Blew It On A Wolf - Season 5.....
- Thread starter Chas
- Start date
Wolf down!!!
Been off line for a couple of weeks - the brutal winter is continuing with either bitter cold or snow falling out of the sky....
Wasn't able to hunt last weekend as teaching the CFSC course. Wife and I went out for a quick scout drive after class, saw a wolf in the local landfill and I went to check a trail camera the next day and briefly saw another one on the side of a road. Threw some fresh bait out at the beaver flood, pulled the game camera card, but no sign of recent activity. On the game camera was this picture of a black wolf with a white chest patch and a grey in the background. Wasn't able to go out this week to follow up as out of town on business.
A friend came up from Michigan and I had warned him things were not ideal for a hunt due to lack of animals and extreme snow depths. Gunner410 was supposed to go out with us before he started work at noon, but had to cancel out the night before. So the two of us went out to the beaver flood yesterday morning. It was windy and blowing snow - not a high percentile day. You could see where a couple of animals had laid down out from the bait (unfortunately the camera batteries died in the cold early in the week), but absolutely no fresh sign. We knew the weather was supposed to be good today so we dug out a spot I had stomped down last weekend, set up a pop up blind and tied it to the surrounding brush line so it wouldnt blow away. We were not exactly quiet, but not making excessive noise. I snowshoed out, set up the caller, a raven decoy in a small tamarack, and the sit and spin decoy about 30 feet away.
I climbed into the blind with my friend, and started out with a raven croak. Waited a minute and let another one out. My friend said - "Hey - I think a lynx is coming out of the trees across from us". A grey form steps out and its a wolf dragging its belly through the snow.
It moves out to the edge of the beaver flood and starts to head what would have been down wind of the call / decoys / bait. He gets his .22-250 up, and sends a 55 grain Hornady softpoint handload zipping 125 yards across the beaver flood and the wolf flops over - dead right there. Total elapsed hunting time - 5 minutes.
I kick on the pup in distress calls hoping the black one we have seen on the camera is there with it, but nothing else comes out over the next 30 minutes. We snowshoe over, its and adult male with a nice coat, snap some pics, tag it and head back to town. First stop - Gunner410's place of employment. There is one indisputable fact - every time we shoot a wolf - he is at work!
We weighed the wolf with a big game scale in the parking lot - its 73 lbs. But, its starving. You can feel every rib, and behind the rib going to the rear haunches, there is no muscle - just the vertebrae along the spine. I figure it was probably 25 - 30 lbs heavier at the start of the winter. It looks healthy, no significant wear on its teeth, its was just struggling with this winter as is every thing else. As my friend said, he did it a favour by shooting it.
I will get some pics up when I get them off his camera.
Been off line for a couple of weeks - the brutal winter is continuing with either bitter cold or snow falling out of the sky....
Wasn't able to hunt last weekend as teaching the CFSC course. Wife and I went out for a quick scout drive after class, saw a wolf in the local landfill and I went to check a trail camera the next day and briefly saw another one on the side of a road. Threw some fresh bait out at the beaver flood, pulled the game camera card, but no sign of recent activity. On the game camera was this picture of a black wolf with a white chest patch and a grey in the background. Wasn't able to go out this week to follow up as out of town on business.
A friend came up from Michigan and I had warned him things were not ideal for a hunt due to lack of animals and extreme snow depths. Gunner410 was supposed to go out with us before he started work at noon, but had to cancel out the night before. So the two of us went out to the beaver flood yesterday morning. It was windy and blowing snow - not a high percentile day. You could see where a couple of animals had laid down out from the bait (unfortunately the camera batteries died in the cold early in the week), but absolutely no fresh sign. We knew the weather was supposed to be good today so we dug out a spot I had stomped down last weekend, set up a pop up blind and tied it to the surrounding brush line so it wouldnt blow away. We were not exactly quiet, but not making excessive noise. I snowshoed out, set up the caller, a raven decoy in a small tamarack, and the sit and spin decoy about 30 feet away.
