# We Snuck Up On a Sasquatch - Bigfoot Eyewitness Episode 485

An episode of [Bigfoot Eyewitness Radio](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1176349237), 17 Jul 2025, 30 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/67014868/bigfoot_eyewitness_episode_485.mp3

When tonight’s guest, Rusty, was 20, he and a friend of his went fishing, on a lake in the West Memphis area of Arkansas, one evening. It was an unseasonable hot night and they were fishing from a boat. All of a sudden, they heard a rustling noise coming from the shore, just a matter of yards away. They were using the boat’s trolling motor, so it would be easy for them to go undetected. What happened next is proof that you can sneak up on a Sasquatch, given certain circumstances. We hope you’ll listen to tonight’s show, so you can listen to Rusty detail exactly what happened that night. If you’ve had a Sasquatch sighting and would like to be a guest on the show, please go to BigfootEyewitness.com and let me know. I’d love to hear from you. If you’d like to help support the show, by buying your own Bigfoot Eyewitness t-shirt or sweatshirt, please visit the Bigfoot Eyewitness Show Store, by going to https://Dogman-Encounters.MyShopify.com I produce 4 other shows that are available on your favorite podcast app. If you haven't checked them out, here are links to all 4 channels on the Spreaker App... My Bigfoot Sighting https://www.spreaker.com/show/my-bigfoot-sighting Dogman Tales https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/dogman-tales--6640134 Dogman Encounters https://www.spreaker.com/show/dogman-encounters-radio_2 My Paranormal Experience https://www.spreaker.com/show/my-paranormal-experience Thanks, as always, for listening!

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: My name is Rusty. You might see me sometimes online
[0:05] Speaker 1: as William. That's my real name, but Rusty's kind of
[0:08] Speaker 1: a nickname that stuck with me.
[0:09] Speaker 2: At any rate, my.
[0:12] Speaker 1: History is that I'm a recently retired physician. I was
[0:15] Speaker 1: in practice for many years in big urban inner city
[0:19] Speaker 1: cancer are big urban inner city hospitals. I was a
[0:24] Speaker 1: cancer specialist during that time. Just retired a year and
[0:28] Speaker 1: a half or so ago, and living a retired life
[0:32] Speaker 1: now of fishing and golfing and seeing my grandson and
[0:36] Speaker 1: that sort of thing. At any rate, the sighting of
[0:40] Speaker 1: mine actually precedes the time when I became a physician.
[0:44] Speaker 1: It was when I was in college, which was then
[0:48] Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty. This was the summer of nineteen eighty
[0:51] Speaker 1: and I was working as a lifeguard at a lake
[0:56] Speaker 1: in Arkansas. And this lake was just across the Mississippi
[1:00] Speaker 1: River from Memphis, just south of West Memphis, Arkansas. And
[1:04] Speaker 1: it's called Blue Lake. It's not there, or the lake
[1:07] Speaker 1: is there, but it's not. It's in private property now
[1:09] Speaker 1: and it's it's not open to the public anymore. But
[1:12] Speaker 1: any right, this lake kind of functioned as a swim
[1:15] Speaker 1: fish picnic camp resort at the time, so they hired
[1:19] Speaker 1: college kids to be lifeguards, and that's what I was
[1:21] Speaker 1: doing that summer anyway, So myself and the other primary
[1:28] Speaker 1: lifeguard would work during the day. Then we would clear
[1:30] Speaker 1: the swimmers out in you know, like a seven or something,
[1:35] Speaker 1: and most nights he and I would then go fishing.
[1:38] Speaker 2: We had a boat there that we could take out onto.
[1:41] Speaker 1: The lake and we would go fishing, just slowly trolling
[1:45] Speaker 1: up and down the edge of the water for whatever
[1:48] Speaker 1: freshwater species, who are going to crappie or bram or bass.
[1:52] Speaker 2: And we did this most nights.
[1:54] Speaker 1: And this particular night was in probably late June, although
[1:59] Speaker 1: I'm not exactly sure, but it was certainly in that summertime,
[2:02] Speaker 1: so it was very bright.
[2:03] Speaker 2: It was very hot that summer.
[2:05] Speaker 1: That summer in fact, and that may be a note
[2:08] Speaker 1: of interest, the summer of nineteen eighty in that area
[2:12] Speaker 1: was one of the hottest on record in decades. We
[2:15] Speaker 1: had had over twenty days above one hundred degrees in
[2:20] Speaker 1: that area at that point, so very warm, and no
[2:23] Speaker 1: rain during that time. So anyway, everything's very hot. So
[2:28] Speaker 1: we go out fishing that night and we're slowly moving
[2:32] Speaker 1: down one edge of the lake and like I said,
[2:35] Speaker 1: we were trolling, and if you've ever done that, if
[2:37] Speaker 1: you've been fishing, be a trolling motor. That was quite
[2:40] Speaker 1: electrically run. And it was slowly going. So we're moving,
[2:44] Speaker 1: you know, just very slowly, about maybe ten to fifteen
[2:48] Speaker 1: yards out from the edge of the water and running
[2:52] Speaker 1: parallel to the edge of the lake itself, and weren't speaking.
