Blew it on a wolf - Season 12

Wolf? What wolf...

Last weekend Paddle2DaC found a road kill moose. We got it loaded on My72Jeep and QHPenny's flatbed trailer and skidded it out to the hydro line. Unfortunately, it was a pregnant cow and she was badly smashed. We had a coyote standing in front of it and a wolf on it two days later, and then nothing actually on it since then.

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We have critters in the area, my wife bought me a Spypoint cellular trail camera that sends pictures from the trail camera directly to your cell phone. I was a bit worried about it as the reviews on cabelas.ca were not that good, but it has worked flawlessly so far. Well maybe - disconnected from the cell last night and now says no service - I will pull it tomorrow and bring home and see if it connects. A few pictures of a wolf and a fisher from it:

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And we dont have to go to the bush for wildlife - my wife was standing in the kitchen last week when this pine marten decided to hop the fence and check out the deck (where her hot tub sits). And a few nocturnal coyotes as well - as you can see from the photos we have virtually no snow around town - less than 2 inches on the ground:

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So, went out Friday to check rabbit snares we have set off the hydro line. I have a couple in the cutover behind where we placed the moose. No rabbits but that's because a wolf decided to snack on one in the snare (less than 40 yards from the moose carcass). Paw print right where the destroyed snare was located:

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Headed out to the golf course yesterday with P2DC for coyotes as haven't hunted there in a few weeks. Mild but strong north wind chilled things down. Tried two different locations but no response to the calls. Packed up and drove out to hydro line and there are 2 fresh wolf tracks in the snow on the main road. Set up on the line and no response to the calls. Walked down to the carcass and there were tracks in the fresh snow - you could see where they circled around the carcass but would not commit and go to it. Then they trotted off but one of them walked right up to and checked out my remaining rabbit snare. As P2DC said, maybe we should hunt over the rabbit snares!

Colder and sunny this morning but none of us went out. M72J and QHP went for a drive and the wolf pack had returned with tracks heading towards the moose. So this afternoon the 4 of us went out with 1 1/2 hours of sunlight left in the afternoon. Beautiful afternoon to sit, with P2DC and me on one side of the line and QHP and M72J on the other. My caller is occasionally possessed by demons and would not respond to the handset resulting in multiple repeating wolf howls. I went down and manually shut it off and restarted it. Nothing showed and we packed up just after the sun had set.

M72J says - so was that a wolf or a coyote? We say what are you talking about? Just as they sat down, one walked out from their side of the line, crossed into ours, came back out, and went back in. We never saw it. Our side of the line has a lot of 12-15 foot high spruce and jackpine on it and screened it. I asked how far down and they said right where the fox was - you did see the fox right? What fox? The one about 350 yards down that was mousing and playing in the snow. Once again, neither of us saw it.,,,f:P:

Anyways, thats it for this week, everyone be safe out there
 
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So yesterday afternoon, I went out to pull the trail cameras and the moose looked like a bomb went off - all torn apart and most of the rear quarters gone. We saw where a pack had gone through Sunday night and well - turns out there were at least 4 on it early Sunday morning:

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Followed by this guy that doesnt like ravens - he was on it 4 different times during the day:

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Followed by these two that night:

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So as I was heading out, My72Jeep was coming in to sit for the last hour of light. We chatted and I told him that I didnt want him seeing any more imaginary wolves or foxes, like the previous night - unless he had a picture of it, it didnt happen. I couldnt hunt as I had to pick something up in town and M72J said "what about a carcass?" I said that would suffice!

Now your turn M72J......
 
So it’s my turn......
Ive been dealing with an old back issue that causes extreme nerve pain in my knees, the Doc has me on some meds that for the most part deal with the pain but have the added side affect of taking away all need want or desire to do any thing. Somthing I’m trying to cut them in half so I can do things with some pain and Chas keeps rassing me about was it real or was it the drugs.......
But I digress on with the story. After I he left I set up my caller settle in my chair and watch the line. I play a few rabbit calls then a wolf pack call and bingo I have a pack calling back. For the next 30 minutes I try to get them to talk to me again but nothing so I call it a day. I set my rifle down fold up my chair walk the 30 feet to my caller look up and here is a wolf standing on the line 400 yards away. It waits the time it took to hobble back to my rifle and aim before it turns and walks away. I give it a woff woff and it stops turns side on looks at me and bang. miss I suck at freestanding shots. I know I got close because it was scared it took of with 5 foot intervals between paw prints, and lots of pee. 2021 sits at wolf 1 me 0.
 
my72jeep said:
So it’s my turn......
Ive been dealing with an old back issue that causes extreme nerve pain in my knees, the Doc has me on some meds that for the most part deal with the pain but have the added side affect of taking away all need want or desire to do any thing. Somthing I’m trying to cut them in half so I can do things with some pain and Chas keeps rassing me about was it real or was it the drugs.......
But I digress on with the story. After I he left I set up my caller settle in my chair and watch the line. I play a few rabbit calls then a wolf pack call and bingo I have a pack calling back. For the next 30 minutes I try to get them to talk to me again but nothing so I call it a day. I set my rifle down fold up my chair walk the 30 feet to my caller look up and here is a wolf standing on the line 400 yards away. It waits the time it took to hobble back to my rifle and aim before it turns and walks away. I give it a woff woff and it stops turns side on looks at me and bang. miss I suck at freestanding shots. I know I got close because it was scared it took of with 5 foot intervals between paw prints, and lots of pee. 2021 sits at wolf 1 me 0.
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Thanks my72jeep ( mines 29 years newer than yours but still a jeep) great story. I suffered from back pain for a long time till I found an inversion table in the classified ads, it has changed my life, maybe give one a try.
 
