Mike “Moose” Dabich, a former pro basketball player, is known around Fremont County and Wyoming as a giant of a man with a big heart. He towers over most with his height of 7 feet and wears size 16 sneakers.
Dabich is also accidentally responsible for a rash of Bigfoot sightings near Lander that caused an uproar more than 50 years ago.
It all started in 1972 when two frantic boys out of Fort Washakie swore they had spotted Bigfoot.
Bill Sniffin was the new publisher at the Wyoming State Journal in Lander when his news editor, Dick George, came running into Sniffin’s office with a lead on a breaking story.
George told Sniffin that local kids had spotted Bigfoot.
“I was an aggressive young publisher wanting to get all the hot news,” Sniffin said. “I was fascinated about stories about Bigfoot because that’s part of the local Wyoming lore.”
The boys were terrified, and George believed their story. Sniffin interviewed them and said that as scared as they were, their story sounded legitimate.
“It seemed straight,” Sniffin said. “Even though we all tend to think of these stories with a tongue in our cheek.”
The boys corroborated each other's story and claimed adamantly that they had really seen a monster. George was an artist so drew an image of a giant, hulking, furry man just as the boys described it to them.
Sniffin then ran the story prominently on the front page of the paper in fall of 1972 and caused quite the local stir. Some even went out in search of the beast and claimed to have seen it, too.
Mike “Moose” Dabich loved to don mountain man garb years ago but once when wearing an ugly polyester coat, was mistaken for Bigfoot which made the front page of the local paper in Lander, the Wyoming Journal. (Courtesy Mike Dabich) 
Mike “Moose” Dabich tops out at 7 feet tall and was once mistaken for Bigfoot when he was fishing in his polyester furry-looking coat. It was all an innocent mistake Dabich claims that happened over 50 years ago. His wife, Michela, hated the coat which he admits was very ugly. (Courtesy Mike Dabich) 
Dabich’s signature shot: The jump hook, which he perfected while at New Mexico State, and later with the Oakland Oaks. (Courtesy Mike "Moose" Dabich) 
Dabich’s signature shot: The jump hook, which he perfected while at New Mexico State, and later with the Oakland Oaks. (Courtesy Mike "Moose" Dabich)
Moose’s Tale
Years later, Sniffin’s good friend Dabich was sharing a few fishing tales from his early days. As Sniffin listened, he realized that he was talking to his Bigfoot from 1972.
Dabich said that he had been fishing on the reservation without a license and didn’t come forward at the time because he didn’t want to get in trouble.
“I was doing a drywall job out on Sage Creek,” Dabich said. “I happened to run into this friend of mine who lived up Trout Creek, and he told me the browns were as long as my arm, so I thought I'd give it a try.”
It was a cold day, so he grabbed his spare coat that he kept behind the seat of his truck. The coat was so ugly that it was not meant to be worn and was there in case Dabich had a flat tire. His plan was to have something to lie on if he had to get underneath his truck to fix a tire or another issue.
“It was a nasty looking coat that looked like it belonged to somebody that was a booster of the Yale football team,” Dabich said. “It was some kind of polyester thing that looked like fake fur.”
He didn’t see the two kids in the haystack but said he smelled something illegal wafting through the air that they were smoking.
“I was kind of sneaking along the riverbank of the stream bank there, trying to stay hidden, which wasn't easy,” Dabich said. “I had this coat on, and of course I had the hood up, so it probably looked like a furry animal.”
Dabich heard someone hitting the fence in a dead run and thought he had spooked someone’s horse.
“I scooted out of there and went back to my friend's place,” Dabich said. “When things settled down, I headed home.”
Mike “Moose” Dabich at home in Hudson, Wyoming. From crashing through doors in tiny Hudson, Wyoming, to battling basketball legends Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell on the court, Dabich’s life journey is a slam dunk of grit, humor and mountain-sized memories. (David Madison, Cowboy State Daily) 
Mike “Moose” Dabich at home in Hudson, Wyoming. (David Madison, Cowboy State Daily) 
Mike “Moose” Dabich at home in Hudson, Wyoming. (David Madison, Cowboy State Daily)
Bigfoot Sighting
It wasn’t until later that Dabich realized he hadn’t spooked a horse but two boys who were convinced that they had just seen Bigfoot. Dabich said that the grass was high so he would have been partially camouflaged as he waded in the stream trying to catch a legendary trout.
“Next thing I know, there were a couple guys who investigated, and they found my footprint in the mud in the riverbank there along the stream which was this size 16 Converse All Star,” Dabich said. “But the kids swore that they had seen Bigfoot and that's how the story got started.”
Dabich said he can understand how they mistook him for Bigfoot in the ugly coat since he is tall. After all, Dabich said, he was mostly hidden from view and trying to be quiet as he cast his fly on his rod. Dabich also has his own stories of fleeing from monsters when he was young.
Dabich said that he lived on the reservation on a ranch off Plunkett Road and would ride out on his horse to a friend’s house to visit.
“His old grandpa lived all summer long out behind Ray Lake in his teepee because he didn’t want to live in the house,” Dabich said. “We'd go visit him and about dark, he'd start telling us stories, and afterwards, we'd get on the horses and put them in high gear and get out of there as fast as we could.”
After Dabich the Bigfoot had been spotted on Trout Creek fishing, there were more sightings in nearby areas.
“There's people that say they've seen one on Boulder Flat, too, so I don't know what they saw since there are a lot of Bigfoot stories around,” Dabich said. “I was just glad the kids didn't have a gun."
Contact Jackie Dorothy at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com
Jackie Dorothy can be reached at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com.
