I was on the river today with two real good friends and long time clients, when a cow moose swam the river in front of us.
It made me think of about some of the animal encounters I have had over the years and moose and bears seem to get the most attention. A beaver frightened one of my clients. The river was running real slow and quiet and the beaver swam with in a foot or so of my drift boat. My client turned and said look at the log and “smack” it slapped its tail and splashed and scared the crap out of her.
A herd of elk bailed into the river on a hot day in front of us and they were noisy. I tried to row closer to a black bear swimming the Clark Fork, and my client freaked and thought the bear might turn on us, we were 30 yards from the bear. River otters bark and often warn us if we are getting too close to their young. I see river otter families every season.
We watched a lone grey wolf a few days ago on the Bitter root stare at us for a few minutes then disappear, he was pretty close, maybe 100 yards or so.
Anyway it is one perk of my job and I love the happy looks on my guest’s faces when they see some of these awesome animals out here in MT.