I have a moose story; it is something unique that happened to me. I was 12 (I'm 79 now), and my Dad had taken me all the way up to Canada. We were fishing for bass in an 8-foot scow. Roy (scow owner), Dad, and me. Full boat.
We had quite a boatload of bass by the time the sun was getting low, and a chill breeze had begun to finger its way across the lake. We decided to call it a day. Roy started up the little outboard, and we chugged out of the cove into the lake proper.
Thus began a sequence of events that have had no parallel in anything I’ve ever read or heard about in all the years since.
As soon as the miniature boat scowed out of the cove, Roy, who was running the outboard, suddenly pointed excitedly to the right.
“Herb! Look there! I bet you nevah saw anything like that before!”
Roy was pointing to a truly amazing sight. There, about sixty yards ahead of us, swimming across the lake, was a full grown bull moose. Roy was as excited as a kid. I know, because I was excited, too. He angled the little boat over to where the moose was ocean-linering through the water, and throttled back -- right alongside the great animal.
Most people do not appreciate the size of a bull moose. It is the largest North American land animal, easily dwarfing cows, buffalo, or elk. The antlers of the majestic beast that we were chugging along next to were as big across as our boat was. This is five feet. His nose was longer than my arms could span, and his great rolling eye glared balefully as that great nose snorted steam with a deep rumble.
I was altogether impressed, astonished, and full of wonder when Roy suddenly opened up the sequence of events into a whole new plane.
“Here, Herb, keep her steady, and I’ll show you somethin’ special.”
With that, the crazy fool stood up in the rear of the bathtub-sized boat, with my father leaning over to hold the tiller, and leaped onto the back of the beast!
The monster trumpeted and snorted, rolled its eyes, and shook its massive antlers. But Roy was well and truly astride, holding convenient points of the antlers for stability. He even tickled the ear nearest us, and the moose couldn’t do anything about it but continue to swim.
The beast was enraged, and a fearful sight it was. The one eye that was visible to me from my vantage point in the boat turned red as I watched. I was about three feet from the animal, and I was dazzled. Still am to this day, when I think back on it...
Roy rode the colossus for more than a hundred yards. My father called his attention to the fact that they were getting pretty near the shore, and that the moose would surely turn around and “kick his *** for sure as soon as he could touch bottom”.
Reluctantly, our guide abandoned ship, and climbed back into the boat -- coming near as a toucher to sinking it in the process. We had to sit real still, while bailing furiously for a while. I was able to watch the moose reach shore and run up into the trees and brush in a perfectly straight line, continuing until he disappeared. He left what amounted to a road; there were broken trees that resulted from him not going around, but through or over them. Roy was a corker, all right.