[2:59] Speaker 1: We're very quiet, just moving slowly, just kind of relaxing.
[3:02] Speaker 1: It was beautiful day, still bright sunlight. It was, like
[3:05] Speaker 1: I said, it was late June, so it was still
[3:07] Speaker 1: sunlight at seven pm. Are right, We're moving slowly down
[3:11] Speaker 1: the edge of the water's edge, and we hear something
[3:17] Speaker 1: rustling on the shore, and both he and I look
[3:19] Speaker 1: up at about the same time to look in at
[3:22] Speaker 1: the shore, and we noticed, just like staring at us
[3:26] Speaker 1: from about shoulders up with it was this creature or
[3:32] Speaker 1: thing or whatever it was that was more or less
[3:36] Speaker 1: shaped like a.
[3:38] Speaker 2: Very large human, but with.
[3:43] Speaker 1: Dark brown to black hair all over except for its face,
[3:47] Speaker 1: and it was looking at us, and we got the
[3:50] Speaker 1: impression we had probably startled it or surprised it, you know,
[3:54] Speaker 1: it was almost like it had been knelt down at
[3:57] Speaker 1: the water, heard us and then looked up for real fast,
[4:00] Speaker 1: or stood up halfway, stood up real fast, and he
[4:03] Speaker 1: was kind of behind some brush at the water's edge,
[4:05] Speaker 1: so we could only see him or her from about
[4:09] Speaker 1: no chest level up, so we could see the head,
[4:13] Speaker 1: the shoulders, maybe down like I say, maybe down to
[4:16] Speaker 1: about nipple level, and it was looking directly at us
[4:19] Speaker 1: from this advantage point like I say, maybe fifteen and
[4:23] Speaker 1: maybe he was a yard or two end from the
[4:26] Speaker 1: water's edge, so maybe maybe seventeen eighteen yards away, and
[4:31] Speaker 1: we just both looked at each other, didn't say anything
[4:37] Speaker 1: for you know, what seemed like an eternity, but it
[4:39] Speaker 1: was probably no less than are no more than ten
[4:42] Speaker 1: seconds or so.
[4:44] Speaker 2: And then he.
[4:46] Speaker 1: She whatever turned very quickly and ran off into the
[4:50] Speaker 1: brush up the bank, because that was a levee at
[4:52] Speaker 1: the edge of the lake right there, so and it
[4:55] Speaker 1: was covered with very thick.
[4:58] Speaker 2: Undergrowth and trees.
[5:00] Speaker 1: This is the lower Mississippi Delta, so there's Cyprus trees everywhere,
[5:05] Speaker 1: and so we could hear him, and he disappeared from
[5:08] Speaker 1: side very quickly. We could still hear him running up
[5:10] Speaker 1: the levee, but we could not see him within like
[5:13] Speaker 1: seconds or so, and he took off. We could hear him,
[5:18] Speaker 1: like I said, maybe for I don't know, fifteen twenty
[5:20] Speaker 1: seconds after that until it was gone. And then we
[5:23] Speaker 1: looked at each other we really didn't and said what
[5:27] Speaker 1: was that?
[5:27] Speaker 2: And he didn't.
[5:28] Speaker 1: My buddy and I neither one knew what to say
[5:32] Speaker 1: about that. We decided we needed to get out of
[5:35] Speaker 1: there and go back to our little cabin we stayed at.
[5:37] Speaker 1: We actually spent the night at the lake there in
[5:39] Speaker 1: a cabin that was down the way. So we pulled
[5:43] Speaker 1: in the motor and got going rapidly as back as
[5:46] Speaker 1: we fast as we could back to the cabin. Pulled up,
[5:49] Speaker 1: we went inside the cabin, closed the door. I think
[5:52] Speaker 1: we locked up everything and loaded all the guns at
[5:54] Speaker 1: the same time because we didn't know what was going on,
[5:56] Speaker 1: and we decided we didn't know what to say about
[5:59] Speaker 1: this at that point, you know, we said, you know,
[6:01] Speaker 1: this was we didn't really In fact, I had heard
[6:06] Speaker 1: of the concept of bigfoot or sasquatch, but it just
[6:10] Speaker 1: hadn't registered really, I guess to either one of us.
[6:14] Speaker 2: But that's what that was.
[6:15] Speaker 1: I think we probably did use the word at the time,
[6:19] Speaker 1: was that a bigfoot or something like that. And you know,
[6:23] Speaker 1: and the other guys said, I don't know, I don't
[6:25] Speaker 1: know what it was. And we both said we'd never
[6:28] Speaker 1: seen anything else like that before. And after sitting talking
[6:31] Speaker 1: for a while, we decided maybe we should just keep
[6:36] Speaker 1: this to ourselves. We didn't know who to tell. My
[6:39] Speaker 1: buddy's parents actually owned the lake, their family owned it,
[6:44] Speaker 1: so we.
[6:44] Speaker 2: Didn't know what to tell them.
[6:46] Speaker 1: You know, there's a monster running around on the lake
[6:49] Speaker 1: that looks like a giant gorilla.
[6:51] Speaker 2: You know.
