Bigfoot Injured by Propeller Attacks Fishermen's Boat

Posted Friday, September 25, 2026

By Squatchable.com staff

There's a video making the rounds that absolutely stopped me in my tracks, and I had to share it with you all. It comes from the Bigfoot Sasquatch Stories channel on YouTube, and it details one of the most harrowing Sasquatch encounters I've come across in a long time. The story takes place on the morning of August 17th, 1996, along the Clamoth River near Happy Camp, and it's the kind of account that reminds us just how powerful these beings truly are. According to the retelling, four fishermen set out that morning like they had many times before. Evan Rusk was at the helm of the aluminum boat, with Caleb Tras, Mitch Hail, and Darren Wells along for what was supposed to be a routine Chinook salmon run. The river was calm, the coffee was hot, and the morning had that familiar peaceful feel that any angler would recognize. They had no idea what was waiting for them in the shallows. Around 7:14 AM, everything changed in an instant. The outboard motor kicked violently upward as if it had struck a submerged log, and when Evan turned to look behind the boat, a massive creature covered in dark brown fur erupted from the water. It stood upright in waist-deep water, towering well above the windshield of the boat. The figure had a low forehead, a broad nose, and an open mouth fixed in what the witness described as an expression of pain and agitation. In its left hand, it was still clutching a large Chinook salmon with part of its belly torn away. Along its left lower leg, a fresh red wound was bleeding into the river. The propeller had cut the creature. What happened next unfolded in just 78 seconds, and it's genuinely difficult to listen to. The Sasquatch dropped the fish and reached for the stern of the boat, gripping the metal rail beside the motor. The sheer weight and force of the creature tipped the aluminum hull sharply backward. Evan hit the kill switch, but it was already too late. The boat twisted out of line, the windshield cracked and shattered, and the men were thrown around the cramped interior like rag dolls. Mitch grabbed a fish gaff and tried to create some distance, even striking the creature's forearm, but the Sasquatch ripped the aluminum handle right out of his hands. Darren went over the side of the bow into the cold water. Caleb was thrown into the metal frame of the boat and couldn't get back up. Mitch was swept sideways, his head striking the edge of a seat. The video's narrator, Victor, walks through the timeline second by second, and the level of detail is striking. He makes an important point right at the beginning that I think a lot of people miss when they hear stories like this. The encounter didn't start because a Sasquatch was hunting fishermen. It started underwater, just seconds before they ever saw the creature. The being was already there, already fishing, already going about its morning. The collision was an accident, and the response was driven by pain and panic, not predation. That distinction matters. Too often, stories like this get twisted into something that paints these beings as monsters looking for human prey. The account presented here suggests something very different. A Sasquatch was doing exactly what the fishermen were doing, feeding on salmon during the late summer run. When it was suddenly injured by a boat propeller, it reacted with the same kind of desperate, defensive force that any wounded animal would. The tragedy here isn't about a creature seeking violence. It's about a peaceful morning on a river that went wrong in less than two minutes. The Clamoth River runs through some seriously remote and rugged country in the Klamath National Forest, and Happy Camp sits right in the heart of a region that has long been considered prime Sasquatch habitat. The dense alder brush, the deep side channels, the salmon runs, the old-growth timber along the banks, this is exactly the kind of environment where these beings thrive. Researchers and witnesses have reported activity in this part of Northern California for decades, and the terrain makes it easy to understand why. A creature could live its entire life along that river system and never be seen by anyone who wasn't right on top of it. What makes this particular account stand out to me is the specificity. The timeline is precise, down to the minute. The physical descriptions are consistent with what countless other witnesses have reported over the years, the dark brown fur, the low forehead, the broad nose, the enormous size, the long fingers. The behavior also tracks with what we know. Sasquatches are documented as being avid salmon fishermen, particularly in the Pacific Northwest and Northern California, where they have been observed wading into rivers during salmon runs to catch fish by hand. This wasn't some random encounter. It was two different parties doing the same thing in the same place at the same time, and the result was catastrophic. The video is worth every minute of your time. Victor's narration is calm and methodical, and he lays out the sequence of events in a way that lets you visualize exactly what happened on that boat. There are no dramatic music cues, no over-the-top sound effects. Just the facts of the morning, told plainly, and they hit harder because of it. If you haven't seen it yet, go give it a watch. And if you have, drop a comment with where you're watching from. Stories like this one are exactly why so many of us keep paying attention to what comes out of these river valleys. The evidence isn't always a blurry photo or a shaky piece of footage. Sometimes it's a story that lines up with everything we've been hearing for years, told with enough detail that you can't easily dismiss it. Stay curious, friends. There's more out there than the world wants to admit.