Storm Widgeon
Member
As a new member/long time lurker, I thought I'd post up a story I wrote of my Minnesota wolf hunt. I'll have to post it in three sections and paste in the images, so be patient while I get it all on here. Hope you enjoy.
Minnesota Wolf Hunt
- Thread starter Storm Widgeon
- Start date
Storm Widgeon
Member
So I was lucky enough to snag a highly coveted wolf tag for Minnesota's first wolf hunt. When the tags were put on sale at noon that day I was lucky enough to be first inline at the local gas station, I couldn't believe there was a line. But when the tags sold out in about 30 seconds after being available, I understood.
A friend has property up north and said they have seen one or two over the years while out deer hunting, so I figured that would be my best chance at maybe seeing one. Little did I know what I was in for.
Being neither of us knew the first thing about wolf hunting, we figured we go at them like coyotes to start, we had an understanding that if a wolf showed up I'd shoot as I had the tag, but if any other predator responded to the call they were all his. We had low expectations of the outcome of the hunt as muzzleloader season was in full swing still, and we were required by law to wear blaze orange.
Thursday night, the second week of the season we both arrived in camp. Armed with left over butchered carcasses and one roadkill we made two separate bait sites where the wolves had been spotted in the past. We decided to leave these sites alone for the first day to let the critters find them.
Friday morning came early, our first stand down by a frozen river come up empty, but hopes were high when we found very fresh wolf, coyote and fox tracks littering the river banks.
On the second set of the day we found a thicket edge, and a trail that we could get in and out of the area quietly. We setup about 80yrds apart with the Foxpro caller between us. With the call blasting a dieing cottontail in my usual routine, I glanced down at the timer, we had been on stand for about 25 minutes. Just as I was thinking about moving on, I noticed movement off to my right in the thicket. There before me, sneaking through, was the first wolf I had ever seen in the wild.
He was moving with speed and grace unlike any coyote I had ever seen, and I was a little taken back at the size of the animal. As the timber wolf crossed in front of me from right to left I struggled to find a hole in the thicket to get that bullet through, but to no avail, he was moving to fast. I helplessly watched as a mere 60yrds away this animal approached the call, in my hast of trying to get a shot off I made a rookie mistake and didn't shut off the caller, it didn't take him long to pin-point the caller's location and spot the blaze orange of my partner. The next thing I see is him leaving just as fast as he came, heading straight away.
Unfortunately my partner never got to even see the animal. After finding the tracks it was clear the wolf had snuck in within 50yards of my partner, but because of a brush pile and the extreme denseness of the thicket, he snuck back out unnoticed.
Through out the day we made several different stands, using a variety of cottontail, jack rabbit and deer bleat calls. But no other critters showed. We blamed it on the fact we both were wearing large amounts of blaze orange.
The next couple days we hunted and scouted hard. The bait piles never were hit by anything but eagles and ravens. The lack of tracks in the fresh snow and trailcam pics concurred, not a single canine visited the bait piles.
During our scouting we found drainage ditches once used years ago to try and drain excess water from large tracks of public land in hopes of farming purposes. we found that these drainage ditches acted like a super-highway for the wolves. They could cover large amounts of ground without having to fight the thickness of the brush. In the fresh snow it was evident that the wolves were using them, as they were littered with tracks.
On the later part of Saturday we decided to focus on these areas. After our first stand produced nothing, we walked a few hundred yards down the trail, where we found an advantage point. Even with being so close to the first stand location we decided to try it. After 20 minutes of no luck we decided to start our hike back, as it was getting dark and we were a good distance from the truck in unfamiliar territory. As we walked past our first stand location, we noticed a disturbing discovery. In our short absence, three wolves had cut our tracks, and walked right past were my butt print was in the snow.
As we stood there staring at the tracks, no doubt wondering who was hunting who, howling broke out a short distance into the pine trees on the right side of the picture. From what we could gather there was three of them, the three that most likely crossed our trail. At this point it was well past legal shooting, and darkness only found in the depth of the forest was setting in. We wasted no time in hightailing back to the truck.
Sunday we were only able to hunt a short time, with no other sightings we broke camp with a wealth of knowledge gained and a plan to return the following weekend.
Shown in the pictures is a 30-06 cartridge.
A friend has property up north and said they have seen one or two over the years while out deer hunting, so I figured that would be my best chance at maybe seeing one. Little did I know what I was in for.
Being neither of us knew the first thing about wolf hunting, we figured we go at them like coyotes to start, we had an understanding that if a wolf showed up I'd shoot as I had the tag, but if any other predator responded to the call they were all his. We had low expectations of the outcome of the hunt as muzzleloader season was in full swing still, and we were required by law to wear blaze orange.
Thursday night, the second week of the season we both arrived in camp. Armed with left over butchered carcasses and one roadkill we made two separate bait sites where the wolves had been spotted in the past. We decided to leave these sites alone for the first day to let the critters find them.
