A Once-in-a-Lifetime Encounter with Moose

By Chad Cline

It was just another day at work when a colleague approached me with a picture that left me in awe. Two adult bull moose were locked up from fighting, floating dead in a lake. I couldn’t shake the thought of not at least trying to find them, so I decided to take a day off work and investigate. I grabbed my truck and asked my wife if my daughter could tag along. To my surprise, my wife said no, but my daughter used her puppy dog eyes to convince her. We loaded every tool we might need and headed out.

As we approached the lake, our hearts and minds were racing. We saw three moose on the shoreline, and my daughter was amazed to see her first moose in the wild. We let them pass and jumped out of the truck to start getting ready for the big job at hand.

We paddled closer to the two moose floating in the water, and my daughter’s excitement was palpable. We parked the paddle boat right next to them, and the moose seemed to get bigger and bigger. The stench of the moose was overwhelming, but we pushed through the task at hand. As we started the separation process, I noticed that the meat from the smaller bull had a lighter color to it, indicating that it had been resting in the water for a longer period of time. This was likely due to the bull succumbing to exhaustion from the fight for breeding rights before the larger bull met the same fate.

Night was beginning to fall, and heavy winds and lightning made the work even more challenging. As we struggled to move the massive moose, two gentlemen who had been camping in the area appeared and offered to help. We finally got the moose loaded up in my truck and started the 3 1/2-hour drive home.

The date was September 21, and little did we know that it was peak breeding season for moose in Idaho. The bulls were more than likely challenging each other for breeding rights, which led to their intense fight and subsequent entanglement. Upon closer inspection, we noticed that one of the bull’s tines had penetrated through the side of the other bull’s mouth and out the other, which may have helped solidify the way they became locked up. Even after separating the heads from their bodies, my daughter and I could not break them apart.

The smaller of the two bulls scored 143 5/8 inches with a spread of 50 3/8 inches and was officially placed 259th in Boone and Crockett. The bigger bull scored 188 1/8 inches with a spread of 54 7/8 inches and was officially placed 4th in Boone and Crockett.

In the end, it was a memorable and humbling experience to witness such a magnificent display of nature, and it is something my daughter and I will never forget. We were grateful for the chance to be a part of it and to have learned so much about these incredible creatures.