I can't see the wolves going too far after a big feed, They will sleep it off not far away. They will guard their prize from other predators thats why your seeing them so often.

Gotta get some treestands set up so you got a better vantage point when someone is walking out to pick up the caller LOL

Keep at it, look forward to next report
 
Some really cool threads you guys put together here! I've been kicking around the idea of trying out some wolf/coyote hunting, and reading the posts from this one and seasons past has got the itch pretty well set-in. Thanks for the inspiration and the excellent detailed hunting stories!
 
Thanks for the kind words - we have been out but havent seen anything to pull the trigger on. Weird winter here, all the snow is going around us. Up until a couple of weeks ago didnt have enough snow to run machines on for fear of damaging the sleds. We picked up a bit with the cold snap, but most of us tracking south of us resulting in Highway 17 to the Sault being closed pretty much since Friday night to this AM. I went out to check cameras and for tracks today - we still have some critters in the area.

Nothing left of the moose carcass other than a bit of the head and vertebrae. I pulled a beaver carcass out last week and wired it to the moose remains. Most of our activity is nocturnal, and although My72Jeep and I hunted over it in the cold on Saturday, nothing responded to our calls. We are having a pair of wolves show up most nights and the odd coyote and lone wolf during the day.

My wife bought me a Spypoint cellular camera with a built in solar charger. Despite poor reviews on Cabelas Canada web site, mine has worked flawlessly. I made sure it had the most up to date firmware installed on it before I put it out. Even with the frigid temperatures this week, the lithium battery is showing 100%. The colder it gets, the better the cell signal to the camera. She also bought me the external antennae, but I havent required it. Here are a couple of the pictures from it:

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A couple of wolves checking out what is left of the moose carcas

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Long weekend update - picture haevy

Lots of pictures in this email as a bunch of things you dont see often.

This is the weekend that we traditionally connect on a wolf while out hunting. Saturday morning Paddle2daC and I hit the golf course to see if we could call out a coyote but no response to the calls and nothing showed up. So we jumped into our trucks and drove up the highway to where our blind is. I had put out a couple of beaver carcasses a couple of weeks ago with a pail of meat scraps, but we havent hunted out of it yet this year. I drove up on Friday and saw wolf tracks in the area so we wanted to check it out.

When we snowshoed in, P2DC spotted a lynx on the other side of the blind. I said if it was the same one we saw last year it was probably pretty tame. I set out 2 raven decoys by the bait and the caller in a small tamarack tree in front of the blind. When I got into the blind, P2DC spotted the lynx on the far side of the beaver flood (about 100 yards or so away). I started playing a dying rabbit call on low volume and the lynx came to an abrupt halt, and then made a beeline for the tamarack tree. When it passed the tree I started playing vole squeaks and it spun back and stalked up to the tree, and then stood on its hind legs swatting at the caller. After a couple of swipes, it walked over to the raven decoys, sniffed one of them and then lay down between them staring back at us in the blind. It stayed there for the entire 45 minutes we were there and got up and left when I walked out to pick up the decoys

Setting out the decoys (camera powered down and reset with wrong date and time)

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Sniffing the decoy.....

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I pulled the trail camera and there are some great pictures - after going through 4500 of them I thought I would show you some of the best ones. As previously mentioned, the camera must have powered almost off in the cold weather, and reset with the wrong date and times. Some of the critters that showed up on the baits:

Bald eagles

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The lynx:

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And wolves - including a pack of 4:

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Didnt get out hunting again this weekend and hope to get out when the weather moderates a bit.

Stay safe, stay warm
 
Paddle2DaC and I went out yesterday morning at first light to the hydro line as we had dragged another road killed moose there last week. It didnt seem to have much activity around it so we wanted to try first thing in morning before the sleds started running on the trail. Played a few howls and no response, followed by some prey in distress calls. There were a few fresh tracks from the night before, but like happened from the first road kill, they are circling it and not going up to the moose. When we came out, there was a fresh set of wolf tracks on top of our boot prints on the road. It ran right down the road behind us and into the bush downwind of us. We never saw it.

We went out to the blind and nothing showed. As I was dumping out more bait (wolves absconded with the beaver carcass I dumped out on Tuesday night) P2DC spotted a lynx across the creek on the beaver dam. I didnt see it but when I drove back past the blind 15 minutes later it was walking across the creek to where I had dumped the bait. Its like I am running a "skip the dishes" delivery program for wildlife..

A few pictures from the camera - its not often you see a couple of lynx playing with each other:

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