Friday morning came early, our first stand down by a frozen river come up empty, but hopes were high when we found very fresh wolf, coyote and fox tracks littering the river banks.
On the second set of the day we found a thicket edge, and a trail that we could get in and out of the area quietly. We setup about 80yrds apart with the Foxpro caller between us. With the call blasting a dieing cottontail in my usual routine, I glanced down at the timer, we had been on stand for about 25 minutes. Just as I was thinking about moving on, I noticed movement off to my right in the thicket. There before me, sneaking through, was the first wolf I had ever seen in the wild.
He was moving with speed and grace unlike any coyote I had ever seen, and I was a little taken back at the size of the animal. As the timber wolf crossed in front of me from right to left I struggled to find a hole in the thicket to get that bullet through, but to no avail, he was moving to fast. I helplessly watched as a mere 60yrds away this animal approached the call, in my hast of trying to get a shot off I made a rookie mistake and didn't shut off the caller, it didn't take him long to pin-point the caller's location and spot the blaze orange of my partner. The next thing I see is him leaving just as fast as he came, heading straight away.
Unfortunately my partner never got to even see the animal. After finding the tracks it was clear the wolf had snuck in within 50yards of my partner, but because of a brush pile and the extreme denseness of the thicket, he snuck back out unnoticed.
Through out the day we made several different stands, using a variety of cottontail, jack rabbit and deer bleat calls. But no other critters showed. We blamed it on the fact we both were wearing large amounts of blaze orange.
The next couple days we hunted and scouted hard. The bait piles never were hit by anything but eagles and ravens. The lack of tracks in the fresh snow and trailcam pics concurred, not a single canine visited the bait piles.
During our scouting we found drainage ditches once used years ago to try and drain excess water from large tracks of public land in hopes of farming purposes. we found that these drainage ditches acted like a super-highway for the wolves. They could cover large amounts of ground without having to fight the thickness of the brush. In the fresh snow it was evident that the wolves were using them, as they were littered with tracks.
On the later part of Saturday we decided to focus on these areas. After our first stand produced nothing, we walked a few hundred yards down the trail, where we found an advantage point. Even with being so close to the first stand location we decided to try it. After 20 minutes of no luck we decided to start our hike back, as it was getting dark and we were a good distance from the truck in unfamiliar territory. As we walked past our first stand location, we noticed a disturbing discovery. In our short absence, three wolves had cut our tracks, and walked right past were my butt print was in the snow.
As we stood there staring at the tracks, no doubt wondering who was hunting who, howling broke out a short distance into the pine trees on the right side of the picture. From what we could gather there was three of them, the three that most likely crossed our trail. At this point it was well past legal shooting, and darkness only found in the depth of the forest was setting in. We wasted no time in hightailing back to the truck.
Sunday we were only able to hunt a short time, with no other sightings we broke camp with a wealth of knowledge gained and a plan to return the following weekend.
Shown in the pictures is a 30-06 cartridge.
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Storm Widgeon
Member
So with much anticipation, my hunting partner and I arrive in camp Thursday night. The day before we had contacted the local Police Department and they were more than kind enough to supply us with a couple fresh road killed deer. With it being well past dark we discussed where to place the carcasses. We decided the edge of the river for one, and the drainage ditches for the other.
With the inability to haul a trailer all the way out to the bait site from camp, we had to improvise on how to get the very large deer carcass out there. It was too large for us to lift to get it on top of the truck, so with patience wearing thin and knowing we wouldn't be traveling far we became creative.
[
An hour later, we found ourselves three miles from the nearest road in the dark. Let me tell you, it's hard to measure ones own foolishness until your 3/4 of a mile from the truck, deep in wolf infested forest dragging a stinking rotting carcass, with one flashlight and a little 380 pistol. Then it hits me, my partner can run faster than I can...
Arriving back at camp we have a good laugh about our adventure. Apparently during the week they had warm weather as most of the snow is melted, but everything is now well frozen. We fire up the generator and after a quick meal, hit the sack in the 1970's camper trailer that the land owner friend keeps on the property.
Morning comes early as usual, and we are both glad to see the generator stayed running through the night for the first time this season, hence we stayed warm. A quick breakfast of dry bagels and Gatorade and we were off and running. Our first stand is down at the river. No signs of anything eating on the bait pile. We do a stand anyways and come out empty handed, but again hopes are high as there are lots of wolf tracks from the week. We both comment on how beautiful of a morning it is, and are glad we are dong nothing else.
Our second stand brings us back to the drainage ditches, the second bait site. Again nothing had touched this one either. We decide to spend some time watching as it has become more and more evident that the wolves are moving more during the day than the night. As we sit my partner hears a death cry of a rabbit not far away into the woods, we sit tight.
Two hours later I begin to get cold, I glance at the watch and see it's 11:24, I tell myself 15 more minutes and I'll go for a walk. Just then I catch movement at the far end of the drainage ditch, about 700yrds away per my rangefinder and can tell it's a critter. I pull up the rifle and sure enough it's a wolf, and he's slowly making his way down the ditch to us. I quickly whisper down to my hunting partner.
