In the summers of 95’, 96’, and 97’ I worked in Northwestern Montana at the Spotted Bear Ranch. I was a fly fishing/ river guide. Well in the summer 1996 our ranch had quite an experience on one of our rivers- The Spotted Bear River. It had been a record snowfall for much of the region that winter. All that snow meant it had to melt in late spring. I usually went to the ranch the second week of June. This year my buddy Matt Fine came along with me to work at another nearby ranch, but help out at Spotted Bear Ranch until they needed him in early July. When we arrived our main river we guide on, the South Fork of the Flathead, had extremely high water levels from the snow melt making it nearly impossible to fish on. Although we don’t usually get the majority of our guests until after the beginning of July, we would have a few come early. This meant we needed to find calmer water to guide from. Spotted Bear River although high was in better shape than the Flathead. By the end of summer it actually looks like a small stream. When Matt Fine and I arrived at the ranch they told us they had floated down Spotted Bear River and had to saw trees which had fallen across the river. One of our cowboys, Pat, said he was standing on a downed tree and sawing it with a chainsaw when all of a sudden the tree gave way and he splashed down in the water. Trying to recover he was unable to hold onto the chainsaw and his cowboy hat and both were lost in the river and losing a cowboy hat is like losing a son to a cowboy they cherish those things. Most even take showers with them on. We did however, find the chainsaw about a month and a half later in the Flathead River a few miles from where it was lost. The other guides told us something else, a bull moose was trapped along the river on a small ledge and didn’t seem to be able to get off (You can see a picture of him on my web site).

We decided the next day to raft the river to check out the moose, see how productive the fishing might be and give some of the new guides rowing experience. We had a new guide, Matt Curnow, and a ranch helper that I forget his name so lets call him Poindexter. Matt Fine would also be a new guide at the Wilderness Lodge Ranch. So the four of us headed out to run the river. Everyone did some rowing and it was clear they needed to do some more. The river was moving fast and maneuvering on the winding river was difficult so I could expect some mishaps from the new guides. Matt Curnow seemed to need the most help his one arm rowing technique just didn’t cut it, although not to leave Matt Fine out of this, we had a wild ride with him behind the oars. One particular instance we were headed for a rock as I tried to fish, I saw it coming so I attempted to reel in but, not before smack we hit the rock. Poindexter and I fell back in the bottom of the raft that was full of water, cold water about mid 30 degrees. There was quite a scream out of me. Being the only one not to wear heavy warm neoprene chest waders since I was tuff, I felt like the wimp now. As I got back up on the seat I did not notice the next rock in front of us, well not in front of us anymore because we were spinning uncontrollably, smack back I fell again, with a big wooah out of me this time. I jumped back up on the seat soaked from head to toe and freezing. I’m sure I had a few words to say to Matt Fine but, probably didn’t get the chance because were we headed for a branch sticking out of water. Worried the branch could pop our raft, I jumped to the front of the boat and stuck out my leg to push off from it only to be the one that got pushed, that is back on the floor of the water filled boat again. Right after that we came across the poor stranded moose, luckily I wasn’t lying in the bottom of the boat and got to see him. The main river current took us right next to him about ten feet away. He didn’t look happy and almost looked as if he wanted to jump in our raft to escape the ledge he was trapped on. We continued to raft back to the lodge without a whole lot of trouble, although I believe I had hypothermia and didn’t recall the remainder of the trip.

What do you know, we decide to float it a few days later! We called this trip Operation Moose Rescue. We decided to try to scare the Moose from the ledge into the water so he could swim across. Moose are great swimmers and would have no problem although their intelligence isn’t to great and would rather stay there the rest of its life. If that didn’t work we had also decided to bring along a bail of hay to feed him since he hadn’t eaten in at least a week. Two rafts went on this operation. One headed by me, with Matt Fine and Matt Curnow as my mates and another by Bob, an experienced guide, Fred Haney a new guide and one of our housekeepers. This time I decided to wear chest waders due to the incidents before hand. This would later prove to be a mistake. I would also bring my 35mm camera and video camera to capture the rescue. So we headed down the river, Bob took the led in his raft. Wow, I was surprised we made it to the Moose with few mishaps. We went ashore just below the Moose. We then carefully planned our approach detail by detail. Well not really, we just ran up the hill above the Moose and started screaming at it. The moose looked at us and probably thought what fruitcakes. I think we really peed him off then as we started throwing sticks and rocks at him. We were only doing it for his own welfare. At times he looked like he was going to leap in the water but then starting kicking at everything we threw down at him. Glad I didn’t fall down there. We tried and tried and had no luck. So we took our hay and threw down to him. He still looked very angry at as and kicked the hay around. We decided to head on down the river and Bob‘s raft took the lead again. We had only a few miles left, when we reached a split in the river, the right side was clear. Bob proceeded to take that side. The left side although had a large pine tree lying across the entire length. It wasn’t hard to see for Matt Curnow and I believe he had every intention not to go that direction. Although his less desirable one arm rowing technique did not allow him to do what he was thinking. Our raft started to catch the left side current as Matt Curnow start to row furiously and I started to yell furiously at him to row harder. It was a feeble attempt. The raft slammed up against the down tree. At impact Matt Curnow yelled, "it’s going to flip". Being the captain he was, who would go down with his ship Matt Curnow was the first to jump overboard. I had my $1000 worth of camera equipment that I was worried about. It was in a dry bag but I did not want it to be sweep down the river so I grabbed for it. The river was moving very fast and after a split second from impact the raft begun to turn over. I had no idea at that point what Matt Fine had done all I knew was Matt Curnow abandoned ship and I was trying to save my cameras. The next thing I know I’m under the raft. I try to get out from under it but rammed my head into the metal rowing frame. I then went back under the raft and got some air from the air pocket it formed. I attempted it again and didn’t quite make it; finally I was able to get out from underneath. I definitely wasn’t out of trouble yet. Here is where wearing chest waders for once was a huge mistake. The waders had filled with water and I felt like Jarret from the Subway commercials before ate his low fat subs. Swimming was useless I wasn’t going anywhere. So I starting dropping to the river bottom and pushed off. As I did this I would have to let go of the dry bag with my cameras and pop up and grab for it again. After numerous bottom pushes I made it to shore about hundred yards down from where we had flipped. I was so exhausted I just collapsed on the rock shore. I then realized I didn’t see anyone from our raft. I looked upstream. Matt Curnow was on shore, of course. I did not see Matt Fine at first, then noticed him clinched to the tree that had flipped us. I was too tired at that point to help so I yelled at him to hold on. Matt Fine was stretched out and horizontal to the roaring river. He was also trying to hold onto a fly rod that he had rescue from the raft. In addition to that he had the ever so popular chest waders, which I wasn’t a huge fan of at this moment, yanked down to around his ankles. He looked like superman flying the only difference being the water beneath him and his cape, the waders, around his feet. Matt Curnow then climbed out onto the tree and helped Matt Fine up. We were fortunate that Bob’s raft was before us and the river merged back together. They were downstream grabbing our raft, coolers, oars, hats, lifejackets, and other stuff. We ended up losing only both Matt’s ball caps and an oar blade. We all laughed about it afterwards other than having to go the rest the way back to the lodge being soaked on a day of snow flurries. As far as the Moose, he was found downstream a quarter mile or so from his trapped area dead about a week later. One of the guides, Chris, grabbed his antlers and still has them hanging up. Operation Moose Rescue was a failure but provided a good story to tell back at the ranch.