NEWRY – A bull moose charged at a hunter, clobbering the man with his antlers and tossing him through the air two days before the start of Maine’s split, two-week moose hunt.

Jim Osgood of Newry was tossed through the air when the moose came charging Saturday, a game warden said. The attack left him with a broken collarbone and broken cheekbone. One of his eyes was swollen shut.

“All I remember is waking up on the ground,” Osgood, 47, said Sunday. “I don’t remember anything else.”

Osgood had been hunting bear with a friend and their dogs when the incident occurred, said Game Warden Chris Cloutier.

Osgood was bringing his dogs out of the woods – one in each hand – when his friend yelled, “‘Look out!’ and then this big bull moose came running out of some alder bushes,” said Cloutier.

“He threw him 20 feet into the air and 20 feet into the woods,” said Cloutier.

Osgood’s friend dove under a truck and the dogs eventually chased away the angry moose before he could do more damage, Cloutier said.

Moose are unpredictable right now as they begin their rutting season, which coincides with moose hunting season, Cloutier said.

“Of course I’ve seen them before and I’ve seen them acting weird, but I never had one come at me,” Osgood said of the moose.

Unfortunately for Osgood, he probably got between the bull and a cow, said Cloutier. Fortunately, he had his dogs.

The episode hasn’t soured Osgood’s enjoyment of hunting. He said he has been hunting since he was 8 or 9 years old and he will get back into the woods as soon as his wounds heal.