MontanaRifleman
Well-Known Member
Thanks for the tip, I hate wasting $$$ on crappy calls!!! I've howled up coyotes before, but no wolves yet. I could probably get some practice in the park, undercover of course.
**** it, I got out smarted!
- Thread starter rooster740
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Thanks for the tip, I hate wasting $$$ on crappy calls!!! I've howled up coyotes before, but no wolves yet. I could probably get some practice in the park, undercover of course.
rooster740
Well-Known Member
The wolf lovers do it all the time and it is alright. a guy does a little September tune up drive to toy with elk (if you can find any these days) and it is illegal. I bet the wolf people would change their mojo if a bunch of anti wolfers went to howling in the park to find wolves.
As a side note the wolf planes have not flown at all during the daylight lately. I hear the biologists around the blessed Jellystone caught on to people watching for the planes. This is a good tool to use, a plane doing lots of circles this time of year means wolf tracking operation, I will withhold the color of our wolf plane but everyone here knows it.
MontanaRifleman Do you live near Yellowstone or Glacier? I have a dirty trick up my sleeve for the Hellroaring drainage if anyone has a coggins on their horse?
MontanaRifleman
Well-Known Member
I live just South of Bozeman. I have watched wolves in the mouth of the Hellroaring drainage a few times from the lookout on the Mammoth-Tower Road.
Broz
Well-Known Member
I know where they were this morning, and the location of their day old kill that is stripped clean. And I think I know where the elk herd is they are following too. I will be above the elk in the morning glassing at daylight. gun)
Jeff
Jeff
rooster740
Well-Known Member
I've been trying to focus on evening hunting so that in the morning I'm not chasing the wolves up the hill. Well low and behold, today I rode right into two wolves laying down 200 yards away looking away from me and I still screwed it up. I am jinxed I am sure of it. The whole story is too long to type out tonight on this smart phone, but what could have been, turned into a disaster!
I have a two year old saddle that like all my other saddles is leaky now! I went right over the handle bars chasing wolves down the mountain tonight! I hate it when that happens! And of course my rifle was on my back so I had to shoot it tonight when i got home, it was such a good high speed wreck, that my new glock pistol even had a barrel full of snow, and it was holstered under three layers of cloths. Needless to say my new horse is not quite my best mountain horse yet but we are getting there. Stay tuned for the rest of the story, it is a dandy!
The wolves these days do not stop like coyotes and I just can not make myself take a half *** shot!
I have a two year old saddle that like all my other saddles is leaky now! I went right over the handle bars chasing wolves down the mountain tonight! I hate it when that happens! And of course my rifle was on my back so I had to shoot it tonight when i got home, it was such a good high speed wreck, that my new glock pistol even had a barrel full of snow, and it was holstered under three layers of cloths. Needless to say my new horse is not quite my best mountain horse yet but we are getting there. Stay tuned for the rest of the story, it is a dandy!
The wolves these days do not stop like coyotes and I just can not make myself take a half *** shot!
Broz
Well-Known Member
Hank, Be careful brother. Are you still hunting alone? I don't want to read about them finding you froze solid with a broken leg up there.
Jeff
Jeff
HARPERC
Well-Known Member
Every time I hear about one of these wrecks my arthritis flares up! Back up is good advice anytime-more so playing with terrible two's. Frozen solid with your will tacked to your chest makes a good movie scene, but loses a bit in reality. Glad you'll mend.
429421Cowboy
Well-Known Member
Keep your chin up, we're pullin' for ya! And my 200 head of momma cows agree with me, every one of those hairballs you or anybody else shoots makes me one step closer to being at one with the world
You sure are gonna earn your wolf this year, seems like karma is setting you up for an alpha male!
With the semester starting last week i'm pretty much done wolf hunting this season, only got one hunt in at Canyon Crick, cut some old tracks and that was it.
Be careful huntin' out there by yourself, especially on a horse, i swear they make life more dificult right up to the point ya put em back in the trailer and realise you can't do it without em sometimes. Good luck!
You sure are gonna earn your wolf this year, seems like karma is setting you up for an alpha male! With the semester starting last week i'm pretty much done wolf hunting this season, only got one hunt in at Canyon Crick, cut some old tracks and that was it.
