Speaker 1: Okay, I just opened my door because it's a nice
spring day, get some warm wind blowing through here, and
I'm covered up with chickens. Oh, they just quieted down. Okay, Hey, guys,
I've been going about a week. I've been down with COVID,
believe it or not, and man, this is the third
time I've had it, and it really got me down.
But I'm back with a really good story. I really
hope you guys enjoy this. It's kind of long, it's
a little drawn out, but I'm going to read the
whole thing because I think it's a good story, So
I hope you enjoy it. All. Right, here we go.
Growing up, I was into all things outdoors, hunting and
fishing and survival and all of that. My dad nurtured
my love for hunting. But hunting the season is just that,
it's seasonal. What's a boy to do the rest of
the year. My dad said I could do my part
in being a good conservationist by controlling the populations of
nuisance animals like blackbirds and crows. So I bought a
crow call and I went at it. The way it goes.
Growing up, you tend to make friends with people who
have similar interests. Had a buddy at school who was
into hunting as well. One day he told me of
something that was going on around his neighborhood. There had
been some sightings of what was described as a big
black cat or a panther, So of course we were
going to come up with a plan to hunt it down.
We never did follow through. It was just one of
those things that kids fantasize about. The supposed sightings were
one of the things that you want to believe, but
deep down you know that this kid is probably making
up the whole story, but you entertain the idea anyway
because you want it to be true. Hold on, let
me run this hen out of here. Yeah. Shoot, my
grandparents lived in the Seymour, Tennessee, which is right on
the Knox County line. That damn chicken came right back
in here. Yeah yeah, yeah, yet, all right, sorry about that.
It's like old times. My grandparents lived in Seymour, Tennessee,
which is right on the Knox County line and close
to where my friends lived. I stayed with them one
weekend and was out early Saturday morning sitting on a
fence line that overlooked a field, and I was doing
my best to call in some crows. I had been
there an hour, not having any luck getting anything within
shotgun range. Most people don't know it, but crows are
very smart and then they can see well. I was
looking out across the field when I noticed something coming
through the opposite fence line about two hundred yards away.
At first I thought it was someone's dog, and as
it was going up to a brush pile along the
fence and sniffing for game, it was jet black, and
in my mind it was a neighbor's lab about hunting
around sit. It started working its way up the intersecting
fence line where I was sitting at the corner. I
was hidden by hunting suckles that had overtaken the fence.
As it started getting closer, something started nagging at me
that something wasn't right. I guess the first thing that
triggered this feeling was its tail. It wasn't wagging or
bobbing straight out like a happy gold lucky dog does
when they're hunting. The tail was long and skinny and
kind of had a slithering movement. Then I noticed the ears.
They weren't long and floppy, but shortened upright and the
next thing I noticed was what sent me into a
tail spin. It was the eyes that were yellowish green
with black pupils. This thing was not a dog. My
mind started trying to explain what I was seeing, but
the best I could come up with was that someone's
exotic pet had escaped. Being as smart like, I stood
up and I yelled at it. Here, kitty kitty, Here,
kitty kitty, I shouted, Well, the cat jerked and said
toward me, and then turned and took off like a shot,
and it ducked under a fence and it was gone.
I was left sitting there questioning myself as to whether
or not this actually had happened. Years later, I was
taking my little cousin to his hunter safety course and
someone brought up a question about black panther sightings that
were by this time all over the state. The TWR
officer gave his rehearsed answer, which really didn't do his
profession any favors in my opinion. He said, in just
about every class I do, someone says they've seen one,
so I don't want to hear it. You don't see it,
and they don't exist, he said, as fog Horn. Leghorn
said that boy. I say that boy is educated far
beyond his intelligence. We do have bobcats, codes foxes, and
other predators. Why wouldn't there be enough squirrels, rabbits and
vons and the like to sustain a small population of
big cats. It's just common sense, really. I just wanted
to share this story as I can relate in a
small way how people feel when they are told they
didn't see a sosquatch when they know good and well
that they did. Thanks for the indulgence, and now for
my lame bigfoot encounter. When I was in my late twenties,
I had a couple of real good friends who were
eating up with turkey hunting about as much as I was.
Tennessee season is kind of short compared to deer season,
so when those few weeks rolled around, we tried to
plan a trip every weekend to make the most of it.
My buddy's wife would pitch a fit every time we
were heading out, though, which tended to put a damper
on the whole thing. One time we had a trip
planned to go to Big South Fork for a few
days in camp and turkey hunt and just hang out.
As expected, when we got to my buddy's house to
pick him up. The fight was already on. His wife's
grandfather was in the hospital and she didn't want him
to go hunting with us. Now, I know it sounds insensitive,
but in his mind this was just one more of
her many excuses to keep him on the apron strings. Well,
I talked her into letting him go, and if things
got worse with her grandfather, she could call and he
would come back home right away. I was pretty proud
of myself because I came up with a solution and
if she said no to that, well, it just looked
too much like she was just hard to get along with,
which she was. One factor I didn't plan on, however,
was that we drove in one vehicle. Big South Fork
is pretty vast, and I had found a spot that
was so far in the boonies that I figured we
wouldn't be bothered by other hunters. Our camp was at
the end of a six miles of a narrow, twisting,
curving rival road that dead ended at an old cemetery.
It was twenty miles to the nearest town. We were
so excited about having the spot all to ourselves and
being able to get away for a guy's trip, and
we didn't plan on his wife actually calling him to
come back home. The first morning, we were on birds
but just couldn't close the deal. And when we returned
to our camp, we found a female cop waiting for us.
She didn't say why she was there, but she did say,
isn't it kind of weird to camp next to a cemetery? Well,
it doesn't bother us, I say, in my mind, those
dead folks weren't going anywhere until the Lord returned. Anyway,
we kind of got the feeling she didn't like us
being there, but we had a camping permit, so she
left us alone. Well, now, wouldn't you know it, my
buddy got the call. His wife's grandfather had gotten a
little worse. My buddy, whose vehicle we drove in, said
he would take him back, but that I could stay,
and since it was so late in the day, it
meant that he wouldn't be back until the following morning.
That was okay with me. I didn't mind staying by
myself there. That all sounded good until dark, and then
all those werewolf horror movies I shouldn't have watched when
I was a kid started creeping up on me, and
it was boring with no one to talk to, so
I decided to turn in early. I did have my
turkey gun loaded and sitting beside my sleeping bag, you know,
just in case. I will also admit that when I
was a kid, I was infatuated with Bigfoot and I
read every book from the library that I could get
my hands on. One of my high school friends and
I even had a plan to go to the Pacific
Northwest sometime after graduation and hunt isquatch. Well, that never happened,
but I would be lying if I said that thoughts
of the old Skunk Ape didn't cross my mind that
night as I drifted off to sleep. Sometime later in
the night, something woke me up. It was a sound
of something outside my tent moving around. It wasn't a
small scurrying type noise, but something big and heavy. You
could hear gravel crunching under the load as whatever it
was stepping on and the foot rolled forward. I had
hunted my whole life, and I knew the difference between
two and four footed things and what they sounded like
when they walked. This had the cadence of a bipedal movement.
I knew it was something or someone. My brain cleared
from the fog of sleep, and I thought that maybe
my buddy had decided to come back early. But the
more I thought about it, I would have heard the
truck pull up, and he would have known better than
to slink and creep around outside the tent without letting
me know he was there. He knew me well enough
to know that I would also have a twelve gage
in there with me, loaded with three inch magnum turkey loads.
Plus the fact that I was camped next to a
cemetery didn't do much in helping me relax. I reached over,
and he's my shotgun over onto my chest, you know,
just in case. About the time that I did that,
I heard whatever it was walk away. The next thing
I knew, I was awakened by the sound of my
buddy pulling up in his truck at daylight. I told
him about my night. We had a good laugh about
it and went on to finish our trip. No more
bigfoots or turkeys, unfortunately, but we had a great time
just being out there. I'll never know what it was,
but it was the closest I can say I ever
came to an encounter. When I was growing up, my
dad owned his own painting business for a little while.