We watch as the wolf closes the distance, it's lower half of it's body and legs are pure snow white with a grey saddle and grey mask on it's face, very cool looking. My heart is pounding almost out of my chest as adrenaline has had plenty of time to kick in full swing while we watch the animal close the distance.
The rifle I have is new to me, it's a Winchester 30-06 that I picked up for deer hunting, and I haven't had the chance to shoot it long range with the new hand loads, so I'm very uneasy about taking shots over 200yrds. As the wolf closes the distance I become more aware of a downed tree in the drainage ditch, and that it will pretty much be a shot blocker until the wolf crosses it.
The tree is about 166yrds away but the branches block most of the shooting ability out to 300yrds. If you look closely you can see the tree laying in the ditch, also the carcass we put out in the bottom of the picture, it's about 90yrds away.
A closer look at the tree and there is one large opening, that if the wolf crossed just right I could get a shot off.
As the wolf closed the distance to 200yrds, it paused for a second or two giving me a slight quartering shot. I would be shooting between the branches and I was concerned I would hit one. I figured I'd give a go. With the safety off I began the squeeze on the trigger, just as the trigger was about to break the wolf turned back towards us and continued on up the trail. I backed off the trigger thinking if he is going to come closer I would let him clear the branches.
As I watched the wolf slowly advance, a horrible feeling came over me, after leaving the truck this morning, I loaded the magazine, but never put a round in the chamber! As the wolf was looking side to side as he walked and not paying us any attention I figured he was coming into the bait pile, and since he had yet to clear the tree I had a short amount of time to slide my support hand back and quietly open the bolt.
I took my eyes off the wolf as I cracked open the bolt, and to my surprise, I had indeed loaded a round. In an instant with new found confidence, I began closing the bolt and decided I'd take a shot regardless of where the wolf was. As I brought the rifle up.... he was gone. In that instant I took my eyes off of him, he stepped of the trail back into the dense forest, never to be seen from again.
I wanted nothing more than to hit that do-over button, I couldn't believe I had come so close and yet let the opportunity pass by. I glanced down to my hunting partner who was sitting below me watching the whole thing unfold, he had that undeniable look on his face of, "why the hell didn't you shoot!"
After a short time of waiting to see if he would come back, my partner and I met up, and I replayed the issues I had with the un-chambered round that actually was. He said in that instant I looked away the wolf closed the distance to 170yrds, just on the other side of the tree, and then walked off the trail. After beating myself up over the missed opportunity, we both agreed that was one of the coolest things we had both seen in years of hunting.
We hunt the area for the rest of the day, nothing else shows. That evening my partner has to make a unplanned trip back home as work is having a crisis that he must attend to. After quickly getting packed, he makes some comment to me about trying to not get eaten out there, and hits the road.
Saturday morning I'm back out to the drainage ditch. I recall a conversation that my hunting partner and I had about how both wolves we have seen have been between 11:00 and 11:30. So I tell myself that I'll sit until noon even if I freeze to death. Hours later I glance at my watch, 11:28. I'm on full alert, a minute later I can't believe my eyes, movement at the end of the drainage ditched 700yrds away. In my head I scream for joy that my proverbial do-over button worked!
I pull up the rifle and see a wolf, he comes out onto the trail at the exact location the one did before. He's darker, all grey and bigger bodied. I watch as instead of turning to come down the ditch like yesterday, he takes his time and walks directly across the trail. Panic sets in and I quickly crank up the foxpro and blare the sound down the ditch, but at that distance and with the wind blowing at my face the caller doesn't stand a chance to reach him. I run the caller for about 20 seconds and shut it off.
As I sit there wondering what to do, I again catch movement in the end of the ditch, it's another wolf. This one is larger than the first and considerably larger than the one yesterday. He's very dark, not black but very dark. As he crosses the center of the ditch he stops and looks down at me. Looking through the scope, the size of this animals head almost takes my breath away. It looks like a lions mane, big and flared out from the side of it's head. He continues on in the trail of the first.
Moments after the second one walks off, I again catch movement and watch as a third wolf follows suite and crosses the ditch. It's a carbon copy of the first wolf in body size and color. I can only guess that the second wolf is the alpha male of the pack in the area. After waiting 10 minutes and no other sightings, I decide to hike a half mile deeper into the woods and try and cut them off. After walking a half mile in and a half mile back I never find them. But interestingly enough 150yrds through the woods from where I sit, I find the source of the dying rabbit screams my partner had heard the day before. I find blood, fur and wolf tracks. Apparently just out of sight a wolf had caught his supper, the whole time we were unaware of his presence.
I sat the rest of the day with no luck. After dark, back at camp I visit with the land owner friend who has come up to cut firewood. He makes a valid point, that the wolf yesterday and the three today all came into the ditch at the same spot, and that knowing how thick the underbrush is that there must be a trail.
