They're still looking for the Abominable Snowman of Asia and there are some new pictures of Bigfoot in the American Northwest. I haven't heard of south Florida's Skunk Ape lately but I am sure he will surface again.

However, there have been no news releases at all concerning my Woolly Booger. In fact, I didn't even know of him until late last winter and I have never seen him. I sort of hope I never do because such mysteries help make life worth living. Sort of like the UFO business. A rather romantic friend of mine says he hopes nobody ever finds out anything definite about UFOs because they are so much fun as they are.

I have this isolated little field where I shoot at targets with rifles and pistols and have a couple of practice traps set up for clay pigeons. The weeds and grass get pretty thick there at times.

The first Woolly Booger sign appeared along in February when I noticed a clearly defined trail that ran past the trap house and off toward an orange grove. It was about 10 inches wide and as the days went on it became plainer.

By April 1 (a good date for such observations) there were places where the grass and weeds had been worn down to bare earth but I never could find a clear paw or hoof print. By the middle of April I decided to follow it from end to end and found that the trail entered the field from a dirt road, made an even curve across the field and then faded out near another point on the dirt road.

Quick explanations that dogs were crossing on an established route didn't work because the trail is simply a detour from the dirt road. And a nocturnal jogger would have left tracks.

My friend Doug Bell, who lives near the field, has been trying to figure a way of learning about the Woolly Booger's appearance without sitting there all night, but Doug hasn't come up with anything. I have suggested stretching a series of threads across the trail at various heights to learn how tall the traveler is. Doug and I concluded that if it develops the trail maker is more than seven or eight feet high we will pursue the matter no further.

I rounded up Joe Kenner, a former naturalist for the Florida Park Service. Joe listened tolerantly and consented to view the trail to appease me. The more he examined it, the more possible trail makers he rejected. And after he had walked the length of it a couple of times I caught him looking at me sideways. A man could lose his friends over Woolly Booger trails.

By the last of May the trail was ground in so deeply that all sorts of roots were exposed. A lot of grass along it was dead and other grass was simply worn off short. Then when the rains came there was some new grass in it and I am not absolutely positive that it is still being used.

However, I am up on stuff like this and I know that the first scientist to suspect the presence of such a thing gets his name stuck on it. So whatever it turns out to look like the scientific name for this one is already established.

It is Woolis boogis Watermanicus.