I worked for him during the summers to earn money
and keep me out of trouble. I guess at the
peak of his career. He had a crew of guys
that worked for him, and one fellow was from Louisiana.
I was infatuated with Bigfoot as a kid, I guess
ever since I saw the six million dollar Man and
Woman episode with Bigfoot in them. Any show or movie
or book that had to do with Bigfoot, I was
all about that. This guy from Louisiana found out about
it and shared his own story with me, And it
began with his uncle, who was a renowned big game hunter.
This man had been all over the world to take
every sort of big game animal known to man. It
made a living guiding brown bear and Kodiak bear hunts
in Alaska. So it goes without saying that the man
was an alpha, a man's man. He was also from
Louisiana and he had moved back after getting tired of
his hunting exploits and he needed a break. There was
a certain swamp in Louisiana that was legendary for bigfoot activity.
All the locals knew it and considered it as part
of normal life. They didn't bother this creature, and it
didn't bother them. And the uncle heard of it, and
he decided that a bigfoot was one trophy he had
never taken, so he set out to go into the
swamp and try to bag himself a sasquatch. They found
him three days later on the outskirts of the swamp,
and he was nearly dead. He had had a heart
attack or a stroke. His gear was gone, and his
clothes were all torn and ragged. They said it looked
like he had aged twenty years and his speech was
slurred from then on from one side of his face
being paralyzed. It turns out that he had become the
hunted instead of the hunter, and a bigfoot had nearly
claimed himself a trophy. His nephew, my dad's employee, decided
he and a few of his buddies were going to
go back in for some revenge and possibly bag a
nice buck. At the same time, it was deer season
and this particular swamp was also known to be a
great area for big bucks. I guess everyone being afraid
to go into the swamp took a little hunting pressure
off and allowed the deer time to mature. The uncle
tried to talk him out of going, and he warned him.
When he was telling the story, he did his best
impression of his uncle's slurred, stuttered speech. Don't go in there.
That thing will get you is once alpha man's man.
Uncle begged. But he looked up to his uncle and thought,
if he could go in there and get the job done,
he would be impressed. So he decided to go in
spite of the warning. The day came when they planned
on leaving, and they loaded their swamp boats with gear
and they headed in. He thought, in all reality, a
bigfoot wouldn't mess with a group of men. In a
worst case scenario, they would come out of the trip
with some nice deer and plenty of tall tales that
they could reminisce about for years to come. But little
did he know the first night in camp would be
one to remember. He said, after the tents were all
set up and it was starting to get dark, the
bonfire was built and the beer started to flow, and
a good time was being had by all. Then things changed,
he said. The swamps were pretty noisy, with frogs and crickets,
and this one was no different. But all of a sudden,
an eerie silence fell over the area. Everyone noticed and
looked at each other, wondering what the hell was going on.
And that's when the smell hd them. Some god awful
rank odor filled the area. Now I realized that this
is a classic symptom of we're about to see sasquatch,
and most stories happened like this. And I also realized
I would be really easy to copycat these things and
fabricate a story. But this was in the middle of
the eighties, when you couldn't just hop on the internet
and find out this kind of information. It was also
before everyone was a researcher and there were groups groups
around every corner that investigated this kind of stuff. Oh god,
he is so right. After the foul odor smacked them,
Bigfoot just walked right into camp. He said. There was
a brief moment when everyone froze, and he could remember
the orange glow of the firelight reflecting off its eyes,
and then mass pandemonium erupted. Guys were running and diving
in boats, and shots were fired at the animal and
blind panic. It was truly a scene to behold. But
everyone made it to the swamp boats and the chaos,
and they lit out of there, some of them still
in their underwear. He said he didn't know if it
ran off as soon as the first shot was fired,
or if it was ever even hit with a round.
He was too busy trying to get down to where
the boats were beached. They did go back a couple
of days after they had gathered their courage up to
see if they could get their gear. He said. The
camp site was totally destroyed, but they salvaged what they could.
