Screaming or howling in Lee County, Florida

I have just happened upon your web site and I am amazed at all the encounters in Florida. I just finished reading one from the Lee County area that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I grew up in Lee County and had two unexplainable (until now) experiences that I have never forgotten. The first, that after reading one of your articles, I now feel very strongly that I was being followed by a "Bigfoot." I lived on about 100 acres that butted up to Cecil Webb (a Game Reserve of apprx. 15,000 acres, in Charlotte County, FL.) A friend and I were taking a nighttime horseback ride down the dirt road that I lived off of. There where large ditches on both sides of the road, with woods and cattle pastures, all up and down this road, which was probably about 10 miles long. She and I were talking about what 15 year old girls talk about, when our horses started acting spooked and getting very nervous. Shortly thereafter, I noticed that something was walking along side of us in the woods on the other side of the ditch. I could only hear it because there was not quite half a moon and it was a cloudy night. I knew that there was a cattle pasture there and at first dismissed it as maybe being a cow, which would have odd seeings that cattle usually run in the other direction when seeing a person on horseback, but it was possible. But the pattern in which it moved didn't sound like a cow, the area was pretty thick with trees, palmettos and such and whatever it was had no problem staying right with us and we were on open land. We weren't really scared yet, but we picked up our horse's pace a little and began to gallop, I knew there was a cross section coming up in the fence and figured whatever it was would be stopped there. My girlfriend and I had our horses in a pretty good gallop at this point, but we were extermely shaken after passing the cross-section of fence and it was still there. It seemed as though it never missed a stride. At this point we both let out screams and were now at a full run, crossing several more fence lines, only to have it stay right with us. It only stopped when we reached the edge of my property and it was no longer wooded. By the time my parents calmed down two screaming, crying, freaked out teenage girls, we went out in the truck and saw where something had been, but never saw what it was. Needless to say, that was the last time I've ever been nighttime horseback riding.