Be careful huntin' out there by yourself, especially on a horse, i swear they make life more dificult right up to the point ya put em back in the trailer and realise you can't do it without em sometimes. Good luck!
rooster740
Well-Known Member
Well no worries for my sake, When a guy is dressed for horse back in below zero, and he decides to do his best descending cartwheel in a hidden snow drift, and preforms a spectacular dismount like I had, the bounce in the snow is not as bad as the wolf that was getting away!
So it goes like this. I decided to take a week off of wolf hunting, to catch up on work, and do some wolf hunting research, which almost paid off! Yesterday my wife returned from Las Vegas at 1pm and by 3pm I was on ol' Doopsie headed up the mountain. 500 yards from the truck I cut a wolf track! It meandered through about 200 elk which at the time seemed pretty calm. I howled and waited 15 minutes as I glassed. Nothing happened so off I went.
I decided to back track the wolf track up the mountain and in doing so I had to travel through about another 300 elk. Most of the elk headed down hill away from me as I traveled along, except one bunch. This particular bunch of40-50 elk had two spikes and no calves. I usually go way out of my way to not bother the elk but this bunch was really making this difficult. In the course of travelling up the mountain these elk got pushed all the way to just short of the top. Suddenly they stopped and ran down hill quartering by me and all the way to the bottom bunch of elk where they started their 2 mile round trip. Weird behavior is all I could think at the time.
After this little incident I followed the wolf track another mile-ish and as wouldn't you guess it, the tracks led me to the knob just above the area that the elk had changed directions, and then I saw that there sat two wolves 150 yards from me, looking away.
Well my dumb...... self, decided recently, because of another incident, to start wrapping my sling around my rifle as I placed it in the scabbard to keep it from dangling and catching on branches. Believe me this can also make rifle extraction difficult! So there sits two wolves as I jerk on my rifle one gets up and looks at me and leaves. Just as I settle the cross hairs on the darker wolf it stands up and runs off! So I bail back on the horse and run in the direction the wolves went. At this point I see a days' worth of wolf tracks that appears to be at least 4-5 wolves. As I approached the top of another knob I jumped off the horse next to a big rock and below me 150ish yards away I see a scud missile that resembles a wolfy. Too shaky to rattle one down the pipe I decide to take a rest on the rock and by that time the show is over. The wolf goes out of sight as the mountain rounds off steeper. So once again it is back to the races. I saddled back up and went 300 yards where I suddenly found a place to unexpectedly turn into frosty the snowman.
Reins still in my hand and nose full of snow, I jumped back on and raced down the mountain. I had already been to the top and was now going down the other side. I found a vantage point and jumped off my horse and began to glass. Below me two wolves, began to howl really short howls, and I could swear the sound was coming from a hill 350 to 600 yards away. I could not for the life of me find them. I howled back and forth for 10 minutes, and nothing! Then 30 minutes later, just as it was getting too dark to see I heard the bunch of wolves light up big time just over a mile away. They had used a willow aspen creek bottom to elude me, and I swear they threw their howls off to screw me over!
Frozen almost to death, I noticed when the bunch of wolves started to howl, that my untrusted steed decided it was time to get! I panicked and took chase! Thank god 100 yards of worry and Doopsie was gathered up and under my control! It really was a sight I am sure, me stiffly running after my horse, when that cold and all other events in consideration.
On the way home I noticed that another wolf had joined the track I initially found and followed it the entire way **** near to my truck!
Well today was not that exciting but I reneged on my vow to not shoot a coyote until I had a wolf tagged. Besides obviously I needed a tune up, my horse needed to hear that gun go off, and I watched that coyote run from 75 yards until it stopped at 396 yards. Temptation overload!
So it goes like this. I decided to take a week off of wolf hunting, to catch up on work, and do some wolf hunting research, which almost paid off! Yesterday my wife returned from Las Vegas at 1pm and by 3pm I was on ol' Doopsie headed up the mountain. 500 yards from the truck I cut a wolf track! It meandered through about 200 elk which at the time seemed pretty calm. I howled and waited 15 minutes as I glassed. Nothing happened so off I went.
I decided to back track the wolf track up the mountain and in doing so I had to travel through about another 300 elk. Most of the elk headed down hill away from me as I traveled along, except one bunch. This particular bunch of40-50 elk had two spikes and no calves. I usually go way out of my way to not bother the elk but this bunch was really making this difficult. In the course of travelling up the mountain these elk got pushed all the way to just short of the top. Suddenly they stopped and ran down hill quartering by me and all the way to the bottom bunch of elk where they started their 2 mile round trip. Weird behavior is all I could think at the time.
