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Great stories in this thread! In most of my decades of exploring the woods, I have usually been alone. Have never gotten lost and never been in danger. Knock on wood. But now that I'm older and not in as good of shape, and a bit smarter, I still go out alone, but am much better prepared than I was before. The last few years I've had a great companion; a 100lb great dane/lab mix. But, he's nearly 14 and has really gotten bad arthritis the past few months. I took him out mushroom hunting a couple of months ago and he was barely able to make it back to the rig. So now I'm alone, again. When I first started dating my current girlfriend, she said she loved the outdoors and hiking. I think we've gone three times the past year and she refuses to tent camp, lol. Couple of years ago, me and my dog loaded up an old pop-up camper I had restored and found a nice secluded spot in Idaho. Got all situated and firewood ready and decided to go for a short hike up the draw that we were camped at the base of. My dog had declined to wander outside of camp and stayed close to the fire, which is odd for him. About 50 yards up the game trail, my dog started going nuts, sniffing all around and marking territory every few feet. I looked on the trail and found a very fresh pile of wolf scat and some prints. Apparently, at least one wolf came down and scouted us out while I was busy setting up camp. We only did a short hike and my dog was not cool with being more than 20 yards from me at all times.

Lot's of great advice and replies in this thread. I really don't consider Bigfoot a physical threat since I seem to recall very few incidents of them harming humans, so my sidearms/long arms for the woods are geared more towards the four-legged threats found in the Idaho woods. But, I'm just a casual Bigfoot enthusiast and may be naive regarding the threat they represent. I would never shoot one that was not a threat, even if it mean't instant fame and fortune. That being said, I am often in areas with lots of wolves, black bears, cougars, and ill-tempered moose, so I take my woods guns rather seriously. My favorite sidearm is my Glock G29 10mm compact. Though I have modified it a bit to maximize effectiveness. It now has a KKM 4.5" barrel for ease of mind in shooting hotter hardcast lead bullets and greater velocity. I also added Dawson fiber optic sights and an X-Grip adapter so I can use the Glock G20 15-round magazines. Next is my grizzly pistol, which is a Ruger Super Blackhawk Bisley model in .45 Colt. I cast my own hardcast lead bullets and load my own ammo and use a 300 grain bullet with around an 18 BN hardness. I rarely carry it anymore since the Glock is so much handier and I'm rarely in Grizzly territory. I also built a couple of long arms for use as camp guns and short hiking guns. The first I built was a Marlin 1894 carbine in .45 Colt that used the same loads as my Ruger pistol. I added a picatinny rail for a light, comfy sling, red dot sight, and a stock pouch with extra rounds. It sort of triggers the lever gun purists, but I built it as an effective woods gun and I like it. Next, I found the Marlin not 100% reliable in feeding and a bit heavy, so I built an AR-15 chambered in .450 Bushmaster. I adopted the same sling, optics, and light from the Marlin. Also added an extra mag pouch. But, it turned out nearly as heavy as the marlin, but it's got a bit more power, has been 100% reliable, and I love it! Picture of my Woods cartridges, all homemade, lol. Though the .45-70 isn't technically a "woods" gun, it is a Winchester 1885 high wall single-shot buffalo rifle I used in matches when I lived in Arizona. From left to right: .45-70 govt., .450 Bushmaster, .45 Colt, 10mm, and .40 S&W.

When I learned recently that Mini Garands (16" barrels) can be had in 35 Whelen, Iknew I had to have one. I was imagining an 8 round semi-auto in a rifle the near same length/weight as my Marlin Guide gun, but......... It appears that you can't get a full clip of 8 rounds with the bigger 35 caliber bullets. Five round max......unless Schuff's has perfected grinding the guide ramps down. Plus a 16" barrel means velocities down, and maybe under 2500 fps with a 225 grain bullet. AFAIC, that's sacrificing too much, especially with a $2K+ purchase price. Then I thought that a Mini Garand with a full 8 rounds of 30-06, especially 200 grains, would be just about as good.........until I again factored in the loss of velocity. So 8 rounds of 180 grain Swift A-Frames? I'm still tempted, if I could get the velocities above 2500 fps.......and I bet I could. Ultimately, rebuilding two bathrooms, needing a transmission in my truck, and needing to re-power my boat pretty much negates the dream. After all, I've got the Marlin Guide Gun and a Browning Stainless Stalker Alaska Special 338 Mag, not to mention an M1 Garand Tanker (18" barrel) in 7.62x51.

Great looking dog!

Now this is what I have said in the past thread MIB. In order for E-DNA to work and have an outcome they have to look for a specific creature in the data base to compare with. If there is nothing there then how will they know what they are looking for. Even if it turns out to be a novel human it will still be thrown out. Since it will match up as human. If it matches up as ape then there would be a problem. But as it stand nothing has matched up as ape, chimp or anything primate. If it did we would be hearing about it by now. If it was of a novel human it would be big news and we would be hearing it as well by now too. Nothing so far. The one way to figure out the contamination problem would be to have everyone's DNA in the data base. This would solve the contamination problem and we all know that this is not going to happen. Body on the slab is the only solution. But how far will some one get when that happens. Will that group that makes it happen be stopped by the Higher ups. I am assuming that this has already taken placed. FOIA is not going to help get this information. Science is being held back from disclosing . Maybe due to a human factor involve. Now this is just my opinion but it does make you wonder why scientist do not want to get involve. These creatures have been around a long time. Science should have been involved with these creatures way back then. Maybe they have.

Also what makes me nervous with E-DNA testing is if like other tests may show, BF possibly being a close relative all results could be thrown out as human and overlooked.

I've been trying to get scientists involved in order to acquire physical evidence (DNA). I'm not optimistic that will yield results. I have been trying something similar .. with a twist. I am curious who is already doing e-DNA testing in the field. If they are, and if they are using primers that should identify everything in an area, we might have our DNA evidence for bigfoot without realizing it. However, it does not look like e-DNA testing use is as widespread as I was lead to believe. I think we've been mislead a bit on sample size as well. It apparently takes filtering a vast amount of water to collect enough DNA to test for, it's not just a matter of dipping your water bottle in the lake "as shown on TV." There doesn't seem to be a lot of scientific interest in approaches focused on "show me everything in the environment", rather, funding, etc are based on determining if "X" is in the environment, and traditional methods are a lot more cost-effective. If you're looking for wolves, wolverines, lahotian red band trout, or invasive mollusks, that is what they test for, specifically, rather than looking for everything, then seeing if "X" is in the list. Unless we find some situation where someone is specifically testing for primates, and in North America, that's us, and we already know we are everywhere, I don't see a way to piggyback on other ongoing research, it's going to have to be done specifically to look for bigfoot. ... at least, that's the way it appears right now from the scientists I've talked to. MIB

Do remember a thread where people talked about this? Good effort, and perhaps it will pay off.

@langfordbc PM me for details on how to get a woods only carry permit in BC. I had one for my S&W 629 44mag for years.