I got caught a little short for this issue, so I'm including a previosly written story. Since I'm writing this on 6/15/04, & this is the month of "THE LOTTERY", & Idon't mean tristate megabucks lottery, or powereball jackpot either. To those of us who spend as much time in the outdoors as possible there is only ONE " LOTTERY"! THE MOOSE LOTTERY. I will also include some short refernces of mordern history with me & the moose. So it woun't ALL be acient history as my 21 & 12yr. olds like to call my younger days. As with the bear story it is completly true, althow it is in my collage years long before I ever thought about guiding. So without waisting a bunch more time on usless covorting here it is.

Its not brief, but was a defining moment in my life.

It was late September 1977. I had been working on a spruce bud worm project in Baxter State Park for the USDA between my junior and senior years in college. I had left Springvale Maine early that Friday morning and met my fellow co-worker in Orno Friday afternoon. We then drove to Ripogeanus dam 30 mi. west of Millinocket Maine. Saturday morning we got up before sunrise and drove for workplace inside of Baxter State Park. Our two hectare plot was approximately 2 mi. behind a locked gate from the main road of the park & then another 1.5 mile walk in. The entire day was uneventful until we decided that we'd worked a full day about 5:00 p.m.. We hiked the mile and half back to the Rockies jeep. By the time we had arrived at the jeep both of us were fairly thirsty since we had run out of water earlier in the day. Since it was hot we quickly put the rag top down, Rocky wanted to get back to camp for beer as quick as possible which I agreed with, so we jump in the jeep and started down the road. About a quarter mile down the road we came around a corner and there is a large bull moose standing in the road raking an alder clump a on the side. Being an old logging company road there were no shoulders and the brush came right to the edge of the driveable surface. Rocky stop the jeep, and we proceeded to watch the moose for approximately 3 to4 minutes. By this time Rocky really was getting anxious, so the said to me you watch I'll get that moose out of the way. So he blew the horn. That really got the mooseís attention he lifted his head and looked in our direction snorted loudly and pawed the ground. Since moose see differently than we do he didn't initially detect us until Rocky said watch this, & he put the jeep in first gear. Well the moose seeing us now and deciding we were a threat also put it in first gear. I turned Rocky & said this is not a good idea. Playing chicken with an angry bull moose is not a smart thing to do, I really think you should back off and let this moose get out the way. He just said don't worry this jeep is heavier than he is, and he stepped on the gas and put it in second gear. The moose did the same. At about 20 ft. from the moose Rocky slammed on the breaks , the moose kept coming towards us, catching our front bumper on his brow tines. While this was happening I had grabbed Rocky and pushed him to the middle of the jeep and kept both of us as low as possible. The moose then lifted us up and shook us back and forth puncturing both front tires, & sticking one tine through the front grille and through the radiator, he then could not get the jeep off of his antlers. He shook us back in fourth, more violently as he continued. Finally he threw us to our right and the radiator that was stuck on one tine came out through the front grille. At this time the moose took is right antler and went down the left side of the Jeep puncturing the left rear tire and ripping the left rear fender off of the Jeep this is also where he lost the radiator. He then went around the back of the jeep and proceeded to attack the spare tire which is on an old-fashioned swing arm on the Jeep. He broke all five studs that were holding the spare tire on to the swing arm off and got the spare tire stuck on both antlers. That seemed to infuriate him even more and he took out his frustrations on the right rear quarter of the Jeep. At that time he punctured the right rear tire. After he dislodged the spare tire from his antlers he decided he had won. He snorted and grunted and pawed the gravel several more times and then walked off into the woods. I then turned to Rocky and swore at him profusely telling him that I that I had told him not to challenge this moose. We had to walk another mile & three quarters down a gated & locked road to get to where other traffic might pass & then another 3 miles to the rangers station. All within aggressive & angry moose in the immediate vicinity & I wasnít looking forward to the reception we would get at the rangers cabin since we were a couple of ì smartî college kids.

I reached over and punched him in the nose, got up from the jeep walked down the road over the banking to the stream where I took off my pants and clean myself up as that is only time as an adult than I ever messed my pants. Throughout the entire event I was continually praying to the lord to help me survive this attack. I promised that I would be a good boy and go to church regularly after that.

Moral of the story and how this touch me. Since being raised in the woods & having being a small part, Native American heritage, I had always been in awe and wonder at the awesome power & beauty of nature. I Posses a deep understanding of our relationship with nature & our place in her. A gift that God has given me. This just serve to reinforce my respect of nature and her abilities to be so much greater & more powerful than mans small efforts. Throughout my entire life I had always been aware of the dangers that a wild animal could present at the any given moment. This just reinforced that knowledge and my desire to educate others of these things. It is only through God's grace that I've lived to appreciate and to tell others about it. . I am often closer here to God than I am in any man made structure. It is one of the things that makes me the man that I am. Like it or me or not I don't give a royal hootin toot. I am what I am and you can either take me for it or not. I certainly aint going to ask your fergiveness fer it.

This one is actually longer but taught me a good lesson worth learning Surpisingly it is longer than the first.