[6:51] Speaker 1: They would tell us we'd been drinking again, and we
[6:54] Speaker 1: didn't know, you know, should we go to like the
[6:56] Speaker 1: sheriff in West Memphis.
[6:58] Speaker 2: We didn't know.
[6:59] Speaker 1: We didn't think that do any good anyone, So we
[7:02] Speaker 1: just kept quiet about it. And that was my As
[7:05] Speaker 1: I said, it was nineteen eighties. It was my senior
[7:07] Speaker 1: year in college, so we.
[7:10] Speaker 2: Just kind of put it away.
[7:11] Speaker 1: He and I both just didn't talk about it anymore
[7:14] Speaker 1: after that for many years. I got married, I started
[7:17] Speaker 1: medical school. I had a lot of other things on
[7:19] Speaker 1: my mind, including family, kids, practice, all of those things.
[7:23] Speaker 1: He left and went to the West Coast and was
[7:26] Speaker 1: in a international trading business. He died about fifteen years ago.
[7:31] Speaker 1: I guess or so now, so I'm the only one
[7:34] Speaker 1: now who's left who remembers it.
[7:37] Speaker 2: I've told my wife. In fact, I hadn't told.
[7:40] Speaker 1: Anybody for many years until I guess fifteen years or
[7:45] Speaker 1: so ago. I was just kind of looking around online
[7:49] Speaker 1: on the computer and started to notice Bigfoot related sites online.
[7:56] Speaker 1: In fact, I think the first one I noticed was
[7:58] Speaker 1: the BFRO or big Foot Field Research Organization, which I
[8:02] Speaker 1: thought was cool because it had a register where you
[8:07] Speaker 1: could sign in and report your siding, you know, in
[8:11] Speaker 1: your area, and had like a whole map in the
[8:12] Speaker 1: United States, so he could pick out which sidings or
[8:15] Speaker 1: in your area and that sort of thing. So I
[8:16] Speaker 1: thought that was interesting. So I did that and I
[8:18] Speaker 1: reported the siding way back then, and they called me back.
[8:23] Speaker 1: The BFRO people called me back and said, well, we'll
[8:27] Speaker 1: tell us some more about this, And you know, I
[8:29] Speaker 1: got to talking to the guy.
[8:31] Speaker 2: And we kind of became friendly.
[8:34] Speaker 1: We talked back and forth on the phone several times,
[8:36] Speaker 1: and he asked me, would i'd be willing to tell
[8:38] Speaker 1: the story in other places, because there are very few
[8:42] Speaker 1: cancer surgeons are now retired cancer surgeons that would be
[8:47] Speaker 1: willing to tell the story if they had it, so
[8:49] Speaker 1: I did, and I talked to several other people online
[8:53] Speaker 1: and elsewhere, and I started popping up on our other
[8:57] Speaker 1: shows like this, started calling me to ask about it,
[9:01] Speaker 1: and it's gone from there. As it turns out, then
[9:03] Speaker 1: people I've been invited and have gone on several searches
[9:08] Speaker 1: or campouts or hunts or whatever you want to call them,
[9:11] Speaker 1: UH in various places and have really enjoyed that. I
[9:15] Speaker 1: haven't seen anything on any of the hunts, but I
[9:17] Speaker 1: think some of the people I've gone with have and
[9:20] Speaker 1: I've become friends with a number of people in the
[9:24] Speaker 1: uh you know, bigfoot community for lack of a better word,
[9:28] Speaker 1: and and it's been a lot of fun. Actually, in retrospect,
[9:31] Speaker 1: I wish we'd had something like the Internet back then,
[9:34] Speaker 1: you know, that I could have share this on because,
[9:37] Speaker 1: like I say, we just we just put it away
[9:39] Speaker 1: for you know, decades basically and didn't do anything with it.
[9:44] Speaker 1: So it's it's been refreshing in a sense to to
[9:48] Speaker 1: let people know about it and to you know, get
[9:51] Speaker 1: to relive it in a sense and to be able
[9:54] Speaker 1: to you know, do something else. You know, it's sort
[9:56] Speaker 1: of a hobby again, particularly now that I'm retired as
[10:00] Speaker 1: as a hobby to you know, keep me active and interested.
[10:04] Speaker 1: So that's pretty much the story. Like I said, it's
[10:07] Speaker 1: very straightforward. If the total sighting time was maybe twenty seconds.
[10:13] Speaker 1: There were no vocalizations, nothing else we could hear other
[10:17] Speaker 1: than the thing rumbling through the brush.
[10:20] Speaker 2: There was nothing we could smell.
[10:23] Speaker 1: We never saw anything, saw or heard anything else before
[10:28] Speaker 1: or after. We never saw any tracks around the area.
[10:33] Speaker 1: It really it was a one shot deal. Yeah, it
[10:36] Speaker 1: was a fascinating one shot deal, but that's all it was.
[10:39] Speaker 1: I can't say I'm like other people who have had,
[10:41] Speaker 1: you know, multiple experiences in that way, but it was.
[10:46] Speaker 1: It was impactful for what it was on a twenty
[10:48] Speaker 1: year old college kid.
