Puma!

B

binka

Guest
Excellent, love it!

I took a very similar set of images leading out of my local river back in the early part of 2014 after receding floods had left a perfectly unmarked mud bank, no tracks leading in to the river just tracks leading out.

IIRC the prints were in excess of 8" wide and I posted them in Mark the Spark's excellent thread "Big Cat Sightings"...

http://www.fishingmagic.com/forums/bait-box/135890-big-cat-sightings.html


At the time I was happy enough to go with the theory that it was some huge lump of a dog even if I couldn't explain the lack of any footprints leading into the river and then, several months later, I was extremely lucky and very privileged to have had the following experience.

This is taken from the same thread...

binka said:
Ok, here goes…

I originally sent the following account to Mark shortly after the incident, which I’m relating below, happened last week. I did tell him that he was free to post it on my behalf if he wished to do so but that I wished to remain anonymous and Mark very kindly replied and acknowledged it.

I’m not sure if you intended to post it Mark but I have since decided to risk the ridicule and submit the account which is a combination of the original and follow up messages that I sent you along with a slight edit regarding the species of big cat and censoring out the location details plus an additional thought since on personal safety.

Mark is aware of the exact location although I have deliberately left it out of the public domain…

........................................................................................................


Following a short evening session on the river I was travelling home at around 9.30pm through what is a fairly vast area of rural farmland interspersed with the occasional village, the road was reasonably quiet and it was the half-light of dusk… neither light nor dark and it was still possible to distinguish different colours etc.

As I travelled through one particular riverside village I eventually came to open road once again and entered the neighbouring countryside and as I did so, right before my very eyes and quick enough as to almost completely deceive them a large, black creature appeared through the overgrown verge bordering some farmland to my left before appearing to pause for a split second and then flashed straight across the road around two to three hundred yards ahead!

It’s size, shape, posture and speed was something with which it seemed totally at ease with yet it looked completely unnatural in relation to any domestic or indigenous wild animal and the best I can do by way of a description would be to say that it was around five feet in length, black in colour and with a kind of low slung “prowling” type of posture which seemed to further exaggerate the length of its body and with an ease and lightning speed of movement in that low slung position that defied explanation.

Whilst the whole incident lasted barely a split second or two I have the outline, posture and startling speed of that creature permanently etched on my memory.

I Immediately felt in little if any doubt as to what I had just witnessed and the feelings ranged from initial disbelief which eventually gave way to elation and now a calm feeling that I’ve been extremely privileged to have witnessed such an incredible thing.

I’ve been through all of the possible alternatives and nothing else gets even close to what I saw… no dog, no large domestic or feral cat, no fox or deer or anything else for that matter could move at the speed with which this creature did and in the posture in which it did.

That outline etched on my memory is the outline of a big cat albeit I am ignorant to the various species and would probably be wrong if I tried to guess.

I phoned my regular fishing mate around 10.30pm that evening which is usually a no no as he gets up early for work and he said he knew straight away from my voice that I was totally serious and says he doesn't doubt me one bit.

Interestingly, the sighting occurred less than a mile from where I took the picture which I posted in the thread a few months ago of the large paw print after the winter floods which I had passed off as a big dog at the time and still probably was but again there was no mistaking the sighting on that particular evening.

The other thing that has since struck me after travelling the same route last night is that the area where it decided to cross the highway was just outside of ------------ beyond the boundary to the grounds of ---------- around the area where ---------- Farm land begins (a very large area of crop land) on a heavily covered part of the road with lots of overhanging trees and consequently darker than the open countryside beyond it where the hedgerows are maintained and much lower and where it gets lighter again at any time of day but particularly at that time of evening for the next mile or so before going back to heavier covered areas beyond.

Not sure if i'm reading too much into that but it seems to stand to reason and also, after spending half an hour on Google since it would appear that credible sightings have occurred at the nearby ------------ area and ----------- around 10 miles away.

............................................................................................................

So, there you have it… take it or leave it.

I'm no big cat chaser and haven't really ever given it that much thought if I'm honest but would probably have said I had an open mind on the subject if pushed.

I’m in no doubt myself but would I feel nervous about being in remote farmland beside a river with such a creature on the loose?

No, not for a minute.

There was no doubt whatsoever that whatever I witnessed was a very shy, very highly alert and very nervous creature that would likely bolt in the opposite direction at the snapping of a twig a half a mile away.
Click to expand...
 
thecrow

thecrow

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 12, 2014
Messages
7,607
Reaction score
5
Location
Old Arley home of the Crows
Good article, I have seen something a few years ago that left me wondering if I saw what I thought I saw. In the half light of pre dawn driving through a one road village a black? cat like creature jumped from one side of the road to the other in one bound approx. 20 yards in front of me and was gone, I reversed my car but saw nothing.

I never mentioned this to anyone until my two sons told me of something they had seen on the opposite bank to where they were fishing in the same area that I saw what I have described, it was also early in the morning and they
described as a large cat, to big for a domestic moggie.

None of us ever saw it again.
 
john step

john step

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 17, 2011
Messages
7,006
Reaction score
3,995
Location
There
I am going to pay more attention to footprints in the mud in an isolated lake. I have always presumed they were a large dog although there is never evidence of human prints accompanying them!!!
 
tigger

tigger

Banned
Banned
Joined
Jul 12, 2009
Messages
9,335
Reaction score
1,692
binka said:
That looks like my missus... Pre-Immac! :eek: :D
Click to expand...

She'll be nice and warm to cuddle up to;), especially during these winter months :cool:
Leave the immac'ing untill the tench season comes round and things have warmed up :D
 
B

binka

Guest
tigger said:
She'll be nice and warm to cuddle up to;), especially during these winter months :cool:
Leave the immac'ing untill the tench season comes round and things have warmed up :D
Click to expand...

Too late Ian, she did it last week.

Three king size bed sheets and two buckets of rapid set wallpaper paste later and she's good to go :)
 
B

binka

Guest
dorsetandchub said:
Imacc? Steve's birds normally need Shake n Vac!! :D
Click to expand...

Harsh... But fair! :)

Joking aside she's always been the shy type and I had to beg a picture of her to put in the empty frame above the fireplace, the only one she would give me was taken some time ago whilst on holiday with her sister.

Anyway, here she is, she's the one on the left...

























 
tigger

tigger

Banned
Banned
Joined
Jul 12, 2009
Messages
9,335
Reaction score
1,692
I prefer the Hairy big footed one myself :).
 
dorsetandchub

dorsetandchub

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 25, 2012
Messages
5,175
Reaction score
5
Location
Southern Somerset
Sheet, think I need Shake n Vac to get that image and associated thoughts out of my head.

Hung by my own petard, I've created a monster......:D
 
Nobby C (ACA)

Nobby C (ACA)

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 9, 2001
Messages
1,098
Reaction score
0
Location
leafy green nowhere
Footprints (pug marks for the pedantic :) ) are the way to go. With the exception of Cheetah all cats have retractable claws. It claws are visible in the prints then it's more likeiy a dog.
Saying that I tend to believe the sightings, there must be more to the tales than mass hysteria and wild speculation.
 
R

rubio

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 30, 2010
Messages
1,234
Reaction score
576
Location
Suffolk
There's one out east too, or at least was a few years back.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top