folklore

Would anyone care to share some local legends from there. home countries or towns?
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Rhinelander, Wisconsin...Home of the Hodag. In the 1890s folks claimed to have captured a reptilegdinosaur like critter. It wss exhibited locally for some years.

Peppi, the Lake Pepin Monster. Claimed to inhabit Lake Pepin (a widening of the Mississippi River between Wisconsin and Minnesota. He seems related to the Loch Ness Monster & various other lake monsters world wide.
Awesome it's always nice to hear about things that haven't been covered to death by the history channel to you have any other information
Around LaCrosse, Wisconsin...The side hill gouger. Only lives on the side hills of the Mississippi River Valley. As the hills are very steep, the critters' legs are shorter on one side than the other...so they can stand level, don't ya know?
talking of Loch Ness Monster people still camp on the Loch for a glimpse and truly believe it is there. wow
Maybe monster originally came from (moonshine) today beverage delivery BUT still fun not quite knowingpeace teddybear
We literally have too many around here to relate them all. Strongly suggest viewing the 2013 TV show Mountain Monsters. Some of our local ones are here.
For what it is worth my own trail cams caught a glimpse of something (which I hope and pray never comes to my forest again) really big and scary a few years ago. No idea what it was. T'was less than a second of imagery, but when I did a frame by frame review, holy Toledo (S word actually). Had to be at least 20' tall and bent trees out of it's way. Just the lower limbs imaged, insect like, bi pedal. Footage didn't survive a hard drive crash, so can't share it. Dunno what, but along those lines, something has been eating some of my deer.

This spring this young buck was fairly nonchalant about hanging out in my yard's grassy area watching me come and go when he suddenly vanished and two days later I found him in the woods alongside the grassy area of my yard. I found the struggle area (fur, a bitten off front leg, blood, etc.) maybe 10 feet from the carcass and did a recon and found the spot something just sprang (kicked up leaves and traces of claws in the mud) at him from 15 feet away. Since then two more such discoveries. I do not recognize the consumption pattern. The ribs and spine were removed intact, but all the meat and innards are totally gone. Cause of death would in all cases seem to be a gnawing chomp right through the spine below the skull. Kind of hard to tell though as the organs are gone too. Have picked up and examined the hide shown. No punctures, just a long rip possibly made by removing the spine/ribs. Don't know what it is. What I know, it is an ambush predator, it is stealthy enough to get close to a deer (who are usually pretty paranoid), it is fast enough to get the deer, it is powerful and has a hell of a bite and a fearsome appetite. Figure that was 90 pounds (about 40 kilos) of meat and guts totally gone inside two days.

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Tell ya the truth, I am a little more cautious when alone in my woods this year.
@ken
That's quite a weapon/load combination you've put together there, by George! I put it through Pondoro Taylor's knock out formula. The formula was developed to determine effectiveness on the very largest African game. It places the .375 H&H at "35" & that's considered adequate for anything on the Dark Continent. Your combination comes in at 30.6! Impressive to say the very least.wow Talk about y'all's Mountain Monsters....I should think that thing would qualify. grin
@ken
All very sensible! Probably much the same thinking that inspired Marlin to come up with the 444 back in the day. I know an ol' woodsman type who opted for the Marlin Outfitter for pretty much tthe reasons you list. Revolver compatibility wasn't a consideration for him personally. On the other hand, I know an even older ol' woodsman who is of the opinion he could take care of bidness anywhere in North America with his .243. The way he shoots...he's likely correct! laugh
And thinking about it, I really would not want .243 as my only option for an angry Grizzly. I think the outcome would be pretty similar to the cowboy Keith wrote about who (briefly) shot one a few times with a German Luger (9mm) pistol. Smack! No more cowboy.
This particular specimen (trained and friendly) and photo to the contrary, imo, an angry critter this size (over 9 feet tall) is NOT to be played with and I believe choosing a .243 for the encounter would be a really bad mistake.

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@ken
It does seem to me that some folks have more confidence in the .243 than is jutified. I've never been much impressed by it.

Another old ol' woodsma. favored the .35 Whelan. He figured it was more than enough for the Eastern woods, but liked to go West occasionally for elk. Again, revolver compatibility wasn't an issue for him personally.

And then you hear stories about folks who head to the extreme wilds armed with a small jingle bell. "The bears are more afraid of us than we are of them. They're only dangerous because we come upon them and frighten them. The bell alerts them so they can get away from us." Maybe. Might work better with black bears than the great bears.

Further West they have both black & grizzly bears. According to local folklore you can tell black bear droppings from grizzly bear droppings...grizzly bear ddroppings have little jingle bells in them. To them, we'd sound like a Good Humor truck.

I was in Nome, Alaska. Apparently some guy came up.wanting to get a close up nature eexperience. He pitched his tent very near a trail & waited for his experience. Presumably he was armed with his bell when the opportunity for a nature experience arose.............angel.............. violin.............sad flower
I presume you have seen the Grizzly Man documentary and heard the 20 minutes of screams and chewing noises on their last recording. So much for making friends with the bears. Actually I was fascinated in his tapes of the scenes of the bears taking a deep breath, then swimming underwater for their fish, also lurking on the the bottom of the river, just for the fun of it. It had never even occurred to me before that K bears can (and apparently like to) swim underwater. Well, cross off escape from bears, plan E. laugh

I know the .35 Whelan as the 35-06. Not a bad choice with the 250 grain bullets.

I wouldn't describe revolver compatibility as a serious issue, just, if I can, why not have it? Simplified hand loading. Just made a quick (not) 400 rounds of the described hunting load and I am good for decades. Versatility. I can bring the rifle on hunting days, or just belt on the pistol for wood chopping days. Same ammo, same confidence it will do the job. Learned a lot about terminal ballistics when developing the load. Started with 357 loads, then 45 acp, then 45 Colt, all the while asking Bambi how does this one work? Noted somewhere along the way about 1600 fps is a critical velocity figure that loosens things with hydrostatic shock. So moved on up past Elmer Keith's loads and way past the Speer manuals. Kind of a wussy 454 in that it isn't a duplex or triplex load, but Bambi says 250 @ 1900 fps is just fine and I really don't need to break 2,000 fps by adding some Bullseye (and also probably sending my psi up past 70,000 psi). No just straight 2400 at about 35,000 psi.

Seriously, if I were doing Kodiak, I would probably be lugging a Marlin in .50 Alaska. TG I am not. Just Bambi and my lil woods monsters.
.50 Alaska. ..it does seem more confidence inspiring than a .243, doesn't it?laugh

I've SEEN polar bears...never had to fend one off. It's o.k. by me if I never do. According to Alaskan officialdom , based on recorded incidents, a shotgun with Foster slugs is recommended. I've also heard of alternating slugs & buckshot.

Another option....pepper spray. Special bear sized spray.is sorta like a mini fire extinguisher & can come with a holster. Some rreports are that great bears will NOT stay around that stuff! One successful survivor claimed a sow grizzly ran over her own cubs to escape from it! wow It may STOP an attack qquicker than ANY firearm. Wouldn't hurt to have both,I ssuppose. Belt & suspenders.

Note above..."great bears". The pepper is very effective on them. Apparently Much less so on black bears. sigh
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drgnslyr1234

drgnslyr1234

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