Sunday morning arrives, I can only hunt until noon as I have to break camp by 2pm. I decide to hike down the drainage ditch and set up 150 yards from the trail and try to catch them there. I awake to heavy snow, there is an inch or so on the ground and more coming down. Weather forecast calls for heavy snow all day. I find a nice clump of thick grass to hide behind 130yrds from their trail. I quickly get setup and settle in for the long wait.
This trip I mistakenly left my bi-pod at home and fashioned a makeshift shooting stick. With the rifle propped up and shouldered in anticipation of a fast shot, I was ready. Four hours come and go and nothing shows. The noon hour comes and I break my stand, figuring the wolves must be bedded down in the heavy snow fall. On my way out I glance at the carcass, nothing has touched it in the night. Figuring that was odd, but it further speaks to our idea that they are more active in the day than night. As I crossed the fallen tree in the ditch I break out my hand saw and knock off all the branches that costs me the wolf on Friday. That way next time I come back I cant use that one as an excuse.
Before breaking camp the land owner and I stop down at the river to check on the first bait site. To our surprise the carcass has not only been hit, but it's completely gone! We search the area of sign, but what ever it was did it before it started snowing last night, sometime during the day yesterday. There are no fresh tracks and it drug it off a good distance as we searched all over for it.
Plans are in the works for another trip back to the property before the January 31st season ending deadline comes. Both the land owner and I agreed the requirement to wear blaze orange probably caused us to not see more wolves then we otherwise would have. The nice thing was that muzzleloader season would be over after this trip. So next time is full on snow camo.
With the inability to haul a trailer all the way out to the bait site from camp, we had to improvise on how to get the very large deer carcass out there. It was too large for us to lift to get it on top of the truck, so with patience wearing thin and knowing we wouldn't be traveling far we became creative.
[
An hour later, we found ourselves three miles from the nearest road in the dark. Let me tell you, it's hard to measure ones own foolishness until your 3/4 of a mile from the truck, deep in wolf infested forest dragging a stinking rotting carcass, with one flashlight and a little 380 pistol. Then it hits me, my partner can run faster than I can...
Arriving back at camp we have a good laugh about our adventure. Apparently during the week they had warm weather as most of the snow is melted, but everything is now well frozen. We fire up the generator and after a quick meal, hit the sack in the 1970's camper trailer that the land owner friend keeps on the property.
Morning comes early as usual, and we are both glad to see the generator stayed running through the night for the first time this season, hence we stayed warm. A quick breakfast of dry bagels and Gatorade and we were off and running. Our first stand is down at the river. No signs of anything eating on the bait pile. We do a stand anyways and come out empty handed, but again hopes are high as there are lots of wolf tracks from the week. We both comment on how beautiful of a morning it is, and are glad we are dong nothing else.
Our second stand brings us back to the drainage ditches, the second bait site. Again nothing had touched this one either. We decide to spend some time watching as it has become more and more evident that the wolves are moving more during the day than the night. As we sit my partner hears a death cry of a rabbit not far away into the woods, we sit tight.
Two hours later I begin to get cold, I glance at the watch and see it's 11:24, I tell myself 15 more minutes and I'll go for a walk. Just then I catch movement at the far end of the drainage ditch, about 700yrds away per my rangefinder and can tell it's a critter. I pull up the rifle and sure enough it's a wolf, and he's slowly making his way down the ditch to us. I quickly whisper down to my hunting partner.
We watch as the wolf closes the distance, it's lower half of it's body and legs are pure snow white with a grey saddle and grey mask on it's face, very cool looking. My heart is pounding almost out of my chest as adrenaline has had plenty of time to kick in full swing while we watch the animal close the distance.
The rifle I have is new to me, it's a Winchester 30-06 that I picked up for deer hunting, and I haven't had the chance to shoot it long range with the new hand loads, so I'm very uneasy about taking shots over 200yrds. As the wolf closes the distance I become more aware of a downed tree in the drainage ditch, and that it will pretty much be a shot blocker until the wolf crosses it.
The tree is about 166yrds away but the branches block most of the shooting ability out to 300yrds. If you look closely you can see the tree laying in the ditch, also the carcass we put out in the bottom of the picture, it's about 90yrds away.
A closer look at the tree and there is one large opening, that if the wolf crossed just right I could get a shot off.
As the wolf closed the distance to 200yrds, it paused for a second or two giving me a slight quartering shot. I would be shooting between the branches and I was concerned I would hit one. I figured I'd give a go. With the safety off I began the squeeze on the trigger, just as the trigger was about to break the wolf turned back towards us and continued on up the trail. I backed off the trigger thinking if he is going to come closer I would let him clear the branches.
As I watched the wolf slowly advance, a horrible feeling came over me, after leaving the truck this morning, I loaded the magazine, but never put a round in the chamber! As the wolf was looking side to side as he walked and not paying us any attention I figured he was coming into the bait pile, and since he had yet to clear the tree I had a short amount of time to slide my support hand back and quietly open the bolt.
