Report Received From: The GCBRO Online Report Submission Form.
 

DATE:    June 1993
 

TIME:     3:00 pm
 

LOCATION:   Peoria County, Illinois
 

TERRAIN:    Woods and Farmland
 

OBSERVED:    I was a freshman at a local Jr. college and had a lot of time on my hands.  Decided to go to an old fishing hole my dad
and I used to go to XXXXX Creek.  It is a little off the beaten path. You have to park your car just off the road where the railroad tracks cross and then walk the tracks for about a 1/2 mile or so before you get to an old tressle that you sit under to fish.
Anyway, I headed out there around noon or so.  There are woods flanking both sides of the tracks by the time you get far enough
to reach the tressle.  I'd done it a dozen times before or so so it was no big deal.  I had all my fishing gear with me and the first thing that happened to me that caught me off guard was when i stepped off the tracks into the rocks to head under the tressle.
Right there on the bank not 10 feet in front of me was this huge buck.  It just kind of looked at me and jumped right into XXXXX
creek and crossed to the other side.  It came out onto the bank and just went off into the woods.  Kind of spooked me a bit.  I thought about turning back, figuring the deer probably spooked any fish in that section of a pretty small creek, but I decided to go ahead and fish.  I caught a few bullheads when I started hearing some noise in the woods across the creek.  I figured it was just more deer or something so I didn't pay much attention to it.  The sound came and  went.  Sometimes close, sometimes it seemed far off.  I was thinking about
packing up when I glanced down at my rod and caught something out of the right corner of my eye.  The creek gets really shallow about 35 feet to right of  where you sit to fish and there it was.  It was coming out of the brush and stepping down into the shallow part of the creek.  Evidently, it was totally oblivious to me.  It was about 7 feet to my six feet as best I could tell.  It was mostly black haired with
patches of lighter hair here and there.  I never did see the face but it's head seemed directly connected to it's huge shoulders---no neck.  It's arms hung down pretty far.  I pretty much new exactly what I was looking at.
It crossed over through the shallows and then I really freaked out and realized it was on the same side as me just a bit to my  right.  There was nothing I could do so I just sat there.  I guess I kind of freaked or something because I just sat there and kept watching my poles, pretending like it was no big deal.  I could hear it in the brush on my right.  It was still the same distance away.  I sat there for probably about 5 minutes before I quietly started getting my gear together.  I made my way back up to the tracks and just started walking, all the while acting like nothing was going on.  I could still hear in the brush now to the left of me as I walked down the tracks.  I glanced over a few times but never did see anything.  Finally, I made my way back to the car, started her up and away I went.  That's it.
Never told anyone about it.  Figured they wouldn't believe me.  Plus, it took a lot of serious thinking on my part to convince myself that what I saw was real. I've seen that documentary on TV since with the video footage of that bigfoot in California I think---from back in the 50's or 60's. Pretty much the same thing I saw just a little closer.  My wife thinks it's pretty weird that I get all excited when a bigfoot thing shows up on the Discovery channel or something. Probably won't ever tell her.

Activities of Witness:   Fishing on the bank of creek under train tressel
 

Description of Creature:  7 ft or so would be my best estimate.  Dark Brown to Black hair and patchy especially on the legs.  Some lighter (Gray?) hair here and there.  Small head and no neck.  Very broad shoulders and long arms.  Did not see face.
 

Other Notes:    It was a pretty cool day for June.  Maybe the mid 60's---yet sunny.  I remember because I left a jacket down at the bank
when I was leaving.  I noticed that other people smell something bad----I didn't smell anything.

That's pretty much it.  Without telling him, I hoodwinked one of my high school buddies to go camping with me, not far from the sighting about a month after.  We spent the better part of the day getting lost in the woods.  Didn't see anything but some deer.  That's part of the reason I wrote to the web site.  Heard some news about this buddy recently and it kind of got my memory kicking into high gear again
about the whole thing.
 

Additional Notes and or Follow up Comments:  Upon contact the witness had no additional information to add to this report.

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