It’s rare to score a ‘perfect’ camp spot. But every so often, the moon and the stars align and you just stumble into one. One summer when our boys were about seven and eleven years old, we did just that. Somehow, we hit it just right and found ourselves in that perfect camp spot.
This camp site had it all. The road in was a little muddy. It was just challenging enough to keep out the riff-raff, but passable with the right vehicle and careful driving. Plenty of flat shady spots for tents, a beautiful sunny clearing for heating sun showers and recharging batteries with the solar panels. Plenty of firewood. A safe place to shoot the .22s. But best of all, it was right on an excellent little trout stream. We could enjoy early morning or evening fishing without even having to leave camp.
The stream had both riffles and pools. It presented challenging willowy stretches for the grown ups, and easy access through open meadows for the younger fly fishers still working out how to cast. The stream quietly gurgled through camp, setting up a happy, peaceful vibe. It was perfect.
One evening, after a super supper of Super Tacos, the boys decided to do a little evening fishing on our perfect creek. I helped the boys get their gear together, making sure their fly vests were well stocked and they had a good selection of flies for the evening hatch. Our youngest son was ready first. At seven, he didn’t have a lot of patience waiting for dad and big brother. But – not a problem! I told him to take our golden retriever, Maggie, for a short walk down the trail to a nice quiet pool to start casting – we would catch up.
I was just finishing tying on an elk hair caddis when I heard our youngest calling for Maggie. Something up the trail caught her attention, and she ran ahead a little way, barking. Then the barking stopped. I looked up just in time to see a furry golden blur (Maggie?!) streaking toward me on her way back to camp at about 100mph. I heard my son say “What the heck?” as she blew by him. I’m thinking “Well done kiddo – good word choice.”
Then I heard a panicked yell –
“Oh Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!!!!”
Now my son was running back to camp at top speed.
I ran toward him – “Buddy! What is it?”
He yelled back – “Dad! Dad! A moose! A moooooooose!” He was flying down the path as if, well, as if a bull moose was chasing him!
Then I saw it. Coming right at me down the center of the trail was the biggest bull moose – EVER.
Multiple thoughts popped into my brain simultaneously, like:
“Oh shiiiiiiiiiiit!!!”
“Huh, I’ve never heard that kid swear before.”
“Oh shiiiiiiiiiiit!!!”
Now I’m thinking a hundred more thoughts, every one a frantic attempt to figure out a way to keep a pissed off bull moose from trampling camp – while armed with nothing but a 3-weight fly rod. I thought:
“There’s no way in hell I can stop a 2000 pound bull moose at full charge.”
“Oh man, I can’t let Mr Moose get into camp.”
“Wow. He’s big.”
“What the hell am I gonna do?”
“Oh man, I want to run back to camp. Nope. Can’t do it. I have to get Mr Moose away from camp.”
“What the hell am I gonna do?”
“How am I going to get him to turn?”
“Maybe I should poke at him with my fly rod? Nope. That’ll piss him off.”
“I don’t want to break my fly rod.”
It seemed like my best bet might just be to take a flying leap right at the moose’s head and try to wrap my arms around his antlers. If I could hang onto his head, my hope was he’d forget about chasing anything. Once I had the moose distracted and turned, maybe I could drop off and run away from camp. I could probably outwit the moose.
I thought, “Geeze I hope I’m smarter than a moose.”
As all of these thoughts raced through my head, Maggie turned and ran across the creek into the willows on the far shore. Mr Moose turned and followed her across the creek, disappearing into the willows.
I thought, “Huh. I wonder if we’ll ever see Maggie again?”
We didn’t have to worry about Maggie for long. About 10 minutes later she was back in camp, but without the moose. I don’t know how she shook him off her trail, but we know Maggie, at least, is smarter than a moose. And we will never forget our little Moose-Man’s first swear word, at the perfect campsite that had everything – including the world’s biggest moose.
