I thought I knew a little bit about wolf calling since we've killed one and we've done a lot of reading up on it, but I've been served a slice of humble pie on my last attempt. Now I think that wolf we killed was more incidental than a direct result of our calling and realize I don't know jack squat so I need some advice on what works from people who know what they are doing. A little back ground of my situation is two weeks ago I was still hunting for elk through some dark timber with my bow on a ridge that was previously littered with elk sign. I wasn't seeing ANY sign and then I saw movement in the trees ahead of me and 15 yards away three wolves popped out. The lead wolf growled at me and split before I could draw my bow (I have a wolf tag) and I could hear them running around me. I put my bow down and dug my S&W Shield 9mm out of my pack and then the wolves began howling in all directions around me. There were at least three howls that came from the open sagebrush past the tree line which was 50 yards away. I booked it to the edge of the timber and had my shield on my knee and set up next to a dead fall and began doing some elk calf in distress sounds. Sure enough a wolf popped up about a 100 yards away in the sagebrush. It came to about 90 yards and stopped, then circled into the timber maintaining its distance disappearing into the dark timber. That was about twice the distance I could shoot with my pistol semi accurately and twenty yards father than I am accurate with my bow. The wolf pack worked its way down the draw and faded off into the distance.
Fast forward to the next week and we were about to get ready to work a bull when we heard the wolf pack light up about a 1/2 mile away in a big draw. This was the same draw I heard the pack disappear into the week before so we bailed on the bull and headed off towards the wolves. My brother had been successful the week before so he was packing a .270 due to my run in with the wolves the week before. We finally found the wolves and they were 694 yards away. My brother forgot his foxpro at the truck so we had a coyote howler and our elk calls and made do with those. We set up and started to do some coyote howls. Then we made some coyote ki yi's and those wolves didn't even look twice, in fact they bedded down and ignored us. I then threw out some distressed elk sounds and they ignored that. After about ten minutes of the wolves ignoring us (we knew they could hear us, the wind wasn't blowing and the sounds were echoing up and down the draw) we decided to hurry and close the gap. We went from tree to tree and closed the gap to 486 yards but light was fading fast because the sun had already set and a fog bank was rolling up the mountain. There was a large draw between us and we had no where enough time to drop down and climb back up the other side. We tried calling again with kiyi's but once again they ignored us. They didn't even look or try to stand up. We could see their heads but nothing else. I tried elk sounds again and nothing. With the last light fading my brother tried a shot but hit about 6"high and the wolves jumped up, darted this way and that and then faded into the fog.
Soooo...what did we do wrong? What should have we done? If we had either of our fox pros, what sounds work? We killed our first wolf with coyote death cries on the fox pro. Any suggestions are welcome as well as criticism. We just want to put some tags on these wolves that are in the middle of our elk hunting honey hole.
Fast forward to the next week and we were about to get ready to work a bull when we heard the wolf pack light up about a 1/2 mile away in a big draw. This was the same draw I heard the pack disappear into the week before so we bailed on the bull and headed off towards the wolves. My brother had been successful the week before so he was packing a .270 due to my run in with the wolves the week before. We finally found the wolves and they were 694 yards away. My brother forgot his foxpro at the truck so we had a coyote howler and our elk calls and made do with those. We set up and started to do some coyote howls. Then we made some coyote ki yi's and those wolves didn't even look twice, in fact they bedded down and ignored us. I then threw out some distressed elk sounds and they ignored that. After about ten minutes of the wolves ignoring us (we knew they could hear us, the wind wasn't blowing and the sounds were echoing up and down the draw) we decided to hurry and close the gap. We went from tree to tree and closed the gap to 486 yards but light was fading fast because the sun had already set and a fog bank was rolling up the mountain. There was a large draw between us and we had no where enough time to drop down and climb back up the other side. We tried calling again with kiyi's but once again they ignored us. They didn't even look or try to stand up. We could see their heads but nothing else. I tried elk sounds again and nothing. With the last light fading my brother tried a shot but hit about 6"high and the wolves jumped up, darted this way and that and then faded into the fog.
Soooo...what did we do wrong? What should have we done? If we had either of our fox pros, what sounds work? We killed our first wolf with coyote death cries on the fox pro. Any suggestions are welcome as well as criticism. We just want to put some tags on these wolves that are in the middle of our elk hunting honey hole.