Report 1756: Deer Hunter sees large, bipedal, fur covered man-like critter run by in early morning encounter

Late Nov 2000, in Clark County, during the Ohio deer gun season, after Thanksgiving, an overcast rainy turn to snow day, early morning hours about 45 minutes before legal deer gun season hours, on a friends farm.  My daughter's boyfriend, his Dad, and I were hunting the south end of the field in the woods (about 75-100 yds thick) along the north side of Mad River.  We got the boy settled in (his first deer gun hunting trip), me and his Dad went back out to the edge of the field and walked east along the edge of the trees to where we would be sitting about 1/4 to 1/2 mile away from the boy, to the east along the river edge.  When we had gone about 100 yards east from the boy, his Dad and I heard a loud crack like something had broken a stick on the ground while moving away from us along the creek in the trees.  We couldn't tell what it was and passed it off as scaring up a deer which we occasionally do going in before light.  Later at lunch, the boy said something very big ran westward very fast between him and the creek, about 30 yds away in the dark, and turned north-west up the western edge of the field then stopped about 50 yds away from him, waited a few minutes, then continued on NW at a walk towards Donnels Creek and the fields beyond.  His Dad got a deer on the southeast corner of the field within 1 hour of the opener that morning, turned out in the dark and wet, he sat down amongst a small deer herd (about 8 deer) bedded there.  When the boy said something big ran past him fast, I originally thought it a deer.  I didn't find out till later when we were hunting back there again, that it was bipedal, big and fur covered and dark gray to dark brown coloring.  He said it scared him so much he almost didn't want to go out again hunting but since this was his first year he kept his mouth shut until I later asked him about what he saw.  The ground was wet and soft on the top so prints might have been possible, though I didn't go back to check.