Blew it on a wolf - Season 11

Thanks for the link to the camera, kind of tired of spending $150+ tax or more on a name brand camera and having it only last a couple years before giving out. Also nice shots.
 
Been a while since we posted - we have been hunting hard but February really shut the animal movement down....

A couple of friends from Michigan were up this past week for some wolf hunting. The weather was reasonable and for the first time in a long time we actually had some active animal movement. February has been a brutal month with lots of deep fluffy snow which had severely limited animal movements. We didn't see a wolf while they were here, but one of them called in 2 beautiful coyotes yesterday morning which he decided not to use his (expensive) non resident seal on.

Last week I got a call about a road killed moose and I dragged the 2 hind quarters into the beaver flood at the blind. We hunted all day there Wednesday. After we had been in the blind for about 45 minutes, a nice large lynx walked out within 15 feet of us in the blind. It just stared at us and wasn't concerned. Then it walked out onto the open area in front of us. This was pretty cool as they don't have lynx in Michigan and one of the hunters had never seen one.

As it was walking towards the moose quarters, I hit "vole squeaks" on the Foxpro caller which I had hung about 4 feet up in a tamarack tree. As soon as it started playing, the lynx looked at it and headed for it. I hope the attached video will open for you to see what happens next (I have trimmed the full video down to about 20 seconds). After realizing it wasn't live, it sauntered over to the quarters where it fed for 2 hours, wrestling with the one quarter, and then scratching snow over it when it was done. It then walked back to us in the blind where it sat about 15 feet away grooming itself, licking its paw and rubbing the moose blood off of its face. Then it sauntered into the bush behind us, I assume for a well deserved nap.


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I downloaded the camera a couple of days later - there were a couple of hundred pictures of the lynx feeding on the road kill. I have attached a couple below. Also interesting is that a grey wolf and a black wolf showed up a couple of nights later (the dates on the camera are screwed up - I need to go and reset it)

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Nice video. I got to watch a lynx for a little while a few weeks ago, neat looking animals. I also got to watch 5 wolves and 2 coyotes interact for about a 1/2 hour last week, They were 700 to over 1200 yards away and wouldn't come in gun range but really cool to watch. I thought the coyotes were going to come in as my cocker spaniel was imitating them really well once they stated yipping and yowling but the new puppy got scared and took off so I had to abandon the hunt and go find her. Hopefully things will line up again so I can see how the little man does calling 'yotes.
the new secret weapon, I hope.
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Went in yesterday to check out another bait site off the hydro line we usually hunt. I dragged a quarter of the road killed moose and head into a cut block as we were not seeing much activity on the hydro line, mainly due to deep soft snow and heavy snowmobile traffic. I broke trails with snowshoes throughout the cut block leading back to where I put the bait to establish a packed trail. Doing it by sled would have been a lot easier but I was worried about burying a 500 lb machine in the deep fluff.

I hunted there with one of the Michigan friends and we didnt see a thing. A few coyote tracks on the snowshoe trails but nothing would come to the bait. Then we got hit with a clipper on Thursday bringing high winds and more snow. I went in yesterday with QHPenny and My72Jeep. Looked like a freaking barnyard the moment we walked into the cut block. Tracks everywhere, fox wolf and coyote. Even had a spot where 2 coyotes went at it and rolled all over the snow. All 20 - 30 yards in front of the blind.

Here are some pictures from the trail camera from Friday night - early Saturday AM (ignore the date, the camera couldnt handle the leap year). Wolf looks to be a decent size, its tracks were certainly big enough.

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I found that camera on Amazon last fall and ordered one for deer season. I was impressed and ordered 3 more. At the time they had a promotion and I got free sd cards for each unit too!
 
Canine Update

Thought you may want to see something that started with update that wasnt , well you know.... So a few notes and a bunch of pictures for your viewing pleasure!

Cleaning up equipment and putting gear away - the season closed on Tuesday - so another season over and thats it till mid November. All in all, we saw fewer wolves and coyotes this year than previous years. The township bought us a trap to deal with nuisance coyotes but we never got a chance to try it as this was the first year there were no complaints. We had a very high snowshoe hare population this year so I think everything was well fed.

Went out for the last morning with another hunter who is new to the group (first time we went out was supposed to be for 1.5 hours, came back 5.5 hours later after we checked out some of our other spots - he's hooked!) but nothing came into the calls. As we left, My72Jeep went up the main road and spotted a wolf sunning itself on a rock ridge on another hydro line - exactly 1 km from where we had been calling. He and QHPenny had seen it there the week before as well - its up quite a steep ridge and would be difficult to get at but somewhere to scout over the summer.

Has been an interesting month, still have lots of activity but pretty much all nocturnal, right up til the end of the season. Had a pack of 3 wolves transit through and hit the bait we established off of the hydro line, as well as one lone wolf as well as a bunch of coyotes. Note that the following pictures have the right day but wrong month - all were taken in March.

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M72J and QHP checking out the bait!

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All of them look well furred and in good shape. Thankfully we saw no sign of mange in any of the animals this year. One thing that was new was that we had coyotes jump the fence and come into our backyard on two occasions this month to eat birdseed. Snow was deep enough that they jumped up on a boat against the fence and wandered over to the feed. Both times occurred during daylight (tracks not there in morning but there in the afternoon) but I didnt see them. These pictures from the camera I have set up behind my fence.

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Anyways, thanks for reading the post and hope everyone is well and stay safe!

See you in Season 12!
 
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