Ray Kawabata big bass lake El Salto Mexico Anglers Inn bigfoot sasquatch BFRO

We met our good friend Ray Kawabata in the Amazon in 2011, and since then we’ve been on multiple fishing trips with him to Mexico, as well as back to Brazil in 2019. Somehow, through much of that friendship, he neglected to tell us the most important things about him.

Over beers and meals we’d learned about his job at Boeing, his love of soccer, tuna and salmon trips he’d taken, and all sorts of other miscellaneous information, but until he nonchalantly mentioned his membership in the Bigfoot Research Organization (BFRO) on a June 2017 trip to El Salto we had no notion that he was a serious Sasquatch hunter. With his mentor, he goes on stakeouts, baits them in, and engages in a series of vocalized calls meant to put them at ease. Describing it deadpan, he had us all laughing so hard that I thought our friend Ray Heredia (yes, we paired Ray and Ray together) was going to pee in his pants.

The great thing about him is that no matter how many times you ask him about it, he’ll patiently walk you through the details of hunting Bigfoot. Just ask my friend Dale Steele, who got the full treatment in Mato Grosso, last year, where Mr. Kawabata adapted his calls (I’m not sure if they were Portuguese-inflected or integrated some Amerindian language) to the local critters.

For us, the people we meet – like Ray – are an important part of our travels, while for Ray a big part of his life is one particular dude he hasn’t met yet.

Remember, it’s #BFROforLife and if you ever need to get Ray a present, here are some great ideas:

There is a whole company dedicated to Bassquatch gear: