' or makin' much noise despite me catchin' a couple of small bass.
It was peaceful; the only sounds that we
heard at that time were cardinals, wrens and frogs. It was now after 6:30 A.M. and I noticed that
my son was filmin' me catch those bass on top-water lures. I had just told him to put his video camera up
and pick-up his rod and fish … ‘cause that was what we were there for! That was a huge mistake ...
After trollin' past the open area, there
was a small berm to our right, with dense flooded woods beyond it. I was castin' at the edges of the vegetation
under the tree-lined bank, when all of the sudden, we heard a loud splashin'
about 30-yards over the berm, which sounded like someone was quickly walkin'
through the water. I thought, a hunter, maybe? The brush
was so thick that all I could see through that vegetation was a very large
wake. Now remember, this was June … and ‘cept
for hogs, there really ain’t a season for any kind-of wild game. Whatever was walkin’ out there was doin’ it
on two legs, so I thought that maybe it was a poacher!
I
loudly whispered for my son to get his camcorder back out. He put his rod down and stepped from the back
of the boat, over the fold-down seats into the floorboard. Our gear bag, which held both of our cameras
was under the side-console. Our boat is
carpeted and we were both barefoot ... so he didn’t make much noise movin'
about to get down to the bag. About that
time I also noticed that some crows overhead were cawin' loudly and seemed to
be circlin' directly overhead. As my son
was gettin' his camcorder out, whatever it was that was walkin' through the
water had stopped.
I was standin’ up on the on the castin’
deck workin’ the foot-controlled trollin’ motor. On the floor of the boat, my son now stood a
good foot-and-a-half lower than me (on
top of already bein’ a foot shorter) which put his line of sight right-at
eye-level just over the top of the berm. In a loud whisper he said, “Dad … I can see it!” Lookin' into the thicket toward the source of
the wake, I asked, “What do you see?”
In a louder whisper, he replied, “I can see its legs! They’re this big!”
he exclaimed, holdin’ his hands out about the size of a bucket. My next thought was that it may have been a
black bear … but they really don’t walk on two legs for any great
distance. I asked, "What color are they?" in which he
replied, "Kind of a brownish-gray."
I immediately thought to myself, “Oh, sh¡t!”
At that point, whatever it was immediately
started walkin' away from us through the flooded forest; the sloshin' became
louder, and it was definitely movin' faster, as if in retreat. As my son tried to find his target on the
camcorder screen, we then heard brush crackin' and limbs breakin'. I said, “Can
you still see it? Did you get it on
film?” He replied, “No, I don’t think so … I can’t focus; it’s
too thick!” We heard whatever it was
movin’ further into the brush, and then all was silent except for the crows. They kept cawin' … but further away; they seemed
to follow whatever was movin' through the flooded thicket.
In the couple of minutes that this all
happened, the current had moved us quite a bit, so I trolled back around to the
spot where we initially heard the sloshin'. The channel that we were in was barely wide
enough for us to turn our boat around. As
I maneuvered the boat, we both peered into the thicket. I could see a very large pile of brush at the
head of the berm,
which consisted of large dead tree limbs, but did not appear to be the work of
beavers. They were piled-up around a
couple of Cypress trees, and I noticed that it looked fairly dry there, but the
rest of the forest was flooded. It
looked like the creek that this animal was wadin’ through fed from the main
channel, which started from the tree line at the open area where we had begun fishin’
the lily pads. The creek flowed for
about 40-yards and then went under a very large fallen tree. I ran the boat parallel to the berm and wedged
it into the vegetation so we wouldn’t drift.
I then asked my son to explain to me exactly
what he saw. He said that all he could
see were two large hair-covered legs, but only from just above the knees to
where they met the wake that it made while walkin' through the water. He described them as being brownish-gray in
color, and much bigger than mine. We
stayed there for at least 30-minutes, but saw or heard nothin' else. We both kept askin' ourselves what it could
have been. My son is no stranger to
wildlife, havin' killed his first hog at age eleven, and he’s seen plenty of
deer as well.
I had been huntin' and fishin' for well
over forty years. I’ve been in very
close proximity to both deer and hogs crossin' water, and what we heard was
definitely not a four-legged animal. I know for a fact that what I heard was
walkin' on two legs, and was very large. I don’t quite know how to describe it, but
whatever it was it just sounded heavy. For
example, I’m a heavy guy (okay, let’s be
honest; I’m fat for my 5’8” height at 200+ lbs.). Hell, I don’t even make that much noise wadin'
back to a duck blind after settin’ out decoys prior to shootin' time. We just stood there in the boat tryin' to
figure out what it was …
My son was so excited, he wouldn’t even
fish; he just sat in the rear pedestal seat clutchin’ his camcorder for the next
hour while I fished. Needless to say, cell
phone service (and sometimes even GPS)
is sketchy at best in the swamp. When I
finally got a couple of bars, I called the friend that we were stayin’ with to
tell him what had happened. He was born
and raised in Uncertain and his father was a commercial fisherman, so he knew
exactly where we were when I described the area. He said, “Aw
… it was probably a couple of deer movin’ through the water in tandem; or a
panther … or maybe that old bear people’s been seein’ back there.” I immediately told him that it wasn’t deer or
a cat, and unless “that old bear”
could walk a good distance through floodwater on two legs, that he was dead
friggin’ wrong! He must have thought I
was some kind of trippy-assed tourist and just laughed it off. After I hung up, it hit me; I asked my son, “You think there could there be some tracks
back there?” We immediately stowed
our gear, pulled-up the trollin’ motor and hauled back to the area of our
little incident.