I took my eyes off the wolf as I cracked open the bolt, and to my surprise, I had indeed loaded a round. In an instant with new found confidence, I began closing the bolt and decided I'd take a shot regardless of where the wolf was. As I brought the rifle up.... he was gone. In that instant I took my eyes off of him, he stepped of the trail back into the dense forest, never to be seen from again.
I wanted nothing more than to hit that do-over button, I couldn't believe I had come so close and yet let the opportunity pass by. I glanced down to my hunting partner who was sitting below me watching the whole thing unfold, he had that undeniable look on his face of, "why the hell didn't you shoot!"
After a short time of waiting to see if he would come back, my partner and I met up, and I replayed the issues I had with the un-chambered round that actually was. He said in that instant I looked away the wolf closed the distance to 170yrds, just on the other side of the tree, and then walked off the trail. After beating myself up over the missed opportunity, we both agreed that was one of the coolest things we had both seen in years of hunting.
We hunt the area for the rest of the day, nothing else shows. That evening my partner has to make a unplanned trip back home as work is having a crisis that he must attend to. After quickly getting packed, he makes some comment to me about trying to not get eaten out there, and hits the road.
Saturday morning I'm back out to the drainage ditch. I recall a conversation that my hunting partner and I had about how both wolves we have seen have been between 11:00 and 11:30. So I tell myself that I'll sit until noon even if I freeze to death. Hours later I glance at my watch, 11:28. I'm on full alert, a minute later I can't believe my eyes, movement at the end of the drainage ditched 700yrds away. In my head I scream for joy that my proverbial do-over button worked!
I pull up the rifle and see a wolf, he comes out onto the trail at the exact location the one did before. He's darker, all grey and bigger bodied. I watch as instead of turning to come down the ditch like yesterday, he takes his time and walks directly across the trail. Panic sets in and I quickly crank up the foxpro and blare the sound down the ditch, but at that distance and with the wind blowing at my face the caller doesn't stand a chance to reach him. I run the caller for about 20 seconds and shut it off.
As I sit there wondering what to do, I again catch movement in the end of the ditch, it's another wolf. This one is larger than the first and considerably larger than the one yesterday. He's very dark, not black but very dark. As he crosses the center of the ditch he stops and looks down at me. Looking through the scope, the size of this animals head almost takes my breath away. It looks like a lions mane, big and flared out from the side of it's head. He continues on in the trail of the first.
Moments after the second one walks off, I again catch movement and watch as a third wolf follows suite and crosses the ditch. It's a carbon copy of the first wolf in body size and color. I can only guess that the second wolf is the alpha male of the pack in the area. After waiting 10 minutes and no other sightings, I decide to hike a half mile deeper into the woods and try and cut them off. After walking a half mile in and a half mile back I never find them. But interestingly enough 150yrds through the woods from where I sit, I find the source of the dying rabbit screams my partner had heard the day before. I find blood, fur and wolf tracks. Apparently just out of sight a wolf had caught his supper, the whole time we were unaware of his presence.
I sat the rest of the day with no luck. After dark, back at camp I visit with the land owner friend who has come up to cut firewood. He makes a valid point, that the wolf yesterday and the three today all came into the ditch at the same spot, and that knowing how thick the underbrush is that there must be a trail.
Sunday morning arrives, I can only hunt until noon as I have to break camp by 2pm. I decide to hike down the drainage ditch and set up 150 yards from the trail and try to catch them there. I awake to heavy snow, there is an inch or so on the ground and more coming down. Weather forecast calls for heavy snow all day. I find a nice clump of thick grass to hide behind 130yrds from their trail. I quickly get setup and settle in for the long wait.
This trip I mistakenly left my bi-pod at home and fashioned a makeshift shooting stick. With the rifle propped up and shouldered in anticipation of a fast shot, I was ready. Four hours come and go and nothing shows. The noon hour comes and I break my stand, figuring the wolves must be bedded down in the heavy snow fall. On my way out I glance at the carcass, nothing has touched it in the night. Figuring that was odd, but it further speaks to our idea that they are more active in the day than night. As I crossed the fallen tree in the ditch I break out my hand saw and knock off all the branches that costs me the wolf on Friday. That way next time I come back I cant use that one as an excuse.
Before breaking camp the land owner and I stop down at the river to check on the first bait site. To our surprise the carcass has not only been hit, but it's completely gone! We search the area of sign, but what ever it was did it before it started snowing last night, sometime during the day yesterday. There are no fresh tracks and it drug it off a good distance as we searched all over for it.
Plans are in the works for another trip back to the property before the January 31st season ending deadline comes. Both the land owner and I agreed the requirement to wear blaze orange probably caused us to not see more wolves then we otherwise would have. The nice thing was that muzzleloader season would be over after this trip. So next time is full on snow camo.