After this little incident I followed the wolf track another mile-ish and as wouldn't you guess it, the tracks led me to the knob just above the area that the elk had changed directions, and then I saw that there sat two wolves 150 yards from me, looking away.
Well my dumb...... self, decided recently, because of another incident, to start wrapping my sling around my rifle as I placed it in the scabbard to keep it from dangling and catching on branches. Believe me this can also make rifle extraction difficult! So there sits two wolves as I jerk on my rifle one gets up and looks at me and leaves. Just as I settle the cross hairs on the darker wolf it stands up and runs off! So I bail back on the horse and run in the direction the wolves went. At this point I see a days' worth of wolf tracks that appears to be at least 4-5 wolves. As I approached the top of another knob I jumped off the horse next to a big rock and below me 150ish yards away I see a scud missile that resembles a wolfy. Too shaky to rattle one down the pipe I decide to take a rest on the rock and by that time the show is over. The wolf goes out of sight as the mountain rounds off steeper. So once again it is back to the races. I saddled back up and went 300 yards where I suddenly found a place to unexpectedly turn into frosty the snowman.
Reins still in my hand and nose full of snow, I jumped back on and raced down the mountain. I had already been to the top and was now going down the other side. I found a vantage point and jumped off my horse and began to glass. Below me two wolves, began to howl really short howls, and I could swear the sound was coming from a hill 350 to 600 yards away. I could not for the life of me find them. I howled back and forth for 10 minutes, and nothing! Then 30 minutes later, just as it was getting too dark to see I heard the bunch of wolves light up big time just over a mile away. They had used a willow aspen creek bottom to elude me, and I swear they threw their howls off to screw me over!
Frozen almost to death, I noticed when the bunch of wolves started to howl, that my untrusted steed decided it was time to get! I panicked and took chase! Thank god 100 yards of worry and Doopsie was gathered up and under my control! It really was a sight I am sure, me stiffly running after my horse, when that cold and all other events in consideration.
On the way home I noticed that another wolf had joined the track I initially found and followed it the entire way **** near to my truck!
Well today was not that exciting but I reneged on my vow to not shoot a coyote until I had a wolf tagged. Besides obviously I needed a tune up, my horse needed to hear that gun go off, and I watched that coyote run from 75 yards until it stopped at 396 yards. Temptation overload!
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royinidaho
Well-Known Member
We otta take up a collection and get Hank a satellite phone and a Gopro camera.
This saga would make a great documentary.
This saga would make a great documentary.
bigngreen
Well-Known Member
It seems maybe those wolves are hanging just close enough to watch the entertainment I think we should take up a collection and get you a hat with one of those video cameras on it so we can all share in the fun.
Hope you hook up with a couple of them soon!
I think we should take up a collection and get you a hat with one of those video cameras on it so we can all share in the fun.Hope you hook up with a couple of them soon!
rooster740
Well-Known Member
We otta take up a collection and get Hank a satellite phone and a Gopro camera.
This saga would make a great documentary.
I need a gopro! I am telling you, I keep it exciting! You all say, I need to not hunt alone, but my dad is the only one crazy enough to hunt with me, and once a week is enough for him! I think sometimes I go too hard, but if I was as good at killing them wolves as I have been at finding them, them wolves might be in trouble!
threejones
Well-Known Member
Rooster- That's a great story. You should be glad that you're at least seeing the damned things. I've been howling back and forth with a pack that runs the Thompson River Rd the last four times I've been out. The little SOBs have figured out that staying in the deep timber is much more healthy for em. I was within about 75 yards of three yesterday. We howled and barked back and forth with each other for 30min or so, but as soon as I got up to get a better vantage point, they bolted for the top of the ridge. I paced off 78 steps before I got in their tracks. That marks 3 times in a row that I've been well under 100yards and have yet to actually see em. The one time I did actually see em was glassing from truck, at a couple thousand yds. I'm getting about ready to head south and join you fellas in some more open country. Keep at em!
rooster740
Well-Known Member
This is a male 98 pound male 3.5 year old shot by my friend and employee the first week of December. It was killed at 200 yards which is not long range so please have forgiveness. Shot with a 257 improved. This wolf was with 9 others and had a collar. These wolves were very vocal all morning, and his step dad shot one within a half mile of this one in October. These wolves were killed about four miles from their house and 15 of my house.