[10:50] Speaker 3: Oh I'm sure it was never a dull moment.
[10:52] Speaker 2: Huh No, kidding.
[10:55] Speaker 3: Yeah, i'd say so. You told us that you only
[10:58] Speaker 3: saw that sasquatch his shoulders up. Was that brush that
[11:02] Speaker 3: he was standing behind so thick that you couldn't see
[11:05] Speaker 3: any other parts of his body? Or could you see
[11:07] Speaker 3: little snippets here and there.
[11:09] Speaker 1: Yeah, little snippets maybe here and there, but the brush
[11:12] Speaker 1: was really thick. I don't know if you've ever been
[11:14] Speaker 1: to the South Mississippi Delta. The areas right around the
[11:20] Speaker 1: water are it's like a jungle, you know, it's that thick,
[11:24] Speaker 1: and you really can't see much, you know, below the
[11:29] Speaker 1: level of the brush. So the brush was probably in
[11:32] Speaker 1: chests on him, it was chest high. And people asked
[11:35] Speaker 1: me how tall was he? And I said, I really
[11:37] Speaker 1: can't say because I never saw his feet, you know, so,
[11:40] Speaker 1: and I don't know for sure that he was he
[11:42] Speaker 1: or she was standing upright. You know, if you asked
[11:45] Speaker 1: me how big he was, I would say his shoulders
[11:48] Speaker 1: were considerably wider than what you would think for a
[11:52] Speaker 1: man at that distance, because we you know, we could
[11:54] Speaker 1: put it in perspective that way, but we could not
[11:57] Speaker 1: really tell how tall he was.
[11:59] Speaker 2: The head, it.
[12:01] Speaker 1: Again was seemed to be bigger than a regular human
[12:05] Speaker 1: head would be. But again, I, you know, that's that's
[12:09] Speaker 1: about as good as I can say.
[12:10] Speaker 2: I can't.
[12:11] Speaker 1: In other words, I can't say, oh, he was seven
[12:14] Speaker 1: feet tall the way some people can, because I never
[12:17] Speaker 1: really saw it. We never really saw him him or her,
[12:21] Speaker 1: you know, standing up and walking at full extension like that.
[12:25] Speaker 3: Oh No, you could only see what you could see,
[12:28] Speaker 3: So you can't be faulded for that. You mentioned his head.
[12:32] Speaker 3: Did he have a sagetal crest or was his head round?
[12:36] Speaker 1: No, it seemed to be more round, you know. And
[12:38] Speaker 1: I've heard about that sagular crest idea since then, but
[12:42] Speaker 1: we didn't see it for whatever reason. It was hairy
[12:45] Speaker 1: and the hair was long, you know, it was like
[12:48] Speaker 1: a dark brown to black and kind of crazy, you know,
[12:53] Speaker 1: kind of like tangled up and stringy. But he didn't
[12:56] Speaker 1: cover his face. The face itself was they are basically
[13:01] Speaker 1: gray to black. And you know, people asked me, well,
[13:05] Speaker 1: was it like a man, was like an ape? And
[13:07] Speaker 1: all I can say it was somewhere in between. The nose,
[13:10] Speaker 1: for example, was wider than a man's nose, is more
[13:13] Speaker 1: like an ape's nose. The mouth, however, I thought, looked
[13:17] Speaker 1: more like a human mouth. The lips were narrower, the
[13:22] Speaker 1: whole width of the mouth was narrower. The eyes were
[13:26] Speaker 1: again were more human like.
[13:28] Speaker 2: I thought.
[13:29] Speaker 1: They were not sunken in. There was not a big
[13:31] Speaker 1: brow ridge, so, you know, as I said, overall, I
[13:36] Speaker 1: thought it was something between. The facial appearance was somewhere
[13:41] Speaker 1: between an ape and a human.
[13:45] Speaker 3: If his nose looked more like that of a gorilla.
[13:48] Speaker 3: You're seeing that its nose wasn't hooded at all.
[13:52] Speaker 1: No, exactly, it was flattened with the nostrils, you know,
[13:55] Speaker 1: kind of flaring.
[13:57] Speaker 3: Okay, I see what you're saying. And swimming. As much
[14:00] Speaker 3: as eyewitnesses report seeing them out there swimming, it sure
[14:04] Speaker 3: makes you wonder how they can do that effectively. They
[14:06] Speaker 3: seem to be really good at swimming. But if they
[14:09] Speaker 3: don't have hooded noses, that would really complicate things.
[14:13] Speaker 1: Well, you know, I've heard that, you know, but although
[14:16] Speaker 1: I haven't thought of it quite that way before, but
[14:18] Speaker 1: that that makes sense.
[14:19] Speaker 2: You've got me on that one.
[14:21] Speaker 3: Seems like they're so good at everything they do it's
[14:23] Speaker 3: almost not fair, I guess. So, yeah, i'd say, so,
[14:30] Speaker 3: you're pretty close to him, just yards away. Did you
[14:32] Speaker 3: ever smell anything strange?