I climbed into the blind with my friend, and started out with a raven croak. Waited a minute and let another one out. My friend said - "Hey - I think a lynx is coming out of the trees across from us". A grey form steps out and its a wolf dragging its belly through the snow.
It moves out to the edge of the beaver flood and starts to head what would have been down wind of the call / decoys / bait. He gets his .22-250 up, and sends a 55 grain Hornady softpoint handload zipping 125 yards across the beaver flood and the wolf flops over - dead right there. Total elapsed hunting time - 5 minutes.
I kick on the pup in distress calls hoping the black one we have seen on the camera is there with it, but nothing else comes out over the next 30 minutes. We snowshoe over, its and adult male with a nice coat, snap some pics, tag it and head back to town. First stop - Gunner410's place of employment. There is one indisputable fact - every time we shoot a wolf - he is at work!
We weighed the wolf with a big game scale in the parking lot - its 73 lbs. But, its starving. You can feel every rib, and behind the rib going to the rear haunches, there is no muscle - just the vertebrae along the spine. I figure it was probably 25 - 30 lbs heavier at the start of the winter. It looks healthy, no significant wear on its teeth, its was just struggling with this winter as is every thing else. As my friend said, he did it a favour by shooting it.
I will get some pics up when I get them off his camera.
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Well here are the pics
Setting up the caller, raven decoy and sit and spin:
The wolf - looks a bit small here but not stretched out - as I said previously, weighed 73 lbs:
The shot looking back at the blind in the treeline, standing where the wolf fell:
This is pretty cool, after we went back to towns and showed Gunner410 the wolf, my friend went and bought a second tag and we headed out to a hydro line where I hunt and called till the end of the day. I went down and picked up the caller and decoy and he was snapping pics from the ridge we sit on. As I was bent over, I heard him call my name - turned around and a lynx was walking 20 yards behind me to my bait buckets. When we were looking at the pictures on the big screen tv tonight, and in the previous picture, you can actually see the lynx coming out of the treeline (in red circle - hard to see on this scale):
Setting up the caller, raven decoy and sit and spin:
The wolf - looks a bit small here but not stretched out - as I said previously, weighed 73 lbs:
The shot looking back at the blind in the treeline, standing where the wolf fell:
This is pretty cool, after we went back to towns and showed Gunner410 the wolf, my friend went and bought a second tag and we headed out to a hydro line where I hunt and called till the end of the day. I went down and picked up the caller and decoy and he was snapping pics from the ridge we sit on. As I was bent over, I heard him call my name - turned around and a lynx was walking 20 yards behind me to my bait buckets. When we were looking at the pictures on the big screen tv tonight, and in the previous picture, you can actually see the lynx coming out of the treeline (in red circle - hard to see on this scale):
One less again – Wayne, one of my hunting partners just came into the office this afternoon– there were three wolves at the bait this morning – two blacks and a grey. I weighed the grey he shot – was 65 lbs, much smaller body size but better physical shape. From the ribs back to the hips was solid muscle. As someone at. Work said, wolves in a pack probably eat better than a single animal as they are more efficient predators.
ALL of my bait is gone, they have been snacking since some time yesterday. He saw one black one out acting as “guard” and the other two on the bait. He got the shot at the grey on the run and got it in the lungs with a 22-250.
We saw that the pack had come out of a bush road ~5km west of our site and they were working the highway towards our site when we hunted there on Monday. We called and they didn’t show up – we left the site at 3:30 PM, they just had not worked their way up to our site yet.
Chas
NBC (need beaver carcasses!)
ALL of my bait is gone, they have been snacking since some time yesterday. He saw one black one out acting as “guard” and the other two on the bait. He got the shot at the grey on the run and got it in the lungs with a 22-250.
