A listener writes “I have been listening to your podcasts and I am a believer, we have a cabin in Crawford County, Northern Michigan.
We spend countless days at the river Kayaking..floating..and just put our chairs in and sit. It is a shallow river and runs out to lake Huron. There are several landings for kayaking and canoeing NO motors allowed as it is a well known fly fishing river, not wide across and not many deep areas..our guys like to do evening kayaking to see all the wildlife.
So we drop them off and then go to the landing they will get out at. This particular evening it was Summer of 2014, myself ,my grandson 14 then and my girlfriend were at that landing and it was hot.
We put our chairs in the river facing the landing and our truck. My grandson loves to skip stones and was doing just that. When we arrived at the landing there was an awful smell..like a dead animal..when you are near anything that has laid awhile in heat and rotted ..I kept saying to them..”what is that smell?”..I stood up and looked around ..thinking a fish or something dead..Nothing..sat back down.
My grandson was skipping stones and I was talking to my friend and behind us a huge splash..I looked at grandson and said “did you do that?” he said no it came from over there behind you..and he pointed I turned and looked, now the other side of the river is all woods and very steep and full of tree fall and rocks.
I thought hmm maybe a rock rolled into the river..but the splash was more like it was thrown..after a bit the bugs were coming out so I said lets go wait in truck.
I had an on uneasy feeling also…so we loaded chairs in to truck left tailgate down for the kayaks and got in truck as we settled in and rolled down the windows a bit..we heard 2 wood knocks..I laughed at my grandson and said..TREE KNOCKS..we chuckled..guys came and we loaded and left..never gave it another thought.
Next day went to same landing to swim the smell was not there but on the other side of the bank was a dead deer, half in water and all intact except head was gone from neck up.
This is not a busy landing and the other side of the river in that area has no homes..I did not realize until listening to your show that this may have been a squatch hunting….and he wanted us to leave. Do you think they store their food? The deer was not in the water but weaved into tree roots that were exposed, like it was put there.. but it was cool there also…just wanted to share this with you I know they have had sightings in northern Michigan. Have a great day and so enjoy your show.”