Chance encounter with legendary outdoors writer ends in friendship for Clarkston farm kid

LEWISTON – Keith Moser looks across a field of wheat stubble off of Peola Road just a handful of miles from the Clarkston Heights.

The not-so-distant horizon is peppered with new homes creeping their way into farm country.

“Most all of these buildings never existed,” he said of his youth spent on the farm above McGuire Gulch.

On a November day in 1958, Moser was walking the same stubble field with a single-shot .410 hoping to scare up a pheasant when an unmarked 1955 station wagon drove toward him. The car made him nervous.

“I’m this 15-year-old kid with no license,” he said. “It’s a 3,000-acre farm.”

Moser was certain a game warden was behind the wheel. He changed directions, hoping to slip over the hill and out of sight.

“That didn’t do any good because the vehicle followed me.”

With no chance of escape, he prepared himself for a scolding and a probable citation. Instead, it was the beginning of an unlikely friendship between a farm kid and a famous gun writer.

“The vehicle pulled up and the driver says, ‘Son?’ – he called me son. He said, ‘Can you help me out?’ He said, ‘My dog Mike is on point somewhere. I have a bad hip and I can’t walk very far,’ or words to that effect. ‘I’m sure he is on point over that hill.’ “

If the dog was on point, the man said he wouldn’t budge until the bird flushed. Moser agreed to help the stranger. He walked southeast and crested a rise where the man said Mike would likely be. He saw the Brittany spaniel almost immediately. Mike was on the run and shot past Moser on his way back to his owner.

He didn’t do much, but the stranger was grateful.

“He shook my hand and said, ‘Do you know who Jack O’Connor is?’ “

Moser didn’t. Next, he asked if he was familiar with Outdoor Life. Of course, Moser answered.

“He said, ‘I’m Jack O’Connor, the gun editor of Outdoor Life,’ and then he went on to tell me Mike was his favorite dog, his best dog.”

The talk soon turned to guns as it often did with O’Connor, who was famous for his adventurous hunting tales featured in the classic outdoor magazine. The gun editor was not impressed with Moser’s .410.

“The gun you are shooting is no good and the shot you are shooting is really no good,” Moser recalls O’Connor telling him. “He said, ‘I want you to do something for me. I would like you to go to Lolo Sporting Goods next week. There is going to be something there for you.’ “

Moser followed the instructions. When he walked into the venerable gun shop in downtown Lewiston, he was handed a new 20-gauge Model 37 Winchester shotgun.

Moser called O’Connor to thank him. He thought that would be the end of it, but the old man had more to give. He took a liking to Moser and invited him to his home along Lewiston’s Prospect Avenue to see his gun and trophy room. Moser was amazed at all the trophies, including a Bengal tiger, what he described as a whole wall of guns, and artifacts and exotic decorations that O’Connor and his wife, Eleanor, had collected during their safaris and other travels.

O’Connor invited him to shoot some of his big bore rifles at the gun range near the Lewiston Airport.

“He has a .375 magnum. He has a .416 elephant gun and another rifle. I’m just overwhelmed.”

Varmint shooting outings followed at the Hansen Farm where Moser lived.

“We sat there for 45 minutes. He couldn’t get enough of it. For every three or four he shot I probably shot one, maybe. I don’t know that he ever missed.”

They palled around a few more times before Moser joined the service when he turned 18. After four years in the Navy, he settled in Sacramento, California, where he took a job selling furniture and then started a successful career in the insurance business.

He last talked to O’Connor in 1977. Moser and his buddies were talking about guns and debating the best all-around big game rifle for North America. Moser said he knew how to settle it and phoned his friend.

“O’Connor here,” said the voice on the other end. “He said, ‘Well, Keith Moser, how are you?’ “

Moser framed the debate and got an answer. While O’Connor loved the flat-shooting .270, he said the best all-around rifle for North America was the .30-06. It not only could handle deer and elk but also bigger animals like Alaskan brown bears.

“We did a little chit-chat and the next year he died.”

Decades later, Moser returned to Clarkston where he lives in the spring and summer to escape the blistering heat of Arizona. Here, he attended a gathering at the Jack O’Connor Hunting Heritage and Education Center. While visiting with a gun collector, he told his story. Soon other people were huddling around and listening to the tale.

Blair Hansen, one of the board members of the center, told Moser the story was of note because it showed a softer side of O’Connor, who had a gruff reputation. Moser relayed the encounter to his son Mark who had the gun.

“He said, ‘Dad, we need to give that gun to the museum.’ “

A few phone calls later and the donation was arranged. Moser’s single-shot Model 37 is in a glass display case at the center. Its plain look stands in stark contrast to O’Connor’s guns adorned with intricate metal engraving and French walnut stocks with checkered fleur-de-lis patterns.

Instead, it’s the simple, if unlikely, story of a kid and his chance encounter with the famous old man that gives the gun character.

The Jack O’Connor Center, housed at Hells Gate State Park, is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays and 1-4 p.m. Tuesdays, Saturdays and Sundays.