MontanaWild
New member
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2012
- Messages
- 299
Hey guys I'm posting this story up for my brother Travis. Last Tuesday he was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to shoot a beautiful black wolf.
For a day and a half we had been hunting elk with our Dad. He was looking for his first elk, and we were more than happy to try to help out the old man. The ground was crunchy as the temperatures were in the upper 20s and it became apparent that 3 guys just weren't going to be sneaking up on many elk in the timber. With a stormfront headed our way we decided to move locations, one where we knew it would snow. Well we woke up to 3 inches of snow and we knew it was game on.
We quickly made it up to the ridge we would be hunting and began looking for tracks. The first set we came across was a grizzly working up the same game trail we were on. Nice. Fortunately he bumped off the trail a quarter mile up and we continued on. Finally we crossed paths with some fresh elk sign. There were about 5-7 sets of tracks and some elk beds. We decided to follow the tracks for a while and see if we couldn't run into them. We'll after about 20 minutes I look up the hill and low and behold there's a nice 5x5 looking right at me. My dad was 15 yards in front of me and my brother was 15 behind me. Neither of them could even see the bull and I laughed when he ran off. The camera man needs two tags a year! Anyways we push on and Travis gets a fleeting glimpse of another bull that heads off ahead of us. I figure it's game over but we keep following the tracks. The tracks have some dirt kicked up as if they were being pushed, but I knew it wasn't us pushing them. Well about five minutes later my brother says "wolf!" I look left and it was the eeriest sight I've seen in the woods. A black wolf cruising through the snowy timber. My brother quickly kneels and as soon as that wolf hit an opening, BANG! He absolutely hammered this wolf and dropped him in his tracks.
It was surreal to walk up to that thing. It was amazing to be able to share that with my brother and Dad. When we made it up to the wolf we found wolf beds and other wolf tracks. A pack was in the area and was hunting down the same elk we were tracking. We took some photos and loaded him up in the Long Bow for the pack out.
After a couple hours and 2.5 miles we got back to the truck. Travis was excited he could do his part in helping manage these wild and beautiful creatures. We posted a photo to our Facebook the next day and it's gone pretty viral. Over 130,000 people saw just our photo not to mention all the shares and other posts. It was on the Missoula and Bozeman news so some of you guys have probably seen it. I'm guessing over a half million have seen his wolf. Pretty crazy if you ask me. Anyways the point I'm getting to is that it got over 4700 comments on our photo and they are absolutely hilarious to read. Here's a link http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=439382056098790&set=a.264986676871663.58260.260727333964264&type=1&theater
It simply amazing the things that come out of peoples mouths when they don't know the whole story. And that goes for both sides. Please educate yourselves on wolves if you don't already and be able to calmly support hunters. As hunters it's important to be able to calmly and intelligently defend our stances on game management and not let our emotions get the best of us as the "Anti's" have gotten so good (out of hand) at. If you'd like to read the whole story as written by Travis please check it out on our website.
Cheers and the best of luck to anyone chasing these intelligent creatures this season!
For a day and a half we had been hunting elk with our Dad. He was looking for his first elk, and we were more than happy to try to help out the old man. The ground was crunchy as the temperatures were in the upper 20s and it became apparent that 3 guys just weren't going to be sneaking up on many elk in the timber. With a stormfront headed our way we decided to move locations, one where we knew it would snow. Well we woke up to 3 inches of snow and we knew it was game on.
We quickly made it up to the ridge we would be hunting and began looking for tracks. The first set we came across was a grizzly working up the same game trail we were on. Nice. Fortunately he bumped off the trail a quarter mile up and we continued on. Finally we crossed paths with some fresh elk sign. There were about 5-7 sets of tracks and some elk beds. We decided to follow the tracks for a while and see if we couldn't run into them. We'll after about 20 minutes I look up the hill and low and behold there's a nice 5x5 looking right at me. My dad was 15 yards in front of me and my brother was 15 behind me. Neither of them could even see the bull and I laughed when he ran off. The camera man needs two tags a year! Anyways we push on and Travis gets a fleeting glimpse of another bull that heads off ahead of us. I figure it's game over but we keep following the tracks. The tracks have some dirt kicked up as if they were being pushed, but I knew it wasn't us pushing them. Well about five minutes later my brother says "wolf!" I look left and it was the eeriest sight I've seen in the woods. A black wolf cruising through the snowy timber. My brother quickly kneels and as soon as that wolf hit an opening, BANG! He absolutely hammered this wolf and dropped him in his tracks.
It was surreal to walk up to that thing. It was amazing to be able to share that with my brother and Dad. When we made it up to the wolf we found wolf beds and other wolf tracks. A pack was in the area and was hunting down the same elk we were tracking. We took some photos and loaded him up in the Long Bow for the pack out.
After a couple hours and 2.5 miles we got back to the truck. Travis was excited he could do his part in helping manage these wild and beautiful creatures. We posted a photo to our Facebook the next day and it's gone pretty viral. Over 130,000 people saw just our photo not to mention all the shares and other posts. It was on the Missoula and Bozeman news so some of you guys have probably seen it. I'm guessing over a half million have seen his wolf. Pretty crazy if you ask me. Anyways the point I'm getting to is that it got over 4700 comments on our photo and they are absolutely hilarious to read. Here's a link http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=439382056098790&set=a.264986676871663.58260.260727333964264&type=1&theater
It simply amazing the things that come out of peoples mouths when they don't know the whole story. And that goes for both sides. Please educate yourselves on wolves if you don't already and be able to calmly support hunters. As hunters it's important to be able to calmly and intelligently defend our stances on game management and not let our emotions get the best of us as the "Anti's" have gotten so good (out of hand) at. If you'd like to read the whole story as written by Travis please check it out on our website.
Cheers and the best of luck to anyone chasing these intelligent creatures this season!