Well I hope you liked it. So here is a little more modern story. It was the first year that I guided moose, 1995. I had spent the previous two falls in Thunderbay Onterio with a band of Cree. That is where I learned to call moose. One of my favorite things to do in life. I had just spent 5 days with a father & son team from Michiagin, Msr. Wally & Dave Dupius. I had worked my but off for these kind folks and was dead tired. It was also the year that I was drawn for my first,{ hopefully not last } moose tag. Since late August I had been getting up @ 3:00am every day to git the moose that my clients & I wanted. I had found for my self a real trophy of a bull. Boy would that look good for my budding guide's business I thought. I kept pretty good track of him right up till I had to spend time with my clients. Well I was a feelin pretty good about my chances for that there critter. I took my cousin Jack Miller as my Sub. { I was his the year before }. Well we went to this guy's hide out, got there good &n early to set up and to chase off any interlopers. Alass the sun breaks in yonder sky. I begin me callin & catterwallin. Tryin to sound like the sexiest, biggest slut of a she moose ever to grace these here parts. One than no self respectin he moose could ever think of turnin down. Well I called soft to start with, trying to be, ya know, enchantin. Then as time went by without nary a hint of a grunt in responce I commenced to git louder. By the good grace of the lord I was a gonna make sure that every he moose in Bethelehem was a gonna hear me and just come a runnin to have his way with me, or her, as the case may be. All of this was to no avail. After hours of callin & stompin & porein, absolutely nothin came to my suggestive & melodious beckonin's.

Well enough of these shenanigans. It was time for plan "B". So Jack & I went down the wilderness rd. to check out the sing there. As of this time we had decided that fillin our freezers was the most important thing, so we had agreed to shoot the biggest moose we could find. Never mind antler hunting. Besides antlers don't make good stew anyhow. Early in the fall we had spotted a nice bull in that area. However sometime after the start of bow season fer deer there had been a picture of a poached bull moose that had been shot with an arrow and died on the Maplewood Golf course. Damn, if that there moose in the picture didn't look just like the one that I'd been a watchin down there. Funny thing was that after that picture showed up in the local paper with CO/ Goss behind the moose I didn't see any more sign of him a down there. But there were plenty of other critters a down there to put our tag on anyhow. So we took the afternoon to do some scouting & decided where we would set up to git us a critter in the mornin. We was there good and early just like the day before at the tuther place. As we walked down the skidder rd We decided that Jack would stand at one end of a straight stretch on a large sand pile and I would go a hundred yds to the next one. That way we could easily be in comunication and cover a pretty fair piece of territory. At that point the skider trail was below grade, however about 60yds further on the grade dropped to below rd. level. As I was a goin by this here place off to my left I heard a REALLY LOUD CRACK. Oh my lord I thought, the moose have seen me. I instantly froze. As it grew lighter I could see three moose over to my left. A big cow, a medium cow and a medium bull bout 2yrs old. Well that big cow looked like she would fit the bill. All the moose were feeding & movin, up & down through the gullies in the cut. When the big cow went down & dissipied & then came back up facing away from me I got down on one knee and sniggled over to a good sized rock. Laying my 06 over the rock I took aim just behind he right shoulder, & touched her off. Well that moose went & took 5 steps foward & fell with her head around the back side of a blow down stump. What do you think those other moose did? Well, Well. They did absolutely nothing. They just glanced over & ask Gertrude if it was really a good time to take a nap? And they just went back to a stripin & a munchin leaves. Didn't even bat an eye. Not until Jack came down from his sand pile and started walkin up the trail. THEN THEY TOOK NOTICE! BIG TIME! They all comenced to leave in a hurry. Well out in front of my left when I was a going up the rd I thought I could hear more snappin of dry wood behind another large sand pile. As they were leavin from behing this sand pile out comes a good sized bull. Probally around a 5yr old. Wish i'd a seen him. So as Jack walks up he ask's me what I shot. BIG cow I said. Well we high 5d each other & commenced to pace off the shot. Just shy of 130yds. I gotta back up here a bit & relate to you that when I started guiding I ALWAYS wear around my neck a pair of 8x30 binoc's so I can appraise game and give my clients the information. I had them on that day, also. So when we got to the hind end of the moose since that was the end closest to us we noticed that I had shot the poop right out of her. That was a first for me. We also noticed that "she" was not as large as I thought "she" was. I took of my pack and walked up to the front end and let out a gasp, & said well I'll be. What asked Jack. Come here I said. So he did, & there we stood lookin down at a set of 13in spikes on that " big cow moose". I never saw them through the scope, & even though I had my binoc's on, which I use religiously for my clients, I never even thought of useing for myself. Boy here I am calling myself a guide and for myself I couldn't even perform the littlest check to make sure this was the moose I wanted. Well we got a good chuckle over that one, let me tell you. It did get easier. As it turned out she er he had fallen right next to a small skidder trail, & I could drive my truck right up to within 10 feet of her, him. and being only 500lbs of excelent eating moose we were able to winch her, him right into the bed, & off we went to the check in station.

So what is the moral of this storey. Well the obviously one is to alwasy use all the tool you have at your disposal when you shoeld or need to. The more suttle one is one my Grand Father Fred Sleeper taught me. A man has got to be able to laugh at himself and not always take himself to seriosly. Otherwise you can not enjoy life as you should and you can't learn from it either until you can admit your mistake. That one was one of mine, and every time I think back about it I get a smile & little tear in my eye from learnin Gramps Lesson. He had many & they were all worth learning.