YEAR: 2016

SEASON: Summer

MONTH: June

DATE: 26

STATE: Idaho

COUNTY: Bonner County

LOCATION DETAILS: Please keep directions confidential to tourists don't try to float the river in the summer since log jams make it very dangerous

NEAREST TOWN: Norman

NEAREST ROAD: Highway 57

OBSERVED: I had the day off work so I decided to head up fishing on the Upper Priest River of the Idaho panhandle near the Canadian border. I parked by a bridge that crosses the river about four miles south of the border and started working my way up from there. I probably got a mile and a half to two miles up from the bridge when I started getting the feeling of being watched. The last time I got a feeling like that was while Elk hunting a few years prior when me and a buddy turned around and saw a cat standing on the side of the trail behind us. Feeling like that again really put me on edge so I kept working up river pretty quickly. I got probably another mile up river from there before turning around and working my way back down to the bridge. Once I got back into the same area as earlier, I started feeling like I was being watched again. I'd only gotten a few hundred yards away from that spot when I saw what I thought was a really big tree burl. I took a few steps forward when it looked like it rolled behind the tree. My first thought was that it was a bear so I ran over a few feet to the side to try and see it better. When I got to where I could see that side of the tree, there was just a big dark brownish-black human like shape standing there. I couldn't see a face or any good details on it because of the shadow from another tree on the other side of it. I always carry a side arm with me for bear protection but I still couldn't move I was so scared. It looked at me for a few seconds and just turned and walked off. It hardly made any noise at all. I immediately turned around and ran as fast as I could all the way back to my truck got out as fast as I could. I grew up in those woods and still spend my summers there every year and I know that this was not a bear or moose or any other animal that should be in there. I never went back to that area again for the rest of the summer and I don't think I want to go back at all.

OTHER WITNESSES: Just me, I was fishing

OTHER STORIES: I heard about a hunter that said he saw somthing about 20 miles away while hunting back in the 70's

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Late afternoon, the sun was starting to get lower

ENVIRONMENT: Thick forest with the river

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Kevin Llewellyn:

I talked to the witness by phone.

The witness was catching fish but releasing them. Around noon, he felt as if he was being watched. When he got back to the same spot later in the afternoon, he had the same feeling. The animal may have been crouching at first but when the witness moved to get a better look, he saw a figure standing 20 to 30 yards away. It was eight to nine feet tall with shoulders three to four feet wide. Arms extended half way down the torso. It was dark brown with fur and very bulky. After a few seconds, it turned and walked on two legs into a dip in the terrain.

The witness was so nervous about the situation, he does not recall how much distance the animal traveled.

The witness, an avid fisherman and hunter, grew up in northern Idaho. He has never seen an animal like that.
I find him very credible.

About BFRO Investigator Kevin Llewellyn:

Kevin has camped, fished and hunted in Eastern Washington all his life. His interest in Sasquatch began when he was 10 years old and saw Roger Patterson present "the" film. He lives in Eastern Washington.

Recently retired, he was a veterinarian since 1984, after graduating from Washington State University.

He attended Washington BFRO expeditions in 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2019. Oregon in 2015 and 2018, Montana in 2017 and 2018. He was co-leader of N.E. Washington 2019, Washington 2020, 2021 #1 & #2, and Montana 2020, 2021expeditions.