DATE:     1972?

TIME:       3-4 am

LOCATION:  Montgomery Alabama, Lake Purdy Jeffersson County, Ala.

                        State Hwy. 119 north of US HWY 280

TERRAIN:     Heavily wooded mountains around lake

OBSERVED:   My brother and I were night fishing across the lake from the boat landing. As we worked the bank, a very large animal came down the side of the mountain. It was making all kinds of noise in the leaf litter. It reached the bank, stopped, and stood there breathing heavily. The breathing was very deep, and very hoarse.
We could see nothing, but neither of us believed it to be an animal we were familiar with. I spent considerable time as a
child around horses because my sister was a trainer. This thing was not a horse or a deer. I have seen and heard deer running in the woods and on hillsides. The footsteps were all wrong, and the breathing sounded like a man gulping breath with an open mouth (only MUCH louder), not a horse breathing through its nose. The mountainside at that point is very steep, and I do not think a horse or cow would negotiate it at night voluntarily. It scared the you know what out of us. My brother cranked up the outboard and we moved to a different location on the lake.
 

Activities of Witness:  Night fishing.  Our usuall routine was to get up at 2 am, arrive at the lake about 3 am and fish till a few hours after daylight. We both lived at home with our parents at this time.

Description of Creature: None Given but it was breaking limbs and twigs as the animal moved through the trees.

Other Notes:  I have no knowledge of any in eastern Jefferson County.  This occurred around water at night. After reviewing your sightings database, I noticed a similar sighting on the Black Warrior River in Jefferson County.