When we arrived back at the spot, I ran
our boat nose-first into the bank of the berm.
All we had for our feet were flip-flops, so from the castin’ deck on the
bow of the boat we scouted the berm for snakes and poison ivy. The ground around the berm was semi-firm, but
our hopes were dashed when we discovered that most everything else was
submerged. I particularly didn’t feel
the need to wallow ‘round in mud, so we looked around from the safety of the
berm and then headed back to our friends’ place in Uncertain. On the way out of that slough, we saw a small
herd of deer to our left on higher ground.
I asked my son if what he saw had the same color hair as the deer, and
he said absolutely not; the deer were more of a reddish-brown and what he saw
was more of a brownish-gray. He also said
that the hair was longer, and that he was very
sure of what he had seen.
When we got back to our friends’ place …
there was quite a crowd; his best friend was there, as well as both of his sons
and their wives and/or girlfriends. His
older son had seen us night fishin’ near Jackson’s Arm the night before as he
was headin’ out to go froggin’. Just
short of mass ridicule, we were told it was most probably just a couple of
deer. I think my son was a little
uncomfortable arguin’ with our friends, but he’ll swear as to what he saw. We visited a while, cooked & mowed-down
on some lunch … then took a little power-nap.
Late that afternoon we headed straight back to “the spot”. I shut-down the Yamaha well before the area
where we had our little incident, and put the trollin’ motor down. Within about 15-minutes of trollin’ before we
even got to the open area with the lily pads, you’d never guess what we saw; deer
… at least five or six of ‘em, movin’ through the waist to knee-deep water. And when they saw us, they bolted; but even
then, they sounded nothin’ like what we had heard that mornin’. He actually filmed one of ‘em movin’ through
the floodwater and climbin’ through the brush up the bank (notice how blurry the image is ... due to the thickness of the vegetation it was very difficult to focus the video camera).
Since our encounter, we have scouted and even
sat overnight (no fire) out there on
that island. We took plenty of pictures
and recorded our entire night’s stay on an Olympus® sound recorder. That was a night neither of us will ever
forget, but I’ll save that experience for another entry to this blog. Other than a possible limb-twist that I
discovered in 2011, we haven’t found anything significant to show us what this critter
might be, or if it's even still in that area. However, we’ve had five Moultrie® infra-red
game-cams out there (until I had to remove them on 09/14/13*)
… and I’d change-out the batteries & SD cards every 4 months or so. I’ve spent a bunch-of dang money on gas &
gear for that 550-mile round-trip, which I’ve made well over a dozen times
since June 8th of 2009. We’ve
bought a night-vision monocular, digital sound recorder, a Canon® Powershot
SX50 and a Wilderness Commander kayak. We’ve
been treatin’ this as if we were huntin’ … although I wouldn’t feel the need to
shoot this animal unless I felt that we were in immediate danger.
Contrary to what other amateur field researchers
might do, we don’t tree-knock, vocalize, call-blast or bait (other than impalin’ apples about 6’ up in
trees in front of our trail-cams). I
personally have never heard a tree-knock, and other than a strange, distant cry
that we couldn’t identify (which was
recorded durin’ Spring Break of 2010) I wouldn’t know what this critter’s
vocalization would sound like. I don’t
want to spook it, nor would I wanna p¡ss
it off! If it happens to reside in that
area, I’m sure that like most animals, it’s territorial; what its range is … I
couldn’t really begin to tell you. The
way I look at it, we were quiet when we happened upon it the first time, so I
try to keep a pretty low-profile each time I’ve gone back into that area.
We really just want to know what this
animal was. From what-all that I’ve read
and have heard from some of the locals, somethin’ has been out there in them
woods for quite some time. I personally
believe that due to the flood of 2009 – 2010, the deer were pushed onto higher
ground, and we may have interrupted this animal while it was stalkin’ those
deer. My son and I just happened to be
at the right place at the right time … and because we were quiet, we were lucky
(blessed) enough to get close to it.
I hope I haven’t bored you or wasted any
of your time. If you’re interested …
I’ve compiled the majority of our journeys (and
some misadventures) along with plenty of photos of our trips to
Uncertain. I’ll be postin’ those from time
to time, along with some field tips I’ve learned along the way. And if we’re lucky enough to find somethin’
of any significance, be assured you’ll see it right here! Until then, y’all take care …
Note:
Except for my son’s photo of the
deer crossin’ high-water (posted here as a video-capture), the rest of my
photos were shot on Sunday, September 27th of 2009 when I returned
to the area after attendin’ the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy (now known
as the North American Wood Ape Conservancy) Conference in Tyler,Texas.
*Y'all stay tuned for my upcomin' blog entry, "OPERATION: Pull-Out!" ... and find out why my game-cams had to be removed.