They left in a hurry, and they never went back. Now,
you could write this off as a guy trying to
impress the boss's kid or just humoring me when he
found out I was into bigfoot lore. But this guy
was a true believer. My dad told me later that
a couple of times some of the other guys on
the crew had teased him or told him that bigfoot
was just a bunch of crap and that this guy
would go ballistic. He would even call them outside to fight.
He was that serious about the subject. You typically don't
do that if you know you were telling a lie
or you don't believe it. Yourself. Heck, I believe there's
something to it, but I wouldn't fight over it. Thanks
for what you do on your channel. I look forward
to the stories every time. God blessed. The man's name
is James Man. What a great set of stories. This
is so well written and put together. This intriguing secondhand story,
the black cat, the Bigfoot, the steps around, just everything
about it was great and I really appreciate James sending this.
It's a pleasure to read these kind of stories. Hey,
I wanted to let y'all know real quick that this
year at the Smoky Mountain Bigfoot Conference, I have not
been in two years because every time I go, I
lose money. I buy all this these souvenirs and stuff
to say, you have to sell something at that place
or they won't let you have a booth. But I'd
rent the booth, get hotel rooms. The last time I went,
I brought my family, my wife, my granddaughter, my daughter
in law, got all them rooms, bought all that stuff
for the conference, and I lost about twenty five hundred bucks.
And I swore then that I wasn't going to do
it again. But they for the first time they called
me and They asked if I would come and speak
at the Bigfoot conference, and I said, no, I don't.
I don't. I don't do that. I'm not big on
standing up in front of people. I mean, I'll do it,
but I don't. Uh. It's just not something that lights
me up. And then they I said, well, if you
did have me speak, what would you what's the what
do you want me to talk about? They said, well,
we want you to moderate a discussion between researchers. I said, man,
are you crazy? Speak for researchers hate me. They think
I make up all these stories and they think, uh, anyway,
it's it's pretty common knowledge in the bigfoot world, which
I'm not in that the Bigfoot researchers, the real serious ones,
they can't stand me. And I said, I'm the worst
person in the world to put up there between researchers.
And he said, well, we have another thing. It's kind
of a lesser responsibility, but you could kind of host
when people get up and tell their own encounters. I said, man,
that's right up my alley. This person had never listened
to my podcast, so they don't know what I do.
I said, that's exactly what I do on my podcast share,
I share encounter stories by real people, and I said
I would love to do that. And I said that
after he said they would cover my hotel room. I
think that's all they're covering. But still that's enough. You know,
my wife's not coming. It's just going to be me.
I'm trying to find somebody to go with me and
sit at my booth with me so when I get
up and speak, they can man my booth. And I've
asked Da Roberts. I've asked Jeff Crawford, a couple of
authors that you all know of that I've read on
this channel before, and maybe one or both of them
will show up. I hope they do. But I'm just
going to be there by myself, and it's just a
one day event. I don't I can't. It's at the
end of July. Just Google or search engine Smoky Mountain
Bigfoot Conference, Gatlinburg, Tennessee. You can buy tickets there. They
sent me an email they wanted me to send a
picture of myself to put on their flyer, and I
haven't done it yet. Their flyers probably already done, but
I'm just so slow about that stuff. I'm probably not
the most responsible guy in the world with that stuff.
But anyway, I'm going to be there. I'm going to
host that as far as I know, unless they have
changed their mind. I haven't heard from them since May,
no since February. Maybe they've heard somebody else. I don't know.
I'll get in touch them this week, but right now,
as it stands, today is April fourteen, twenty twenty five.
Gotta file taxes tomorrow, don't y'all forget that. But as
of April fourteen, twenty twenty, twenty twenty five, I'm gonna
be at the Smoky Mountain Bigfoot Conference in Gatlinburg and
late you live twenty twenty five, So if you can
be there, I'd love to see you. And I'm gonna
have a booth. Come by and say hi. I'm gonna
have some things to sell. I'm not sure what, but
probably not much because I don't want to lose money
on it. Anyway, I just want to let y'all know that.
So I appreciate you listening to the podcast, and we
will see you on the next one. Appreciate you