Anyone have a moose come after you?

[rebecca francis]

Today, I was out on the river gathering up some rocks for some rock work I am doing. I was right behind my house. I heard my dog start barking and I knew he was either barking at a moose or a person. All of a sudden the dog comes running back right over to me with a small bull moose right behind him. I jumped behind a nearby tree and luckily the moose was more concerned about the dog than me. The bull got about 15 yards or less from me. That got my heart going for a minute. Kind of intense, but I really love to see all the moose and deer around my house.

 

[BuckSnort]

That will get the blood pumping for sure..lol... I was trying to take some pics of a couple in CO a few years back.. I got to about 10 yards from the bull and got carried away with the pics and didn't realize the cow he was interested in circled around me while feeding... He didn't like me being in between him and his love so he chased me..Only for about 50' or so but I was running like Carl Lewis...lol

 

[sk1]

My wife works at the University Hospital here in Utah....a few years back they had a lady on her unit that got attacked by a cow moose. She was out hiking with her husband, he was in front of her and heard her scream, he turned around to see the cow moose had her by the throat and shaking her....I guess he was hitting the thing and throwing anything he could find at it before the moose finally let go and ran off. Apparently it was bedded right beside the trail, he didn't see it and it went for her who was following right behind. She ended up being ok but had a decent hospital stay.

I think more about running into a pissed off moose than a mountain lion...

 

[bbrown]

I have a family friend in Alaska who has a cabin with a deck all along the backside along a lake. Well one night he came out to throw some moose steaks (ironic I know) on the grill and there happened to be a cow and calf behind the house. Well the calf wandered around the deck/house which put my buddy between the cow and calf. She immediatly charged him across the deck and back into the kitchen. Luckly she stopped at the door but ended up breaking a half dozen boards on the deck in her charge.

 

[Matt Cashell]

I have had a number of incidents with demon-moose. I got ran over by an angry momma when I was a fourth grader walking home from school and unwittingly stumbled between her and her little one. I also played ring-around-the-rosie with a cow around a lodgepole trunk on Duck Creek near West Yellowstone while fishing. I do believe she was trying to eat me.


I think they are evil, and worry way more about them than griz in the backcountry.

 

[hodgeman]

I've had several run ins...even had one big bull in rut challenge my truck.

I am many times more scared of angry moose than a griz...whole lot more common too.

 

[sk1]

more common and hard to see in the dark....i was coming out one night not using my headlamp as i knew the area well and could see just well enough to know where i was stepping, heard a strange noise and looked up.....i stared for awhile and as my eyes adjusted i thought i could see a silhouette....got out my headlamp and sure enough i was 10 to 15 steps from a bull moose standing there staring at me. this was also close to the rut, glad he didn't decide to charge or something crazy earlier when i didn't know he was there.

 

[R Miller]

Plenty of close encounters with moose. On one occasion we packing up camp on the last day of hunting season anticipating the arrival of the Beaver to fly us home and a young bull walks into camp. I had to shoo him out of camp to get to the rest of the gear I was packing. 5 minutes later I heard a grunt and saw him coming through the brush again and said "oh, he's back". I had shot a bull several days before but my dad had a tag, well, right behind the little bull I can see a huge rack rising up out of the brush, a monster was following our friend right into camp. Probably 65 wide and multiple brows on either side with a little wave to the palm. One of the nicer bulls I have seen. It walked into camp and stood broadside licking its lips at 10 yds, stood there for 10minutes. My dad says "do I shoot it?" my response was something along the "I dont freaking know"...we fly with the same guy and he's like family, if we shoot this bull now it is likely going to bung up his schedule getting all his guys out of the field. We opt not to kill the giant and although we were anticipating our ride to arrive within 20 minutes the guys getting picked up before us decided to shoot their last day monster and we ended up waiting to be picked up for 6 hours. It was the right decision but it sure was a nice bull.

There have been lots of more serious close encounters with young lovesick bulls and a few cows over the years but thats one of the more memorable given I was actually hunting at the time.