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Storm Widgeon
Member
Well, as my hunting partner and I were trying to set up another trip up North, I called my local Conservation Officer to run a question by her. In the midst of our conversation she tells me that a bunch of wolves had been harvested this week and they have almost reached their quota of 56 wolves. She said that there is a chance the season could be closing early, by the end of the week or the end of the weekend. With those words ringing in my ears I hit the panic button, as it was all ready Thursday....
Ten minutes after hanging up with the Conservation Officer, she called back and said she just officially received the email stating they would be closing the season at the end of the day on Saturday. I don't even think I hung up the phone and I was dialing my hunting partner. The rest of Thursday and the first half of Friday was spent frantically searching for a babysitter as my wife had to work Saturday.
After a dozen phone calls to babysitters and family members, in the end it was her boss that gave in and granted her the weekend off so I could head out of town. With only a few hours of daylight left on Friday, I knew there was no chance of making it up to the property in time. Instead I spent the time shooting, figuring out my come-ups for the rifle out to 600yrds.
Back at home I frantically packed, With my hunting partner arriving at my house we threw in his gear and were on the road by 6pm. Arriving at camp late, we fired up the generator and hit the bed. As I lay there, I chuckled to myself, at how much time we have spent hunting, and it's going to come down to an all or nothing one day Saturday hunt.
4:30am, my hunting partner wakes me, says the generator died. I'm up and making my way out the door when I hear it running, all is good. But at this point I'm wide awake, and the excitement and anticipation of the last chance isn't going to let me go back to sleep anytime soon.
Finally the alarm goes off, I've planned to be out there from dawn to dusk. I've packed heavy, but both my hunting partner and I have gone to extreme lengths to keep scent free. The weather is warm, pushing 32 degrees when we left the truck, with a high of 35 degrees for the day. Half way to my spot it starts to mist hard and drizzle, I smile and pat myself on the back for buying a set of butler creek lens caps a couple days ago, and I know I wont be fighting to keep my optics clean like last week.
The snow is wet and noisy to walk in. It took me much longer to walk in than I would have liked. As I walk past the carcass I'm floored to see not a single animal has touched it all week. Closer inspection of the snow shows where two separate wolves actually went out of their way to walk around it.
Normally this ditch has a few tracks in it, but I wasn't ready for what I saw. I left last Sunday with 4 inches of new snow on the ground and no fresh tracks.
I understand that like deer, just a few animals can make a lot of different tracks, but this was more sign than everything we had ever seen put together! Needless to say I was pumped, most of the tracks looked very fresh, and I knew wolves were in the area, a lot of them.
As I arrived at my stand location, I was a little to distracted by all the tracks, as I didn't notice the drizzle turn to almost a light rain. A quick shot with the range finder shows the carcass at 412yrds to my left, and the main trail I saw them come out of last week is 190yrds to my right. The rifle is propped back up and ready to get this show on the road. As it gets lighter out and the landscape reveals itself, I can't help but get that feeling of extreme solitude. The scenery and the eerie fog makes you feel that your much farther from civilization that you really are.
An hour and a half click by, I'm soaked to the bone as the rain has been relentless. I text my hunting partner about the untouched carcass, he's sitting about 600yrds down the ditch to my left in his usual perch. As I sit there I wonder what the weather radar looks like and if this rain will lighten up anytime soon. I break out my phone, as the radar website is loading I think to myself, what I would do if a wolf showed while I was messing with the phone. I figured I'd probably toss the phone into the snowbank.
The radar shows a small break in the weather a short distance out, good I think, maybe they will start to move. As I am about to shut the screen off on the phone, I glance to the left, then to the right down the ditch. Grey movement catches the corner of my eye to the right, far down the ditch. I don't even look to clearly see what it is, I already know. In one quick motion the phone goes flying as I predicted it would, I shove the rifle to my shoulder. In the rush to get steady I forget to flip up the clear butler cap on the objective lens, it's covered in rain but there is no time.
My eyes focus through the partially blurred image, it's definitely a wolf walking strait at me. My hearts pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears. I can see his outline, his pointy ears, his long legs. I find his chest, center the cross-hairs and hold at the base of his neck and slap the trigger. A second later I hear the sweetest sound, the unmistakable sound of projectile meeting it's mark, the report of the shot connecting.
I run the bolt as fast as I can, settle the scope and for an instant I panic as he's gone. I quickly replay what I heard, and the last thing I saw before the shot, and I'm positive I connected. I catch movement on the ground, it's a leg sticking out from the side of a mass of tall grass, it's twitching. He's down. I leap from my seated position with a shout of joy. Maybe a little to loud as my partner hears the shout from his perch.
Now standing I can clearly make out a body laying motionless. I wait for my partner to make it down to me before approaching the animal. While waiting, I recover my phone from the ground at my feet. I hit the wolf with the rangefinder, 195yrds. The walk up to the animal is full of shouts and laughter. As we closed in the last few yards, we are both awe struck by it's size, no ground shrinkage here. The wolf dropped in it's tracks at the shot, was dead before it hit the ground.
