SC EP:483 It was an ape about 5 ft tall

A listener writes "I grew up in Missouri, or missourah as we say, in my youth, I ran with a pretty rough crowd, raced cars,(picture trucker caps, long hair, black t shirts, skynyrd cranking and jack daniels in the freezer). Anyway, we used to go down to the Lake if the Ozarks at my friend Matt's cabin the Osage Beach/Branson area when it was nothing but filling stations and live bait stores, early 80s. During the weekends it was busy, kinda a red neck Hamptons. Dead during the week. One week in late August my friend Matt invited a bunch of us to hunt/fish/party for a couple of days mid week when nobody is there. We got a late start as usual, I remember stopping for gas, and the crusty old man who pumped it told us to watch out for those guys, he nodded at a couple of guys in a pickup with about 200# yeast and corn feed and copper line, ie moonshiners pulling out in a beat up Chevy truck (common in the Ozarks). "Don't let them boys or the boogers get ya". He was referring to the recent MoMo sightings in the area. The Missouri Monster or MoMo had been seen for a couple of years in Jackson, Clay Counties as well as the Ozarks. There have actually been sightings and confrontations dating back to the Civil War, (Jessie James and his guerrilla fighters actually had violent encounters with them in the caves on Boone Co.) Anyway, when we finally got to the cabin in a very desolate area of the lake (Cajun creek as they called it) with several small creeks in a densely wooded hillside, literally the sticks. That night we were pretty loud, partying/ girls/loud music/ the occasional drunken firearm discharged (sorry we were wild). At about 330 am, we started getting various chunks of wood and the occasional pebble tossed at us. We assumed it was some disgruntled moonshiners which we knew were in the area. We yelled back and threw the stones back. Then silence, dead silence. About 5 min later we heard a bunch of whooping, that was weird. Matt insisted it was a coyote, yeah the biggest assed one on the planet! After about 10 min of whoops from two directions it stopped. I guess MoMo doesn't like skynyrd! The rest of the nighte was quiet. I should mention that Matt and Kevin were down at the lake night fishing for catfish with stinkbait, they caught several and gutted them on a large flat rock on the shore. While doing so they heard loud splashing that they thought were large fish or somebody tossing rocks. Fast forward to the am, a couple of the girls went down to the dock to hang out while we were cooking up catfish steaks for breakfast. About 1/2 an hr after they left they ran back screaming saying they saw a bear or something with long hair and arms hiding in the brush by the fish guts. We all ran down, nuthin. Of course nobody looked for tracks. After a day on the water we came back to the cabin, everything in order except the woodpile was toppled. Matt and I wanted to go squirrel hunting in the hills by the creek where there was a large beaver damn that had been there for years, you'd see them floating down the creek from time to time. Matt had a 12ga side by side and I had an Erma .22 cal m1 carbine (German post war). When we hiked up to the creek about 3/4 mi from the lake and directly above the cabin. When we got up there, the smell of death was strong, then we came upon the beaver damn which was in shambles, one beavers carcass was found pulled apart, like something grabbed the head, and another the tail and pulled. There were bites out of it, maybe 12hrs old. Matt was on one bank of the creek and I was on the other looking at the destroyed damn. The woods were silent. Then we heard somebody sloshing up through the creek (it was maybe a foot deep at most) coming down towards us. Slowly a figure came around the brush walking in the creek staring at the water, bent over trying to find something. It was ape like maybe 5 ft tall, black/ brown matted hair all over its body broad shoulders, male, no real neck, cone shaped head with longish hair on neck shoulder area, couldn't really see ears. It's nose was flat with forward nostrils black skin, large black eyes. It first looked at Matt grunted a snarled showing its incisors and turned and started going directly at Matt, who was paralyzed in fear. I aimed at him and chambered a round, clearly he never saw me, he quickly turned his torso looking my way with a puzzled look on his face, cocking his head at an angle. Then we heard a distinct clicking from up in the woods behind us, the one in the water clicked back and he quickly went back the way he came. The whole thing lasted 2 min. I had him in my sights but couldn't pull the trigger. Looked humanoid but clearly more ape. The closest thing I've seen on line is the "them and us" version. The rest of the time was quiet and we never talked about it for weeks. I had another less dramatic encounter later that fall in Buckner, Mo which I can fill you in on later. Glad to get it off my chest, feel free to call or email me anytime to talk."