YEAR: 2013

SEASON: Fall

MONTH: December

DATE: 15

STATE: Wisconsin

COUNTY: Vilas County

LOCATION DETAILS: North side of Black Oak Lake off of West Black Oak Lake Rd.

NEAREST TOWN: Land O Lakes

NEAREST ROAD: County Hwy B

OBSERVED: Large footprint looking tracks in snow. We followed the inline footstep looking prints through a heavily wooded unpopulated area. The track line looked like footprints in 10 inches of snow approximately 6' 9" apart. Fresh light snow slightly covered up print details along with fluffy type snow pack.

ALSO NOTICED: Maybe wood knocks on previous visits in the past at night only and on calm wind nights.

OTHER WITNESSES: 4 witness total looking a prints

OTHER STORIES: no

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Tracks must have been made the night before as they weren't noticed the previous day.

ENVIRONMENT: Heavily wooded region, some hills, many frozen lakes nearby. Near Ottawa National Forest. This area has lake homes but most of the time they are unoccupied. Heavy woods, lots of deer.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Robert Barhite:

On December 19th, 2013 I spoke with Lisa regarding the snow tracks which her boyfriend discovered a few days earlier. On the morning of December 15, 2013, from the kitchen window, her boyfriend observed a fresh trackway in her backyard.. She and her family went out to investigate. The tracks were about fourteen inches in size, and the distance between tracks measured out at just over six feet. She tried to jump the distance between tracks, but failed because of the deep snow. The tracks went deep into the snow and virtually no snow had been disturbed when the tracks were made. And unlike human tracks, the tracks Lisa discovered were not side-by-side, rather they were in line with each other. As Lisa examined the tracks in the backyard, more tracks were found in the front yard near the driveway. When the tracks were going through the path in between trees, they got a little closer together and also when they went "...off of the straight path". The entire track line stretched from deep in the woods behind her house, through the yard, down a drive through neighboring property, and back into the woods towards Black Oak Lake. As Lisa described it, "The tracks went on forever!" The size and shape of the tracks did not vary as one would expect if the tracks had been made by a leaping deer or a rabbit.

Lisa is certain that the tracks were made during the night because the day before she and her family were playing around in the yard and they discovered plenty of fresh deer tracks leading towards the nearby lake.

She went online to figure out what made the tracks as there are an abundance of cougars, deer, wolves, and bears in the area but couldn't find anything remotely similar to what was in her yard. In the past Lisa has heard very loud knocking sounds coming from the woods behind the house, and on one occasion she heard a howl very similar to the 1994 Ohio - Moaning Howl.

A photo of the tracks which they initially discovered from the kitchen window, about fifty yards from the back of the house:



The track line leading from the woods towards the house:



The backyard where they followed the tracks - note the visible tracks at the bottom left of the photo:



This area is close to a number of sightings both published and not.

• Wisconsin's Bigfoot Hotspots (4/14/2014; travelwisconsin.com)

• Explanation of the report classification system
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