As we are on our knee's pouring over the animal, howling breaks out to the South East, very close by. With the rifle now back in hand, we listen as the pack sounds off four or five times howling somewhere in the dense pines. We now realize the urgency to get the animal packed out before things get really interesting. I check the DNR website on my phone, only three more wolves could be harvested before the quota is reached. I mark my site tag and called and registered the animal per regulations. We snap a few quick photo's and found a large branch we fashioned to go between it's legs and start the long trek out.
Once back at the truck I hit the refresh on the phone, it goes from showing three wolves left to be harvested, to zero. So two other people registered as I did. I shot one of the last three, maybe the last wolf on the last day of the first season in decades. Talk about a buzzer beater! I make a phone call to tell the news to the land owner friend. He's so ecstatic he grabs all of his kids and his father, and makes the three hour drive up to the property to see the animal. After a bunch more photo's and some slaps on the back, we close up camp and end a chapter in my hunting career that I'll never forget. Of all the critters that the good Lord has allowed me to chase on this earth, none have been so exhilarating, challenging and down right adrenaline pumping as this. I hope you enjoyed the story half as much as I enjoyed living it out.
Ten minutes after hanging up with the Conservation Officer, she called back and said she just officially received the email stating they would be closing the season at the end of the day on Saturday. I don't even think I hung up the phone and I was dialing my hunting partner. The rest of Thursday and the first half of Friday was spent frantically searching for a babysitter as my wife had to work Saturday.
After a dozen phone calls to babysitters and family members, in the end it was her boss that gave in and granted her the weekend off so I could head out of town. With only a few hours of daylight left on Friday, I knew there was no chance of making it up to the property in time. Instead I spent the time shooting, figuring out my come-ups for the rifle out to 600yrds.
Back at home I frantically packed, With my hunting partner arriving at my house we threw in his gear and were on the road by 6pm. Arriving at camp late, we fired up the generator and hit the bed. As I lay there, I chuckled to myself, at how much time we have spent hunting, and it's going to come down to an all or nothing one day Saturday hunt.
4:30am, my hunting partner wakes me, says the generator died. I'm up and making my way out the door when I hear it running, all is good. But at this point I'm wide awake, and the excitement and anticipation of the last chance isn't going to let me go back to sleep anytime soon.
Finally the alarm goes off, I've planned to be out there from dawn to dusk. I've packed heavy, but both my hunting partner and I have gone to extreme lengths to keep scent free. The weather is warm, pushing 32 degrees when we left the truck, with a high of 35 degrees for the day. Half way to my spot it starts to mist hard and drizzle, I smile and pat myself on the back for buying a set of butler creek lens caps a couple days ago, and I know I wont be fighting to keep my optics clean like last week.
The snow is wet and noisy to walk in. It took me much longer to walk in than I would have liked. As I walk past the carcass I'm floored to see not a single animal has touched it all week. Closer inspection of the snow shows where two separate wolves actually went out of their way to walk around it.
Normally this ditch has a few tracks in it, but I wasn't ready for what I saw. I left last Sunday with 4 inches of new snow on the ground and no fresh tracks.
I understand that like deer, just a few animals can make a lot of different tracks, but this was more sign than everything we had ever seen put together! Needless to say I was pumped, most of the tracks looked very fresh, and I knew wolves were in the area, a lot of them.
As I arrived at my stand location, I was a little to distracted by all the tracks, as I didn't notice the drizzle turn to almost a light rain. A quick shot with the range finder shows the carcass at 412yrds to my left, and the main trail I saw them come out of last week is 190yrds to my right. The rifle is propped back up and ready to get this show on the road. As it gets lighter out and the landscape reveals itself, I can't help but get that feeling of extreme solitude. The scenery and the eerie fog makes you feel that your much farther from civilization that you really are.
An hour and a half click by, I'm soaked to the bone as the rain has been relentless. I text my hunting partner about the untouched carcass, he's sitting about 600yrds down the ditch to my left in his usual perch. As I sit there I wonder what the weather radar looks like and if this rain will lighten up anytime soon. I break out my phone, as the radar website is loading I think to myself, what I would do if a wolf showed while I was messing with the phone. I figured I'd probably toss the phone into the snowbank.
The radar shows a small break in the weather a short distance out, good I think, maybe they will start to move. As I am about to shut the screen off on the phone, I glance to the left, then to the right down the ditch. Grey movement catches the corner of my eye to the right, far down the ditch. I don't even look to clearly see what it is, I already know. In one quick motion the phone goes flying as I predicted it would, I shove the rifle to my shoulder. In the rush to get steady I forget to flip up the clear butler cap on the objective lens, it's covered in rain but there is no time.
My eyes focus through the partially blurred image, it's definitely a wolf walking strait at me. My hearts pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears. I can see his outline, his pointy ears, his long legs. I find his chest, center the cross-hairs and hold at the base of his neck and slap the trigger. A second later I hear the sweetest sound, the unmistakable sound of projectile meeting it's mark, the report of the shot connecting.
