[I would like to congratulate myself in advance for the most important idea of at least the last decade. If someone already thought of this... well... no you didn't...]

Thoughts often pop into my brain inexplicably, and unlike a sensible person I often tend to ruminate on them beyond what they are probably due. And as friends of mine would attest, I then tend to share these random ideas with anyone that will listen or even pretend to listen. However, my sharing these thoughts does not mean that they are necessarily worth a damn.
With that enticing caveat, I present you with this:

Apes are fascinated by mirrors. Humans who are unfamiliar with mirrors are fascinated upon seeing them. In the past, when and where mirrors have been rare they are valuable items. Hell, even people who own dozens of mirrors and see them all the time spend strange ammounts of time staring at the things.
So, I thought, a mirror would be a nice gift to leave in the woods for a sasquatch. It would probably think it was cool. But what would be the point?
And then this idea occured to me. A sasquatch may be sensitive to changes in its environment, and may be particularly wary of human-related disturbances. Perhaps they don't want to get to near your trail camera because it is a suspicious artificial foreign object. But, imagine they see a mirror in a tree. That's an intersting looking thing. Curiosity... And Dammit, he just can't help checking himself out, making silly faces, flexing his muscles, etc. BUT... Behind that mirror is your trail camera, hidden behind one-way glass, and sometime later you can present to the world a magnificent picture of bigfoot checking if he has anything in his teeth.
I know. I'm a genius.
Of course, if the sasquatch is really interested, he will rip your camera/mirror off of the tree and take it home with him, where he will bang it on rocks and chew on it.
Still, I am very awesome.
Thank me later.

Great idea! We need more people like you.

Clever--and worth a try, since it costs little. Who knows what we may find. (Hopefully not a lipstick-message on the mirror, "Stop me before I hoax more.") At a minimum the local fauna will be entertained.

I'm reminded of the technique DDA uses to determine if camera-site vandalism has been done by a human: He nails a $10 bill to a tree; if it's been taken, a human was responsible.

Other people have suggested attracting BFs by similar appeals to his curiosity, such as by tethering a large, colorful balloon in the forest (near a clearing might be best), in hopes that he would approach it. Perhaps the two methods should be combined.

Worth a try, but don't be surprised if you only end up with a broken mirror and no further answers. Since we normally see reports of solitary creatures, or of very small groups that appear to be a family unit, my guess is they are probably territorial. A reflection in a mirror may be viewed as another creature (since they have no idea what they look like, having no regular exposure to mirrors) and the only outcome will be it's destruction.

Yes, and especially if a couple of teenagers happen upon it first. "Who's the Einstein that left a mirror hanging in the woods!? Watch this!<smash>"

If this is tried, and the mirror does end up being broken(or simply swiped), make sure to keep this in mind, and not jump to any conclusions right off the bat.

Nailing a $10 bill to a nearby tree would indicate by its absence if vandals were responsible. In really deep mountainous woods, few vandalous teens would be traipsing by, outside of hunting season, maybe.

One additional inexpensive feature to attract a creature would be wind chimes.

Wind chimes and mirrors are a great idea, but how about dropping a trailcam near enough to record the action. You can camoflauge it good enough to where the teens that smash the mirror or stealing the chimes won't find it.

THe idea here is basically to bait the sasquatches in to photograph them, which is an obvious approach. I like the creative genius behind the mirror idea, but doubt it would be logistically feasible. Just please don't do it from May through August when our forest warblers are breeding, or the squatch might be attracted to the dead birds at the bottom rather than his own reflection!

But on the subject of baiting, can fans of the Skookum Cast shed any light on why that approach has not been repeated ad nauseum? Wasn't the alleged imprinter lured in with apples? Heck, I've got lots of apples. Why are we not all setting piles of apples in the woods next to our gametracker cameras? If cameras are no good for some reason, then how about track plates (where the animal print gets recorded in incredible detail in carbon dust) and hair catchers like other mammalogists use? If I was in on the Skookum Cast thingie - and 100% beleived it to be a real bigfoot butt imprint or whatever - then I'd have that set up replicated 1000 times over. But that's just me . . .

~Saskeptic

Put a cam up and then you will know who took it.

ah saskeptic got the cam thing...

Not necessarily.

Two springs ago I set up a bear bait station, but didn't get back out to hunt it (it was a three mile walk through the woods, and I wore my knee out packing the bait in). Among the requirements for bear baiting in Alaska is that a permit is required, it must be posted at the site, and warning signs are required around the site. Also, the site must be cleaned up at the end of the baiting season. I put the permit and warning signs in zip-lock plastic bags and post them on trees.

I went back at the end of the season to clean the site up, but there was nothing left, including the permit and warning signs. The bears ate everything, including the zip-lock bags that the permit and warning signs were in.

And there is no doubt that it was the bears. Tracks of all sizes were all over the place.

I used apples and citrus fruits both, it seems the best thing to bait a bigfoot around my area is anything that peaks their curiosity, so I think the mirror and wind chime would work wonders in my neck of the woods.

This is an idea I've heard discussed before, and may be in use by some now. I know of a planned habituation attempt in the works with the possibility of mirrors and pictograms being used. There is nothing wrong with attempting new ideas or methods. Another great thing about mirrors is that they show fingerprints really well.

