Me and 3 buddies were looking for mushrooms in the middle of no where. We were walking the shoreline of a lake with one cabin on the other side. I decided to walk into the woods 50 or 60 yards from the shore line and walk parallel.
I got bored and sat on a log for maybe 5 or 8 minutes when I noticed a steady thudding getting louder. The light thuds sounded like someone in the woods stomping their boot or a spooked whitetail jumping from cover, but light and steady.
It was late summer north MN forest, I could see 20 yards at most through the buckthorn and other thick brush and as these thuds that sounded like a step every 2 seconds got closer, there started to be some crunching leaves and grass with it. Whatever it was was big and took a step ever 2 seconds, and was sneaking towards a group of 3 noisy guys, me quietly sitting further into the woods.
The steps stopped for a couple minutes, at this point Im trying to silently peer through the thick foliage as my buddies walked up the shore line, this sounded close. Then the thuds started again but heading away from me, parallel to my buddies, the same path I was just about to take.
I left my gun in the truck because I stupidly didnt want to look like the only guy out there armed wanting to play commando with 4 guys there. I turned around and headed to the shoreline and caught up to my buddies and that was the end of that, I only brought it up to my good buddy that was there later and he noticed nothing.
Not going to lie, I felt weird and I mess with some big animals and have spent dozens of night sleeping in the woods with no more than a sleeping bag, what ever it was was the first thing to make me turn around in the woods.