Way to come clean there, bro!

But I also noted, again, from grafikman: “The simple fact that there have *never* been any people shot despite the scoftics endless bleating that there have been countless hoaxes says something about the restraint of any hunters who ever had a sasquatch -real or hoaxed- in their sights.”

And most hunters know that, whatever it is, if there isn’t a season on it, that’s in progress now, for your particular weapon, IT’S ILLEGAL to shoot it. The hunting regs are exceptions to the general prohibition against shooting animals.

and from transgenic: “However, it is wrong to think, and a bad precedent to set, that anyone that dresses up like an animal is therefore a legitimate target for a hunter who doesn’t have the brains and discipline to first confirm the target.”

This is what makes the rare exceptions to the safety record of hunters all the more inexplicable (and that there are gun-rights people out there like transgenic all the more reassuring). HOW can you shoot it if you don’t even know where you’re placing the shot, which requires confirming the target?

it’s not easy to post this, as i know all the preceeding comments are justifiable and accurate. it IS an incredibly dumb thing to do in ANY hunting community to don a suit, scare the breeches off folks, etc.

but…

we WERE 9 years old and we lived in mississippi and were hugely influenced by Bigfoot movies such as THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK and whatnot. and since my mom’s old fur coat DID look a lot like, well, you know… and there WAS that awesome gorilla mask I’d ordered out of FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND by Don Post Studios… and those handy woods right outside our tract homes…

well, suffice to say, it didn’t take us Gang o’ Fools (ages 9 and 10) long to have a buddy don the suit and arrange to have an innocent “bystander” to sight the roving beast. i was even there with my Super 8mm camera, ready to show Mr. Patterson up!

it COMPLETELY BACKFIRED, and i offer this anecdote as a warning to anyone of you reading this and thinking i am making fun of being cautious about this, etc. i am in essence agreeing and citing my own embarrassing stupidity as further proof (as if you needed it!) of how idiotic this is to do.

bottom line: one kid who was tagging along with our gang wasn’t “in on the gag” became hysterical! he started shouting, screaming. in minutes, two cop cars swarmed the place my friend who was dressed as Bigfoot was “roaming” as the cryptid.

okay, keep in mind: this WAS in a small town but it was also in city limits! basically it was a quarter acre of undeveloped woods behind a suburban community. still, the cops arrived with weapons drawn. SHOTGUNS, pistols… whew!

i’ll never forget the look on the responding officer’s face when he confronted the hysterical kid, trying to calm the boy and asking what was wrong.

when told by the crying lad, the incredulous officer’s jaws dropped and he sputtered: “B-B-BIGFOOT???!!!!” {:O

my buddy came out of the woods with his hands raised, screaming, “Officer, please, I… it’s only a joke… I’m in costume!” i still laugh when i think of that — can you imagine a REAL cryptid uttering, “I’m not real, Officer! Honest!”

talk about humiliating. we were all Talk of the Town for a week and boy, did we take a (deserved) ribbing. but i still see my buddy coming out of those woods with his hands raised, proclaiming his innocence (at least as being authentically Sasquatch!), and that poor, rattled officer going white-knuckled on his pistol as he exclaimed “B-b-bigfoot!”

to any kiddies reading this: learn from my eternal embarrassment and shame. do NOT emulate nor copycat Bigfoot however much you believe you can “get away with it.” we learned the hard way how close and eager at least some law enforcement officials are to shooting first and asking questions later.

man, that was embarrassing to cite as it was to live through as a kid. HOPEFULLY though it will dissuade any pranksters. even a fool’s life can be worth saving, after all.

He thought it was a moose; and if you’d read the report, you’d consider that a totally understandable thing to do. Much more so, in fact, than seeing bear and thinking sasquatch

…or seeing lawyer and thinking quayle!

Yeah I know, old news, but I couldn’t resist it

One reason I don’t hunt is that not every gun owner is an ethical, conscientious hunter. There are far too many halfwits out there who are armed to the teeth, and a large fraction of those are inclined to try to justify their armor by being a hero, given half a chance. Anyone who doesn’t know what I’m talking about here has not spent much time in the country.

Again, this is not a criticism of people who live in the country. Just the dangerous ones. And yes, there are far too many gun toting morons in the cities, too, but they are not likely to have an opportunity to shoot at someone in a furry suit.

In the US a person not otherwise prevented from owning and carrying a weapon can carry any legal weapon where ever a weapon can be legally carried. For example, they can’t legitimately stop me from carrying a .45 pistol if it’s legal to do so in that location, regardless of any hunting restriction that’s going on. If it’s bow and arrow hunting season, I can still take a pistol or rifle or shotgun for defensive and survival purposes as long as it’s legal to do so in that geographic area. (e.g. it’s still legal in many states to own and wear a pistol in a national forest, but not legal to carry in most state and national parks)

IMO those guys were dangerous idiots carrying lethal instruments.

One skeptical refrain I hear frequently is “why hasn’t a hunter shot one?”

First, at least one reports having done so, fatally. (He thought it was a moose; and if you’d read the report, you’d consider that a totally understandable thing to do. Much more so, in fact, than seeing bear and thinking sasquatch.)

Second: from what I have read, more hunters seem to report sightings than just about any other categorizable group.

And virtually without exception, they never think to pull the trigger. It’s frequently fear. But frequently, it’s not.

First off, I don’t hunt. I did once with a friend in high school 29 years ago and bagged a rabbit, and that’s pretty much it for this lifetime.

But I seem to get the implication from many posts re: “trigger happy locals”, etc. that the prejudice can extend both ways. We, as sasquatch believers (acceptors?) have a constant battle to keep people from thinking we’re deluded wackos or liars. Let’s not display the same bigotry by painting hunters with the same brush. Whether you think hunting is “fair” to a prey animal or not, we’ve wiped out most predators across the continent over the past 2 centuries, and hunters fill that niche to keep prey species population down. (Yes, down. Deer, elk and other prey animal populations have never been healthier).

Hunting is *heavily* regulated in America, and there’s almost no situation where a hunter can just go out in the woods with the highest caliber weapon he owns and start blasting away at critters. There are specific seasons for specific prey and if a wildlife official catches you going into or coming out of the woods with the wrong firearm they can slap *massive* fines on you and/or confiscate your weapon(s).

The simple fact that there have *never* been any people shot despite the scoftics endless bleating that there have been countless hoaxes says something about the restraint of any hunters who ever had a sasquatch -real or hoaxed- in their sights.

Not to say it could never happen, but *most* hunters are just as law abiding as you or me.

I can’t understand why they wouldn’t drop the prank even after being given a warning. If I was out roaming about in a sasquatch outfit or ghillie suit, and some shotgun wielding people gave me the benefit of a verbal warning, my mask would be off and I’d be screaming “Don’t shoot!” in no time flat. Something for potential hoaxers to think about.

“Pod” of sasquatch? I suppose it has a better ring to it than “Herd” of sasquatch, or “flock” of sasquatch. I like DWA’s “passel” of sasquatch.