[14:35] Speaker 1: No, And I've thought in retrospect, I've thought about that
[14:38] Speaker 1: because so many people have reported smelling something and we
[14:41] Speaker 1: really did. Neither one of us really did. Because we
[14:44] Speaker 1: mentioned that, you know, and you know, it was quiet,
[14:46] Speaker 1: the wind wasn't blowing you. I would think if there
[14:50] Speaker 1: was some smell there, we would have gotten it, and
[14:52] Speaker 1: we didn't really get anything at all. So I can't
[14:55] Speaker 1: say that that there was any odor associated with it.
[14:58] Speaker 3: Well too, it depends on which the wind was blowing.
[15:01] Speaker 3: But yeah, you were awfully clothes, that's a fact. Did
[15:05] Speaker 3: you ever give any indication that he might have been
[15:07] Speaker 3: thinking about ducking down behind the brush instead of running
[15:10] Speaker 3: away or moving away from you?
[15:13] Speaker 2: You know, what I thought was it was this.
[15:15] Speaker 1: It was as if we caught him completely off guard,
[15:20] Speaker 1: like he was standing up, he had happened to stand
[15:23] Speaker 1: up or you know, from where he had been down
[15:25] Speaker 1: at the water.
[15:25] Speaker 2: This was my take on it. So this is just
[15:27] Speaker 2: subjective that he or she.
[15:30] Speaker 1: Had been standing or had been bending over, maybe even
[15:33] Speaker 1: into the water to drink or cool off or do whatever,
[15:37] Speaker 1: and he stood up or you know it partly stood up,
[15:41] Speaker 1: saw us standing or you know, sitting there floating out
[15:44] Speaker 1: in front of him, and all of a sudden he
[15:46] Speaker 1: realized we'd made him. You know, we we knew he
[15:49] Speaker 1: was there, He knew we that we knew he was there,
[15:52] Speaker 1: and so he then he kind of panicked, he or
[15:55] Speaker 1: she panicked and turned and ran just you know, fast
[15:58] Speaker 1: as it could. That was all my take on the
[16:02] Speaker 1: sort of the uh, you know, the process of the experience.
[16:06] Speaker 3: Sounds like he is probably almost embarrassed by you guys
[16:09] Speaker 3: catching them with his pants down.
[16:11] Speaker 1: Maybe maybe you know, like I said, it was so
[16:14] Speaker 1: hot that day and it was still hot. This was
[16:16] Speaker 1: probably you know, after seven at night by that time,
[16:19] Speaker 1: but it was still just miserably hot. So I see,
[16:22] Speaker 1: you know, a big primate, you know, hair covered. It
[16:25] Speaker 1: must be awful for something like that to keep hydrated
[16:28] Speaker 1: at that time of year. So I bet they were
[16:30] Speaker 1: down at the water. This has been just my thought
[16:33] Speaker 1: in retrospect, down at the water a lot, you know,
[16:36] Speaker 1: to try to cool off, and because he was so hot,
[16:39] Speaker 1: he was just distracted, you know, and just wasn't it
[16:42] Speaker 1: wasn't used to seeing people out there during the day
[16:45] Speaker 1: because nobody ever came out there during the day. It
[16:46] Speaker 1: was just us at night after the swimmers had gone,
[16:49] Speaker 1: So he wasn't used to seeing people out there at
[16:52] Speaker 1: that time and place. So we caught him off guard.
[16:56] Speaker 3: And you must have been in a spot out there
[16:58] Speaker 3: in the water that a lot of people on fish from,
[17:01] Speaker 3: so he hadn't a reason to expect.
[17:02] Speaker 2: Yet exactly exactly.
[17:04] Speaker 1: There were fishermen occasionally out there, but the family owned
[17:09] Speaker 1: the lake so they could lock it in the off season,
[17:12] Speaker 1: so there weren't that many people there. The only people
[17:14] Speaker 1: there most of the time, particularly in the evenings were us,
[17:18] Speaker 1: my buddy and I, so that it was pretty rare
[17:22] Speaker 1: for people to be fishing out at that side of
[17:25] Speaker 1: the lake at that time. So yeah, he was probably
[17:28] Speaker 1: surprised that he wasn't alone for once.
[17:30] Speaker 3: Well, I'm sure he was. And if you were on
[17:33] Speaker 3: the other side of the lake from where most of
[17:35] Speaker 3: the action was, well, you're far enough away from other
[17:37] Speaker 3: people were when you're fishing there, you couldn't hear activity,
[17:41] Speaker 3: you couldn't hear people.
[17:43] Speaker 1: Yes, we're pretty far away. And actually it's kind of
[17:46] Speaker 1: this is hard to describe this, like across the lake
[17:48] Speaker 1: and around the corner, so that you couldn't see where
[17:52] Speaker 1: the swimming area was either, so you had to go
[17:54] Speaker 1: around like the lake kind of curved. I don't know,
[17:56] Speaker 1: if you're familiar with the bow type lakes and the
[18:01] Speaker 1: lower Mississippi Delta, it's where the Mississippi River change is
[18:04] Speaker 1: coarse and leaves the lake behind. That's in the shape
[18:08] Speaker 1: of an ox bow, you know, or like a big u.
[18:11] Speaker 2: That's what this was.
