In this past few weeks that i have been hunting i have notice that in the evening around late dusk i start to hear to what sounds like rocks being banged together.As i start walking back on the trail I see that the deer seem to be closer to the trail and not so scared of me as i walk past them .

Idea what i am thinking is if there was a bigfoot that was banging rocks together at dark in the evening could be pushing the deer or maybe even herding them and hunting them down in a ambush stile attack. I know that it is a far fetch idea but i have notice this alot since the season started and yes i am trying to get the recording of this so that i can post it .The same goes with the sounds and this is a different area of Michigan where i know that hoaxing is not being done on me . As the saying goes " fool me once shame on you; fool me twice shame on me" I will not be fooled again by no one.

The question i should be asking others is are there others who are hearing what sounds like rocks being banged together ? i figured i would throw this out and test the waters and see if it is happening.

I guess my question would be, what proof do we have that supposed bf animals bang rocks together? I would think it would be easier to vocalize to drive deer rather than lug a couple of rocks around?

t.

Deer seem to have the smarts to know when you're not allowed to shoot them, and seem to appear from everywhere as soon as the sun sets. So I wouldn't necessarily agree that anything was herding them. Try herding them slowly yourself, they'd look a bit more agitated, more tail flicking, heads staying up, ears going like radar dishes.

As to the noise, bucks rubbing (or butting) their racks can be a bit more clicky-clacky sounding than tree knocks. So I'd suggest that that would be a more likely noise given that you were surrounded by deer at a time of high activity for them.

they do it because, in order to "keep it real", someone has to keep the beat...



dav

I have two experiences with the "sounds like rocks" scenario. I have heard it while hiking in an area that I used to do research in behind Garibaldi, Oregon and also while camping east of Estacada, Oregon near the Colowash river. The sounds were much quieter than the tree knocking I've heard in the same area, very faint but with a rhythm almost like tree knocking.

I think your idea is definitely a potential but how would you ever confirm it unless you were in on the "before the hunt" discussion with BF? One thing you could do is try mimicking the sounds with your own rocks and see what you get. Again, it probably wont give you any concrete (no pun intended) answers but it might go a long way in helping you understand whats making the sound. When I posted my experiences with these sounds here, I was told by Catmandu, that the sounds could have been the blue or sooty grouse. Now I don't know but what I was hearing sure didn't sound like grouse to me. It had a very distinct and deliberate rock on rock sound but then again, i was alone and quite far back into the bush on foot and when I left the area, the sounds followed me out the entire way.

Cheers

spookysully
Same thing happens to me where the rock sounds seems to follow me out until i make it to my truck.It has happen to on more then one occassion and it is getting to the point where i might be able to get it on a recorder.I can say this is that my friend and i both look at each other bewildered. It sounds like it has a pattern to it and no it sure as hell is not no grouse nor is it any deer because I have only seen the deer close to the trail as i am going back to my truck and they seem nervous.

My friend and i once sat on a fallen tree and waited to see what these rock clanking was and as we sat there it seemed like it was getting closer to our position .So we kept sitting there and it kept getting closer until we got to nervous ,Thats when i let out a owl hoot which is not a very good owl hoot impression and the rock clanking stopped .When we got back to the truck i hooted again and thats when we started hearing movement around us and what sounded like screams .Now that i do have on tape and it is not that great to hear since it sounds like it is a great distance from us .This is well after dark and we thought that these screams might be turkey since i was owl hooting but i am not sure if that makes a difference after dark with turkeys.I might post those sounds but i am not sure yet if i should . I will think about it?

What I have heard, at least to me, doesn't sound like grouse either, I mentioned it because I'm fully aware that the immediate BF assumption leads nowhere very quickly and to be honest, I have no idea what was making those sounds. All I know is that under the circumstances that I heard these sounds BFF makes me think this was something other than a grouse but then again, I didn't see anything so I'm once again left to the same conclusions everyone else is...who knows?

When you heard whatever it was appear to be getting closer, I'll bet the adrenalin was kicking in on high! I really wish that I wasn't alone during my experience, I'm pretty sure I would have been able to sit down and wait it out as well but with all that was going on, my only concern was getting the hell out of there!

Cheers

I would like to here the sounds! You could pm them to me if you don't want to post them here?

Cheers

The first thing that popped into my mind was (if it were a BF making the noise) ,a territorial threat display. Maybe against another BF or a human (you).

Hey - I managed to record some knocking at one of my research areas earlier this month. I thought it sounded like wood on wood, but someone has since suggested maybe rock on rock.

You can listen to the audio here - Southern Yahoo was kind enough to isolate some of the knocks from my original recording and bump up the volume.

The audio is really faint, even though I estimate the sounds were originating around only 25 metres away.

Yea, I heard the knocking but whether or not it's wood or rock is difficult to say. Is there anything more to add as far as details? This is a research area, has there been other activity there? Previous sighting or other activity? Was there anything leading up to this recording that might be important?

Cheers

Hi Spooky - one of my research areas, it has a few previous sightings from over the years. I've found a possible print and a few partials in the area, as well as the usual odd tree breaks, lack of wildlife, etc.

We were scouting a new part of the area, had stopped alongside a swampy spot checking for prints and the knocks started up. My brother did some knocks in return as I turned the camera on, and the knocks started again soon after I started recording - the full video is posted there in my you tube account where the audio one is.