Document everything!!! Assume nothing!!!

See, the problem with mirrors is that most animals don't recognize their own image. Most either bark at themselves or completely ignore it.
Goriilas tend to do the latter, but chimps if I remember right do recognize their own image. Apeman, a little help here?

Anyway, try itif it works great if it doesn't just move on to something else.

Sorry to say this has been talked about a few times in the past at a few different places. Some even have said that could be one of the things that is happening when Bigfoot is seen looking at windows. You know how in a lot of windows it is easy to see yourself.
I know I have seen shows on Animal planet that showed them putting mirrors in with apes at times. They done it to see if they would recognize themselves and all of that. I even remember one show where the ape (forget what type) was sitting there brushing it's hair looking in the mirror.

Bigfoot if it is like other apes at all would enjoy a mirror. The problem is chances are no way you could fasten it some way that they could not pull it off and take it with them. Plus other animals might break it or something also.

Very kind of you all to actually humor me with this one.
I was just being a goofball, but I really did think that the camera hidden behind a two-way mirror might be worth a try. If you filter through my rambling b.s. up there, that was the main idea. The camera is in the mirror.
I did see some discussion here about looking in windows being potential viewing of reflections, and I did see some discussion of orangs on a tv show combing their hair and basically checking themseles out with hand mirrors. Also even a few brief mentions by a couple folks of hanging mirrors, among other things, as lures.
I guess what I did think was an interesting potentiality (despite my sarcasm to start the thread) was that idea of hiding the game cam behind the two-way mirror. I think too much stuff there to lure them might make them wary. But a mirror may pique their curiosity. As far as territoriality, a small mirror probably wouldn't provide enough surface for the sasquatch to really feel it was another sasquatch. (unlike birds. saskeptic makes a good point there. they could kamikaze that thing until the bird or the mirror wins.)
I was also going on the assumption that the squatch would recognize himself in the mirror. This is what would get him curious, after the initial novelty. I had thought that all apes had passed the mirror self-awareness test. I know chimps (and so to bonobos, I assume), and orangs have done so. I at least one non-primate, the bottlenose dolphin, has. But now that you bring it up, Mattuitis, I don't know about gorillas.
This whole thing was basically predicated on the assumption that they would recognize themselves and be curious, and with a camera inside it could provide interesting pics.
As I said, though, I was being completely sarcastic about this being such a great idea. I just thought it was something silly but kind of interesting that I would share.
I'm glad that you folks also found it interesting enough to humor me.
If this really does get a sasquatch picture someday, though, you have to buy me a candybar.

You might consider the type of mirror used in most institutions of incarceration - highly polished metal, with the camera attached to the back. Just drill a hole for the lens. Virtually indestructible.

I'm not sure about Skookum Meadows, but I know of a few people who are baiting with apples and other fruits on a regular basis. A few of us have had results...at least something took the apples and it wasn't an easy task. "Things" do point to the fact that it wasn't humans though. Further investigation is ongoing.

The other thing that I've decided to try is, a solar powered recorder out in the woods which plays the sound of a cricket chirping over and over....you just know that the big guy will have to find that cricket.


This is meant to be a joke about the cricket thingy.

Just by looking at Sleeper's humble opinion of himself, I can imagine he got this idea based on the amount of mirror watching that he personally practice....

Anyway interesting proposition, hopefully can work and something good can come out of it other than self adulating statements.... (just kidding Sleeper, a little sarcasms right back at you!! interesting post!!)

Here ya go! Only $59!

http://cgi.ebay.com/HIDDEN-CAMERA-MIRROR-S...1QQcmdZViewItem

or, better yet...what squatch could resist checking out this little guy?

http://spyville.com/stmowica.html

Sleeper wrote:



I actually tried this about fifteen years ago with 5 different mirrors. No camtrackers then, but the idea was to see if anything would touch them, thereby possibly leaving a fingerprint. When I came back a month later, three were gone, along with one of the trees. Damn lumbering industry. (the area was in the Southern Sierra where the previous year I had heard some very Puyallup-like screams following a couple of reports I had heard about). Anywho, I think it's a valid idea and worth trying in very remote, historically rich areas.

Here you go, Sleeper...maybe you could do something with this:

Stalker Shield

hey sleeper- I would like to comment on ur idea, and u might find this a little unusual on this forum, WHAT A GREAT IDEA. I have spent many an hour on a roof-top in Iraq wondering what i could do to capture evedince of our big hairy friend. If i get anything, i'll give u the credit, well some of it

I think this idea is worth a try.
and YES, I ALWAYS bring apples with me to the woods....(costs me about $12 -$15 a trip to leave 10 or so pounds out....) And I leave them out away from camp more as a food offering than bait.

The mirror idea is one I first heard on Robert Morgan's cassette. Rip it all you want, but there are some good ideas amidst all his ramblings...this was one of them. Leave out a few camp mirrors and always leave your camp for an hour or so each afternoon...take a hike.
I haven't had them moved or taken ...nor touched.

Then a friend from expedition last May suggested a larger mirror and I picked up a 4 foot door mirror for under $10. It's hard to pack and such, so I've only deployed it once as a curiosity item about 300 yards from camp.

Good idea...thanks for bringing it up again...
And Wildman's right....document EVERYTHING!! assume nothing...