[18:12] Speaker 1: So the fishing area was on one foot of the
[18:16] Speaker 1: the swimming area excuse me, was on one foot of
[18:18] Speaker 1: the U kind of, and then we were fishing over
[18:21] Speaker 1: on the other foot of the U, so we were,
[18:24] Speaker 1: you know, completely separated by both side and sound from
[18:28] Speaker 1: the regular swimming area.
[18:31] Speaker 3: Yeah, that would be a perfect spot for a sasquatch
[18:33] Speaker 3: to go down to the edge of the water and
[18:35] Speaker 3: get a drinker, tried to cool itself off. So no
[18:38] Speaker 3: wonder he was there, I would think. So, yeah, it
[18:42] Speaker 3: makes perfect sense. Do you think that you caught him
[18:44] Speaker 3: by Surprisely you did because you were on the water
[18:47] Speaker 3: number one and number two, you were using that trolling.
[18:51] Speaker 1: Motor exactly because it's quiet. You know, you can barely
[18:55] Speaker 1: hear it from within the boat. And uh, you know,
[18:58] Speaker 1: if you're not expecting anybody out, you know, you wouldn't
[19:01] Speaker 1: figure humans to be out in the water, particularly and
[19:04] Speaker 1: at this remote location, you wouldn't figure anybody be out
[19:08] Speaker 1: there at all. So yeah, I think that's exactly what
[19:11] Speaker 1: it was. He just didn't anticipate it.
[19:14] Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're right about that. I'm sure
[19:16] Speaker 3: he didn't. Some of those trolling motors are better than others.
[19:20] Speaker 3: Some are louder than others. Some are just dead silent.
[19:23] Speaker 3: You just can't hear them at all. And yeah, you
[19:25] Speaker 3: guys must have had a pretty good one.
[19:26] Speaker 2: To Yeah, it was pretty quiet. It was pretty quiet.
[19:30] Speaker 2: As I remember.
[19:31] Speaker 1: We used to have to steal the car battery out
[19:34] Speaker 1: of my buddy's father's car and put in to power
[19:38] Speaker 1: the trolling motor, and he would get mad as because
[19:40] Speaker 1: we put the battery back and it I'll be run down.
[19:44] Speaker 3: Well that's a dirty trick. But no, I understand you
[19:46] Speaker 3: guys were just kids back then.
[19:48] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you know you got to go fishing. You
[19:51] Speaker 2: got to go somehow, That's right.
[19:54] Speaker 3: No, I've done worse than that. Did you two ever
[19:57] Speaker 3: go back to the lake after that day or did
[19:59] Speaker 3: you have avoid that area at all costs?
[20:02] Speaker 2: No, we did, we did you know that.
[20:04] Speaker 1: Like I said, that was probably late June, so we
[20:07] Speaker 1: were working for the whole summer. So we were there
[20:10] Speaker 1: for another whatever it was six eight weeks, and we.
[20:14] Speaker 2: Lived out there. You know.
[20:15] Speaker 1: We went back and forth in Memphis occasionally, but but
[20:17] Speaker 1: we've spent the nights out there routinely. So we were
[20:20] Speaker 1: there like every day basically, and we, like I said,
[20:25] Speaker 1: we never saw or heard anything else. We even went
[20:29] Speaker 1: around in the boat to that place again, you know,
[20:33] Speaker 1: and would troll up and down, you know, just looking around.
[20:36] Speaker 1: And by this time now we're looking at every spot
[20:38] Speaker 1: on every edge, you know, every of the water as
[20:42] Speaker 1: we're trolling around. But we never saw anything like it.
[20:44] Speaker 3: Again, Yeah, that's how it normally goes. You didn't have
[20:48] Speaker 3: an interest in Sasquatch back then, so I'm sure you
[20:51] Speaker 3: didn't look into it. But have ever tried looking into
[20:55] Speaker 3: other Sasquatch sidings that might have been reported in that
[20:58] Speaker 3: West Memphis area.
[21:00] Speaker 1: Yes, In fact, I started that when I looked at
[21:02] Speaker 1: the BFRI website, and there are a handful members maybe
[21:09] Speaker 1: three four within fifty miles of there, so there's not
[21:12] Speaker 1: a lot. You know, there's way more sidings over in
[21:15] Speaker 1: the western part of Arkansas than in the eastern part
[21:18] Speaker 1: of Arkansas. There was maybe three or four, but they're
[21:20] Speaker 1: all sort of clustered right around the Mississippi River. So
[21:26] Speaker 1: there's like one I remember on the Hatchie River, which
[21:30] Speaker 1: is another river that empties into Mississippi on the north
[21:33] Speaker 1: side of Memphis, on the Tennessee side, less than fifty
[21:37] Speaker 1: miles away from there. There was one reported on what's
[21:40] Speaker 1: called President's Island, which is an island in the river
[21:43] Speaker 1: just below Memphis that is maybe ten miles from where
[21:46] Speaker 1: my siding was. And then there's been a sidning just
[21:49] Speaker 1: on the outskirts of West Memphis itself, and I think
[21:53] Speaker 1: at least the last time I looked at BFRO, those
[21:56] Speaker 1: were the only ones listed, so there haven't been many
[22:00] Speaker 1: sightings there, but you know, a handful, which makes me
[22:04] Speaker 1: wonder if, if probably that area is not routinely inhabited.