We saw that the pack had come out of a bush road ~5km west of our site and they were working the highway towards our site when we hunted there on Monday. We called and they didn’t show up – we left the site at 3:30 PM, they just had not worked their way up to our site yet.
Chas
NBC (need beaver carcasses!)
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the spank
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Planet Earth Wearing My Tinfoil Hat
Get trapping!!!
Been away for two weeks and haven’t been out. I heard we had lots of activity at the beaver flood where we had harvested the two so far, and I scored a couple of beaver carcasses, which I put out on Thursday at lunch. . The trail cam took 1200 pictures, mostly of ravens – they left the carcasses intact until the wolves started chewing on them Thursday night, and then they pecked on them, all day Friday. It was neat, time lapse photography as they started with a relatively intact carcass in the morning, and by 6:30 Pm it was a skeleton and ribs (sort of like the time lapse photography of Africans stripping a Russian transport plane over 24 hours in the movie “Lord of War”).
Went out Saturday, no luck at the beaver flood (they had left 4 hours earlier according to the trail cam pics) and went to the hydro line where we called out a lynx (which sat in the edge of the treeline in the sun for 30 minutes) . I snowshoed up to 40 feet from him, but my camera batteries were pretty much dead, and I haven’t downloaded the pics. This is probably him:
Wolves at beaver flood - 2 tans:
There's a black one to the right of the right hand gray, you can see his legs:.
There he is:.
Actually there are two blacks:.
They look well fed!
Went out Saturday, no luck at the beaver flood (they had left 4 hours earlier according to the trail cam pics) and went to the hydro line where we called out a lynx (which sat in the edge of the treeline in the sun for 30 minutes) . I snowshoed up to 40 feet from him, but my camera batteries were pretty much dead, and I haven’t downloaded the pics. This is probably him:
Wolves at beaver flood - 2 tans:
There's a black one to the right of the right hand gray, you can see his legs:.
There he is:.
Actually there are two blacks:.
They look well fed!
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We should have snow until the bass opener..............
The eagles have landed....
Back out today, no fresh sign and now some other hunters have set up baits either 1 km either side of our bait. The pack was there Tuesday night, but not back since.
However, the bald eagles have returned with a vengeance and are hitting the baits hard. I think they are going to be in real trouble as the creeks and rivers are frozen solid and the snow continues to accumulate on the ground.
One:
Two:
Two and a juvenile:
Three:
Get away from my scraps!
Back out today, no fresh sign and now some other hunters have set up baits either 1 km either side of our bait. The pack was there Tuesday night, but not back since.
However, the bald eagles have returned with a vengeance and are hitting the baits hard. I think they are going to be in real trouble as the creeks and rivers are frozen solid and the snow continues to accumulate on the ground.
One:
Two:
Two and a juvenile:
Three:
Get away from my scraps!
End of season....
Well, the season is over and I can honestly say it was interesting. During the course of this winters hunt I saw three wolves (one in the crosshairs but couldnt shoot for safety issues, one shot by my partner and one I didnt get a chance at) and called in 7 lynx.
I was out of town at a hockey tournament this weekend and didnt get a chance to hunt. There are now 5 bald eagles cleaning up the bait site and the wolves were back mid week. The wolves did show up mid week and there isnt much left out there for bait.
Putting the predator hunting gear away tonight and staring to look at the turkey gear - only a month to go for the next hunting season!
Well, the season is over and I can honestly say it was interesting. During the course of this winters hunt I saw three wolves (one in the crosshairs but couldnt shoot for safety issues, one shot by my partner and one I didnt get a chance at) and called in 7 lynx.
I was out of town at a hockey tournament this weekend and didnt get a chance to hunt. There are now 5 bald eagles cleaning up the bait site and the wolves were back mid week. The wolves did show up mid week and there isnt much left out there for bait.
Putting the predator hunting gear away tonight and staring to look at the turkey gear - only a month to go for the next hunting season!
