Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Bigfoot sighting, & found a mountain goat skull

OK, so it's actually an exceedingly poor photo of a departing bull moose, but it's as good as a lot of bigfoot photos I've seen!

Took an overnighter scouting packtrip last weekend, to the same vicinity where I killed my elk last fall. The main objective was to find a more secluded campsite (the others I know of are right on the trail) and cut some firewood, but also look for shed antlers, and perhaps a last-chance spring bear. We saw a bear on the way in, too, but he was on private & none too big. The kid's been on too many of my exploratory hikes, so decided to stay in the vicinity of camp in hopes of blasting a bruin with his 45/70. There was quite a bit of bear sign around, so that plan was not without merit, especially if you don't like floundering around in the deadfall.
I was doing just that on my way back to camp, hoping to find a horse-compatible route through the canyon bottom. Since it was about a 50/50 split of bogs and jackstrawed deadfall, I was thinking it was better suited to moose than Morgans, when sure enough I came on one. Probably a 3-year old, I'd guess. It was really kind of funny, he was laid out sound asleep with his nose sort of tucked under a front leg like a big dog or something. I was only about fifteen yards away, and hunkered down behind a bush trying to get my camera out of my pack. He must have smelled or otherwise sensed me, & picked up his head with the classic "uh?!" expression of the just woke up. I've never had a moose be aggressive, & my luck held. Except that I was about ten seconds late on the camera and so have yet another poorly focused and exposed wildlife photo to add to my collection.
But what was kind of neat; earlier I'd been on my way up to a bench I'd been eyeing on the topo map as a perfect bull elk hidey-hole. Now that I've been there, I'm even more optimistic about that, although if successful you'd be in for some backpacking. There's a game trail into it, but its horse compatibility is suspect. I was becoming resigned to that fact, standing there wheezing & gasping, and was dumbfounded to see a mountain goat horn sticking up out of the grass! Found it attached to a portion of a skull, with the other horn missing. But, a brief search turned it up a few feet away. It's kind of strange, there weren't any other bones around, & it's well below what I'd consider the goat habitat. Some critter must have carried it down there. Whatever, I'm glad to have it, & since it appears we struck out on the moose, sheep, & goat drawings it's the only goat skull I'm likely to get this year.
That's my kid holding it in the photo. He was trying to pose like that sculpture of the Thinker contemplating a skull, but since he's clothed and packing a revolver; it doesn't quite work. Oh, well....

Nice pics. The moose does kinda look like Bigfoot. As for your son, you've got to be proud of a young man who packs a sixgun, a sense of humor, and an appreciation for art. That's quite a combination! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

That reminds me of an "eye witness" report of a bigfoot sighting in the Blues in Washington many years back. Gal saw something tall ghosting into the timber then heard a loud piercing scream. The reporter oooh'd and ah'd as she described a textbook elk bugle <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />. Yep, one of the lead stories on the Spokane news..... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

Thanks, & yeah, I like him even better now that I forced him to get a haircut! We had a little discussion about summer employment prospects and first impressions.