[22:10] Speaker 1: I guess, for lack of a better word, by them,
[22:11] Speaker 1: maybe it's just just just individuals passing through. You know,
[22:15] Speaker 1: maybe they're passing up and down the Mississippi River barrider,
[22:19] Speaker 1: which is pretty rugged in most places, and you could
[22:22] Speaker 1: easily hide in the swamps and the trees through most
[22:25] Speaker 1: of that area. So I would think, you know, that
[22:28] Speaker 1: area that the river could kind of act as a
[22:32] Speaker 1: passageway or a highway for them to you know, move
[22:36] Speaker 1: around unnoticed, because there's there's lots of covered or lots
[22:41] Speaker 1: of ground there that's fully covered by trees and swamps
[22:44] Speaker 1: and are relatively inaccessible to humans.
[22:47] Speaker 3: During the daytime. It'd be a breeze for them to
[22:49] Speaker 3: remain undetected. But especially so at night. It'd be a
[22:53] Speaker 3: piece of cake for them.
[22:55] Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, you would have any trouble having something even
[22:58] Speaker 1: pretty large. I would think creature hiding out there. I
[23:02] Speaker 1: mean there have been bears reported out there occasionally. There
[23:05] Speaker 1: have been mountain lions reported on the Arkansas side for sure,
[23:09] Speaker 1: So there can could be large creature, large primates out there.
[23:16] Speaker 1: I don't think there's any doubt that the area would
[23:19] Speaker 1: support that.
[23:20] Speaker 3: Oh, definitely, it'd be a perfect place for them. That
[23:24] Speaker 3: whole area. It's so suitable. It's perfect for them, to
[23:27] Speaker 3: the point that it's amazing that you don't have sightings
[23:30] Speaker 3: inside the grocery stores there. I mean, it's just perfect.
[23:34] Speaker 1: It sure seems like you know, but what is perfect
[23:37] Speaker 1: for the for that creature. We simply don't know enough
[23:40] Speaker 1: about it to say what what is the ideal sasquatch
[23:44] Speaker 1: or bigfoot, you know, habitat. We know where we see
[23:48] Speaker 1: or where they're reported, but we don't know enough about
[23:50] Speaker 1: the biology of them. I don't think to say this
[23:53] Speaker 1: is where they will really do the best. You know,
[23:56] Speaker 1: the places where we where they are reported, you always
[23:59] Speaker 1: have remember that's going to be the places where people
[24:02] Speaker 1: are too. I would think the best place for bigfoots
[24:06] Speaker 1: are any kind of you know, large creature like that,
[24:08] Speaker 1: would be in places that were so isolated that there
[24:11] Speaker 1: were very rarely people here to begin with. In others,
[24:14] Speaker 1: to have a sighting, you have to have two things.
[24:16] Speaker 1: You have to have the creature, plus you have to
[24:18] Speaker 1: have the person who cites it, so they both have
[24:20] Speaker 1: to be present in the same area. So it would
[24:22] Speaker 1: seem to me like the best area for the creature
[24:25] Speaker 1: to go on discovered it would be in places where
[24:26] Speaker 1: people don't.
[24:27] Speaker 2: Go ever, you know.
[24:29] Speaker 1: And therefore I think the sightings we have that are
[24:34] Speaker 1: closer to civilization are just the you know, the exceptions
[24:38] Speaker 1: rather than the rule. I guess that's just when, like
[24:41] Speaker 1: I said, maybe a bigfoot's in transit, maybe he's off guard,
[24:45] Speaker 1: maybe it's sick, dying, who knows what, something like that.
[24:50] Speaker 3: Maybe that's the case, Maybe it's not. I've thought about
[24:53] Speaker 3: that quite a bit. In my opinion, it might be
[24:57] Speaker 3: the way that you're describing were they just seek out
[24:59] Speaker 3: the most remote areas they can possibly find. But on
[25:02] Speaker 3: the other hand, if they tend to come in close
[25:06] Speaker 3: to civilization, then they can take advantage of a lot
[25:09] Speaker 3: of resources like dumpsters that they can raid at nighttime
[25:13] Speaker 3: and grab pets unfortunately, and do other things I mean
[25:17] Speaker 3: hanging around farms and raid fields things like that. So
[25:21] Speaker 3: in my opinion, I could see it going either way.
[25:25] Speaker 2: Now, you're exactly right.
[25:26] Speaker 1: We simply don't know what you know enough about the
[25:28] Speaker 1: biology of these things to know what they really do routinely.
[25:34] Speaker 3: Oh sure, yeah, there's so much we don't know about them.
[25:36] Speaker 3: It's not even funny. Being a cancer surgeon the way
[25:41] Speaker 3: you were, did you do all you could do to
[25:43] Speaker 3: try to keep your sighting under wraps before you retired
[25:46] Speaker 3: for obvious reasons.
[25:48] Speaker 1: You know, yes, but maybe not for the reason that
[25:52] Speaker 1: you would think at first yes, I would guess I
[25:55] Speaker 1: would say yes.
