The starting out advice blog seems the popular addition to the mix of late, so why not share my own insights. I started out on my first outting underestimating the weather so let's start there.... especially with concern to the cold. My advice here is simple, you can't bring enough clothes. Also with regard to batteries, bring extras, and have a way to keep them warm, cold will greatly limit the amount of life you for a video or audio recording. To the opposite extreme, in the heat, comes bugs, be prepared to have something to counter them with, spray, head net, whatever.
Approaches to heading out; These can be active or passive. By passive I mean either setting up a listening post or the acting like a camper scenario, the idea being that you are hoping the creature will come to you. The active approach is more about going out and getting one to react to you or in the forensic sense, looking for sign, tracks, scat, hair samples and the like.
There are currently two blogs that get decently into this so I dont see the point of getting too deeply into redundant information, so lets talk about what happens if you actually see one. I have personally bumped into, almost anyway, a curious bear, as well as a spooked bull moose, and either of these were potentially dangerous enough, the moose in particular. At the time I had on my person, bear mace, and a rather large knife, the mace would have been able to deter an overly curious bear, but the moose would have been a very dangerous situation. My point, use common sense first. But in the time I have been out there looking, I have seen tracks casted, I have tracked what turned out to be a moose, as the tracks were vaguely defined but the hair sample I obtained definitely pointed to bullwinkle. I have two quasi sightings, by which I mean I saw something interesting off in the distance but don't know for sure and never will.
But I have also had an encounter, and thats something to talk about, not just what I saw, but how do you react to it? My sitaution occured at night, under fair moonlight, but was at close range. I also had knowledge of where the folks with me were, what I saw was taller than any of us, and bulkier, but the thing that made it truly stand out as something strange was how long the arms were, they were just out of proportion to be normal. As for my reaction, at first it was denial, it looked human enough, that initially I thought it was. But it wasn't anyone I was with, and it was someone really quite big, and then I noticed the length of the arms, and the swaying motion was odd. It took a second for the revelation to hit me, I was standing within fifty feet of something that wasn't human.
I would argue that noone really knows how they will react until they are there in that moment. I remember all periphrial vision just being gone, I had tunnel vision looking at this thing, and then the reaction of massive fear, primal fear of the unknown kind of fear. I was startled when I had seen the bear and the moose, this was something altogether different. The creature eventually went into a cluster of pine trees, which in the dark is just a huge black mass, and not knowing where it went, I went my way to camp very quickly... my reaction? I felt emotionally drained, and felt a small bit nauseous for a good half and hour.
I can't say how everyone will feel, but it is something to ask yourself. If you go out looking for the creature, how will you react if you find it,or in my case, if it finds you? I guess it will depend on the circumstances, I was alone. My point is, it is something to ask yourself.
(This is a first draft of my thoughts on this, it will be revisited)
