Flooding rivers in spring thaw are basically un-fishable. I know this because I have fished on, in and along rivers my whole life. However, there are always back-wash or tributary type areas during the spring floods, and they receive little or no current, and are very fishable. Food items wash into these areas and during these flooding times, those places can be very good fishing spots. So, fishing near a flooding spring river is possible.

It was mentioned that that they heard “strong ice crushing” and I have personally witnessed spring floods that literally run beneath the ice. Now, an inexperienced creature could very well began to walk on the top of the ice and fall through, ice being thicker towards the shore, thinning underneath by the force of running water out near the middle. And because the current was so strong, it could not either regain it’s footing on top or through the ice, or as it tried to get back on top of the ice, it kept crashing back through. That would cause me to howl, too!

Ice on the river top makes dropping a young or thin sized tree to the creature entirely plausible. The tree falls onto the ice, the creature grabs it and uses it as a life line, walking and breaking through the ice all the way to shore. Or in an extreme instance, laying on top of the ice, grasping the young tree, pulling on it and dragging itself to shore.

I am also sure that no matter how tired it was when it got to the shore, if it didn’t want to shake the hunters hand and offer him a beer for saving its life, it could easily have, at the very least, exited the area quickly with a very spirited walking pace.

But, it is still all speculation and may be completely off the mark, until we get the real story or some type of research follow-up. My two cents worth, anyway.

Who knows, maybe they just call one of the neighbouring clans for “yetis”. Let’s not forget that some people who are _believed to be_ related to almas are _also called_ almas..
Whatever you do, don’t patronize local fishermen/hunters. They usually know pretty well what’s normal and what isn’t. But I just feel that the story is significantly lacking in detail.. Though I wish it was true. It would be a perfect area for “them” to live, so far away from us.

There is an impression about these place that they have a similarity to America and Canada about the beginning of the 20th century and the reports that came from there. This suggests new opportunities to get evidence like those which were not exploited in early times in the N. Americas. One hopes these chances will not be misssed this time!

Steleheart: It doesn’t matter how may millenia a creature has been around, any creature on the planet can make a mistake; especially if young.

As far as these guys having cameras with them, c’mon people, we are talking villagers in Russian territory, did you read the part about the helicopter stopping by once in a Blue moon?

Think about this, it took over 30 years before the first expedition got to Tunguska (close to where this happened), these people are so far from civilization it is incredible they survive. Mostly native people that live on rheindeer farming and trade. The statement about the aspen tree though, it may have been a very thin trunk, maybe it was already down and all he did was push it, if the roots are still in place the trunk would of moved but not broken off.

The interesting part is what happened afterward. We would expect the Yeti to fall exhausted, but remember, it is in a survival mode, adrenaline courses through its veins a million miles an hour, it would have most likely ran away from the scene as fast as possible, specially if it was young, and inexperienced. Its first contact with humans is a good one since they didn’t try capturing it and they facilitated its survival, who knows, it may try to approach humans at some other time.

That set me off wondering, then, about the tree trunk: even if the guy who tossed it was strong enough to chuck something substantial and lengthy, surely the general momentum of the torrenting river, plus the weight of the ‘creature’ clinging to it’d make it more likely the rest of the tree trunk’d get sucked in, too; not to mention the hunter, if he was holding the other end?

As I say, my experiences as a denizen of the banks of the relatively tame River Mersey’re rather limited in this area.

Does being a former dragon boat racer count for anything?

One would think that at least they would have collected hair samples, as these peoples probably do not carry cameras or cell phones.

Will any of the Russian researchers take a look at the report and investigate ?