[25:57] Speaker 2: In the first few years. Number One, you don't really
[26:01] Speaker 2: we did at the time. And I don't know how
[26:03] Speaker 2: old jr.
[26:03] Speaker 3: Vic.
[26:03] Speaker 1: But at nineteen eighty when I was there, I was
[26:06] Speaker 1: twenty years old. Who would you even go to then?
[26:10] Speaker 1: There was no internet then to you know, to tell
[26:13] Speaker 1: somebody about that. They would have laughed. As for being
[26:16] Speaker 1: you know, drunk or stoned or something at that point,
[26:19] Speaker 1: so there was there was really not an alternative. I
[26:22] Speaker 1: mean acknowledging that you had seen Bigfoot was just not
[26:27] Speaker 1: something that occurred in polite society more or less, I guess,
[26:32] Speaker 1: so we just didn't really mention it.
[26:34] Speaker 2: And then, like I said, we hit.
[26:36] Speaker 1: My buddy and I both got occupied in other ways,
[26:40] Speaker 1: you know. I went directly from there to medical school,
[26:43] Speaker 1: got married at the same time, went from that to
[26:45] Speaker 1: residency to fellowships. I was in training for a long time,
[26:49] Speaker 1: and you're when you're in training in medicine at that
[26:51] Speaker 1: in that era particularly, it was very difficult, very demanding,
[26:56] Speaker 1: very time consuming. So I didn't have time to think
[26:58] Speaker 1: about anything else. I didn't want I want to think
[27:00] Speaker 1: about anything else. It was really not until I got
[27:03] Speaker 1: outer training into practice by like in the nineteen nineties,
[27:07] Speaker 1: that I started to even think about it again.
[27:10] Speaker 2: And then with the rise of the Internet in.
[27:13] Speaker 1: The late nineties two thousands, I guess that's when I
[27:17] Speaker 1: started to realize, you know, let me think, rethink that
[27:20] Speaker 1: all that.
[27:20] Speaker 2: I just kind of put it out of my head.
[27:22] Speaker 1: I don't know if I was scared to tell it
[27:25] Speaker 1: from a professional standpoint, although I will admit now that
[27:30] Speaker 1: I'm probably a little more comfortable talking with somebody like
[27:34] Speaker 1: you now than I would have been ten years ago,
[27:38] Speaker 1: you know, when my colleagues might have heard it, you know,
[27:40] Speaker 1: on the air at the hospital, and so I'm kind
[27:44] Speaker 1: of glad of that. So I'm certainly to some degree. Yes,
[27:48] Speaker 1: I was probably a little reluctant to speak of it
[27:52] Speaker 1: while I was in the earliest years of my training,
[27:56] Speaker 1: but at the same time, it was partly just that
[27:57] Speaker 1: I had more things to do, you know, I just
[28:00] Speaker 1: didn't have time to think about bigfoot very much at
[28:04] Speaker 1: the time, and now I do, and it's been facilitated
[28:07] Speaker 1: by the Internet, and now I don't have to worry about.
[28:08] Speaker 2: Anybody saying me anything about me. So it just what
[28:11] Speaker 2: has worked out.
[28:13] Speaker 3: Yeah, it sounds like it has. And yeah, I think
[28:16] Speaker 3: that was the best course to take to not bring
[28:18] Speaker 3: it to light back then when you're still a physician
[28:21] Speaker 3: for the reasons that you laid out and more. I
[28:24] Speaker 3: definitely get it. And yeah, I agree. Yeah, back in
[28:27] Speaker 3: nineteen eighty coming forward with the sighting that you had,
[28:30] Speaker 3: that wasn't necessarily the best move because yeah, people didn't
[28:34] Speaker 3: respond to that sort of thing back then the way
[28:37] Speaker 3: they do now. So I get it. I do well, Rusty.
[28:41] Speaker 3: I can't thank you enough for coming on and sharing
[28:43] Speaker 3: the details of that experience with this. I really appreciate it.
[28:48] Speaker 2: Listen, I appreciate that. Vic.
[28:50] Speaker 1: You're very welcome, and I'm sorry I was so much
[28:53] Speaker 1: trouble getting this arranged.
[28:55] Speaker 3: Oh that's all right, life happens. Just glad to be
[28:58] Speaker 3: able to get you on here so you can put
[29:00] Speaker 3: that story out for the listeners. I really do appreciate it,
[29:03] Speaker 3: and of course if I can never help you out
[29:05] Speaker 3: in the future, please let me know.
[29:08] Speaker 2: Thank you so much. I will.
[29:10] Speaker 3: Oh, you're welcome, Thanks again so much, and have a
[29:12] Speaker 3: great night.
[29:20] Speaker 4: That's it for another episode of Bigfoot Eyewitness Radio with
[29:23] Speaker 4: Vic Kundiff. If you've had a sasquatch encounter and would
[29:27] Speaker 4: like to be a guest on the show, please go
[29:29] Speaker 4: to Bigfoot eyewitness dot com and submit a report. We'd
[29:33] Speaker 4: love to hear from you. Thanks for listening, have a
[29:37] Speaker 4: great night.

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