A Southeast Ohio hunter recalls his experiences with Bigfoot over the past 40 years, including hearing growls, strange voices, and a sighting of a juvenile while walking on a forest road.
"I'm 67 years old and all my occurrences have happened in the Wayne National Forest in Southeast Ohio. I've been roared at, growled at, and whistled at. I've heard strange voices and sounds of children playing all while bow hunting deer in the fall and turkey hunting in the spring.
In the early 1990s, I and my friend Pat were scouting for deer. I was walking down a forest road and he was off to my right across a large strip mine pond and up on a small ridge. As I came to a large game crossing something let out a very loud roar between us. It was so loud that it shook me to my core. I yelled, "Pat! Was that you?" I knew that there was no way that he could have done that. I ran back to camp. Sucking air a few minutes later, Pat came running into camp out of breath and asked me if I had made that sound.
We discussed what it could have been. Pat said that he has heard elk make strange noises while hunting in Wyoming but not like that. So there's no other explanation other than Bigfoot. That sound never deterred us from hunting there and we still hunt there today. Quite a few times I've been whistled at, both bow hunting and turkey hunting. I always hang my tree stand in the same tree year after year. I have heard very strange voices like people talking really fast and children playing. One minute they're there, turn my head, look back and they're gone. This has happened a few times. I've been growled at so many times that I've earned the nickname of 'Growler.'
I never really got concerned about it until once I was deer hunting with a crossbow. I was sitting against a tree in a small thicket watching over a large group of white oaks. Something began growling behind me. At first, it was a low growl. It eventually turned into a loud guttural growl. That's the only time I ever got concerned enough to head back to camp with plenty of daylight left.
About 5 years ago I was turkey hunting and decided to go back to camp for a hot cup of coffee. Walking down an old gas line road I came around a bend and about 50 yards ahead of me was what I thought was another hunter. He was around 5 feet tall and dressed in gray. As we looked at each other he bent over, threw his arms back, and leaped across the road into the brush. The road was 10 to 12 feet wide the figure was not heavily muscled like so many people describe. So it took me a few minutes of arguing with myself to finally decide that it was a juvenile Bigfoot, Grassman, or Sasquatch. I still get wire-haired every time I think about it.
While turkey hunting in the spring of 2021 the birds had all flown down and I was thinking about which gobbler to go after. Behind me, I heard a very loud baritone voice say, "Hey!" Yeah, it scared the crap out of me. I had time to dust myself off before coming down. I thought it must have been another hunter letting me know that he was there, but it was so loud. I looked around. There's nobody there.
Here's a story that my 91-year-old mother has told for years. When she was a young girl back in the 1940s in Southern Ohio she and some friends went to steal apples from a neighbor's apple tree that was up a large hill behind the neighbor's house. When they got to the tree a black figure jumped out of the tree and ran away on two legs. They all ran back to the house and told the adults what they saw. They were told there was probably a black bear. The term 'Bigfoot' wasn't known at that time. One day at my mom's house I turned the TV on to a Bigfoot program and my mom said that's exactly what we saw."
Transcribed source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKFPZlAWRg4
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