 

[a3dhunter]

Two years ago in Colorado while archery deer hunting I was coming back through a high country basin and about 100 yards down stream at a small beaver pond there was a cow moose with two calves.
I figured it was no big deal, but as I crossed the stream the cow spotted me, she turned and started walking my direction.
I had about 100 yards to go to get to some trees and quickened my pace, she kept coming and next thing I know she is trotting straight at me. She had cut it down to 40-50 yards by the time I hit the trees and started scrambling over some rough stuff. I could hear her in the timber, but she never got closer and I kept moving up the mountain.

 

[coop2424]

Two years ago while elk hunting I was walking down a old logging road when all I heard was trees breaking coming down the hill to my right directly at me. I was thinking a elk herd at that time since I knew there was other hunters up on the mountain. I stepped back on the road about ten feet to get out of the way since I was going to get ran over if I did not move. Come to find out it was a bull moose probably 45" wide or more that really did not want me there. He stepped out on the road about 10 feet away and had all kinds of fluids coming out of his mouth and nose. I had raised my rifle and was walking slowly backwards but if he would of charged it would have been extremely ugly for me even with a rifle with him being one to two steps away from me. Luckly for me he decided I was not what he thought I was and went the other directing. Probably one of the most scariest moments I have had in the woods with it in total probably only lasting 20 seconds.

 

[keep]

My wife did after she stuck him. As she was backing away she fell in a drainage and he broke off the pursuit at that point. Both her and the guide said they would have been got had they not fell into the wash. Scary

 

[bobhunts]

Not as of yet! Been close a couple of times. When I was in my late teens we where smashing the cutthroats in the beaver dams in the little Crazies in Montana and saw a cow with two calves and she turned her ears back like a mule so we backed out. Another time was just like that while working in the oilfield south of Pinedale WY and same thing without the calves. When the ears lay back ...back out.

 

[Jager]

Unnerving encounter for sure Rebecca and everyone else.

This might sound like a wild type of question, but, after watching a lot of footage of Moose being called into within a few yards, I have to ask, do they have poor eyesight and a weak sense of smell, and do they have little fear of man, even a backcountry bull that may never have seen people before?

Unfortunateley, we don't have them in Australia.

 

[AK Troutbum]

I've been charged on a few different occasions. Once I almost got caught, but fortunatually my wife opened the sliding glass door for me just in time as I ran into the house, then slammed it shut. The moose just about came through the glass, but skidded to a stop on the deck. We have them on our property almost daily in the winter, and cows with calves can be pretty dangerous.

 

[rye_a]

We spend a lot of time in Grand Lake, CO and while I have seen a lot of moose but haven't been charged, there have been a couple of fairly recent incidents that come to mind. One involved a toddler:
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_15974401
And the other involved the respected former mayor on his way to church (who died from his injuries after the article was written) and an injured moose:
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/8287043/detail.html

 

[Hardstalk]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYbCYn8USw8&sns=em


Easy buddy...EASY!!

 

[luke moffat]

Unnerving encounter for sure Rebecca and everyone else.

This might sound like a wild type of question, but, after watching a lot of footage of Moose being called into within a few yards, I have to ask, do they have poor eyesight and a weak sense of smell, and do they have little fear of man, even a backcountry bull that may never have seen people before?

Unfortunateley, we don't have them in Australia.

They have great noses, amazing hearing with those satelite dishes attached to their head, their eyesight isn't anything exceptional though.

In nearly every case I've seen moose called into just a few yards, they were all rut crazed bulls that really just basically lose their mind. A bull moose in the rut gets extremely stupid IMO.

 

[Jager]

Ok, cheers Luke. Our Red stags in Australia certainly become rut crazed and will come into a 'roar' from the hunter, however, their eyesight is exceptional, and will generally be able to zero right in on the source of the 'roar' from a considerable distance, really has me intrigued how bull Moose come in so close.