I run the bolt as fast as I can, settle the scope and for an instant I panic as he's gone. I quickly replay what I heard, and the last thing I saw before the shot, and I'm positive I connected. I catch movement on the ground, it's a leg sticking out from the side of a mass of tall grass, it's twitching. He's down. I leap from my seated position with a shout of joy. Maybe a little to loud as my partner hears the shout from his perch.
Now standing I can clearly make out a body laying motionless. I wait for my partner to make it down to me before approaching the animal. While waiting, I recover my phone from the ground at my feet. I hit the wolf with the rangefinder, 195yrds. The walk up to the animal is full of shouts and laughter. As we closed in the last few yards, we are both awe struck by it's size, no ground shrinkage here. The wolf dropped in it's tracks at the shot, was dead before it hit the ground.
As we are on our knee's pouring over the animal, howling breaks out to the South East, very close by. With the rifle now back in hand, we listen as the pack sounds off four or five times howling somewhere in the dense pines. We now realize the urgency to get the animal packed out before things get really interesting. I check the DNR website on my phone, only three more wolves could be harvested before the quota is reached. I mark my site tag and called and registered the animal per regulations. We snap a few quick photo's and found a large branch we fashioned to go between it's legs and start the long trek out.
Once back at the truck I hit the refresh on the phone, it goes from showing three wolves left to be harvested, to zero. So two other people registered as I did. I shot one of the last three, maybe the last wolf on the last day of the first season in decades. Talk about a buzzer beater! I make a phone call to tell the news to the land owner friend. He's so ecstatic he grabs all of his kids and his father, and makes the three hour drive up to the property to see the animal. After a bunch more photo's and some slaps on the back, we close up camp and end a chapter in my hunting career that I'll never forget. Of all the critters that the good Lord has allowed me to chase on this earth, none have been so exhilarating, challenging and down right adrenaline pumping as this. I hope you enjoyed the story half as much as I enjoyed living it out.
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LCH
Well-known member
That's a great write-up. Really makes me want to go wolf hunting. Congrats on a fine trophy.
Excellent. Political pressure needs to continue so that you will get state management control once again, and not just in MN, but WI, MI, and WY.
Awesome wolf! Congrats! I was also lucky enough to draw a tag and harvest a wolf the same year as you. They are big animals! Even though the season is now closed, I still love hunting around them, hearing them howling around you as you are walking to the deer stand in the morning.
nidahunter
Well-known member
Excellent write up, thank you for sharing!
Storm Widgeon
Member
Glad to hear someone else harvested one!
By no means would I want to see them disappear from the landscape but as Big Fin said, states need control back. Last I heard there were two bills in the works, but recently the wolf delisting language was stripped from one before it was passed. Fingers crossed for the second to make it.
It used to be that we'd take a picture of a wolf track just to show all the friends at camp. Then in just a few short years it was nothing to see them. We'd count ten wolf tracks to one set of deer. It wasn't until we started getting challenged by wolves not wanting to leave our bear bait sites when we tried to refresh the bait, that we realized how bad the problem really was. We started seeing less and less bear and even finding bear cub fur in wolf scat.
I love the critters, but they've devastated our moose herd and have taken our deer herd down to alarming numbers. Hopefully things will balance out soon, as I suspect the wolf numbers will drop off here one way or another from lack of food supply.
By no means would I want to see them disappear from the landscape but as Big Fin said, states need control back. Last I heard there were two bills in the works, but recently the wolf delisting language was stripped from one before it was passed. Fingers crossed for the second to make it.
It used to be that we'd take a picture of a wolf track just to show all the friends at camp. Then in just a few short years it was nothing to see them. We'd count ten wolf tracks to one set of deer. It wasn't until we started getting challenged by wolves not wanting to leave our bear bait sites when we tried to refresh the bait, that we realized how bad the problem really was. We started seeing less and less bear and even finding bear cub fur in wolf scat.
I love the critters, but they've devastated our moose herd and have taken our deer herd down to alarming numbers. Hopefully things will balance out soon, as I suspect the wolf numbers will drop off here one way or another from lack of food supply.
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HighDesertSage
Well-known member
Great post! Thanks for sharing.
sneakypete
Well-known member
- Joined
- May 19, 2014
- Messages
- 1,902
Great post and even greater hunt! Congrats!
M
MN Public Hunter
Guest
Great story with a great ending !
backsmasher23
Member
I agree. Great animal, but we need to keep under control. See them by the handful in northern WI at times.
teej89
Well-known member
awesome write up! I was reading it as you were posting and it lagged w/ the upload of the images and I refused to finish it until the pictures uploaded to help tell the tale. Good work!
hansontyrel
Active member
I wish MN, WI, MI and other states would finally see the use in controlling these predators!
hansontyrel
Active member
Poor verbiage on my part.
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