bennybiscut
New member
My dad and I headed out early this morning to try and get a wolf. We walked in about 2 miles to a timber sale that almost looks like a clearcut with a few leave trees dotted throughout the area. I called for about 35 min, using "interrogation howl'" "challenge howl'" and "pup distress." We did not see a wolf, but we did see three white tail does and a cow elk in the unit.
We walked back to the truck and headed off to another unit that was logged two years ago. It was wide open with little brush and about 200-300 yards of visibility. I fired up the foxpro spitfire and started with the interrogation howl and went right into challenge howls and pup distresses. I mixed them up continuously for just under 5 min. I turned my call off and then looked up to my left and there was a HUGE Black wolf starring at me. I raised up my dad's Remington model 7 6mm X 45 wildcat with a nikon buckmasters 4.5-14 and got the wolf in my sights. I initially had the sight on 4.5, but quickly dialed it up to almost 14. The wolf was huge and I could see his yellow eyes looking my way from about 150 yards.
The wolf was facing me so I put the cross hairs right on the middle of his chest and squeezed. Smack, the wolf dropped to all fours, but his head was still up. I quickly chambered another 70 grain TNT and held right behind the shoulder and squeezed another one off. SMACK, and the wolf got up and started crying out a bit and doing circles. While the wolf was doing circles, my dad shot the wolf with his Remington model 600 mohawk with 64 grain speer gold dot ammo. Smack and the wolf let out a big cry and started to run down a ridge. Both of us thought that we had gotten a big wolf, but boy were we wrong. There was about 1 inch of fresh snow on the ground and I could see the blood trail for at least 200 yards going down the unit into the brush. I started to track the blood and thought for sure that we would find the beast piled up in the brush. I was wrong, I tracked that wolf for about a half an hour down into some thick timber where the snow was not sticking to the ground. We were about 1/4 mile from where we initially shot the wolf when the trail went cold. We spent the next 3 hours scourring the area for sign/blood with no luck. It did not help that it was raining like a cow pisssing on a flat rock. So we swallowed our pride and walked up the unit to the logging road empty handed.
In the end, my dad and I were extremely disappointed, yet happy that we had the opportunity to see such an amazing creature. Without a doubt in my mind, we killed that wolf. As much blood as he lost, he was probably laying there dead not 200 yards from where we quit. I had no sign and no blood to continue in the search. We drastically under estimated the toughness of this timber wolf. He was more than likely the alpha male of the pack and we were under gunned. I made two solid hits on this wolf with a 70 grain bullet and my dad smacked it once with a 64 grain bullet. You would think that an animal would go down where it stood. If we had to guess, this wolf was probably 150 lbs or more. We are taking magnum rifles out next time we call. I should have taken out the .264 magnum like I had originally intended, but the old man thought that it would be too much gun. All my blame goes to him.
What a day it was. Here are a few pictures of the area we were hunting.
My stand was on top of the rocks in the center of the picture. Photo was taken from spot of impact.
Bloody hair from impact
Spot where it did circles and layed down
Ridgeline the wolf ran down
Blood and track next to extra large glove for scale
Me pisssed off with a clump of the wolf's hair
We walked back to the truck and headed off to another unit that was logged two years ago. It was wide open with little brush and about 200-300 yards of visibility. I fired up the foxpro spitfire and started with the interrogation howl and went right into challenge howls and pup distresses. I mixed them up continuously for just under 5 min. I turned my call off and then looked up to my left and there was a HUGE Black wolf starring at me. I raised up my dad's Remington model 7 6mm X 45 wildcat with a nikon buckmasters 4.5-14 and got the wolf in my sights. I initially had the sight on 4.5, but quickly dialed it up to almost 14. The wolf was huge and I could see his yellow eyes looking my way from about 150 yards.
The wolf was facing me so I put the cross hairs right on the middle of his chest and squeezed. Smack, the wolf dropped to all fours, but his head was still up. I quickly chambered another 70 grain TNT and held right behind the shoulder and squeezed another one off. SMACK, and the wolf got up and started crying out a bit and doing circles. While the wolf was doing circles, my dad shot the wolf with his Remington model 600 mohawk with 64 grain speer gold dot ammo. Smack and the wolf let out a big cry and started to run down a ridge. Both of us thought that we had gotten a big wolf, but boy were we wrong. There was about 1 inch of fresh snow on the ground and I could see the blood trail for at least 200 yards going down the unit into the brush. I started to track the blood and thought for sure that we would find the beast piled up in the brush. I was wrong, I tracked that wolf for about a half an hour down into some thick timber where the snow was not sticking to the ground. We were about 1/4 mile from where we initially shot the wolf when the trail went cold. We spent the next 3 hours scourring the area for sign/blood with no luck. It did not help that it was raining like a cow pisssing on a flat rock. So we swallowed our pride and walked up the unit to the logging road empty handed.
In the end, my dad and I were extremely disappointed, yet happy that we had the opportunity to see such an amazing creature. Without a doubt in my mind, we killed that wolf. As much blood as he lost, he was probably laying there dead not 200 yards from where we quit. I had no sign and no blood to continue in the search. We drastically under estimated the toughness of this timber wolf. He was more than likely the alpha male of the pack and we were under gunned. I made two solid hits on this wolf with a 70 grain bullet and my dad smacked it once with a 64 grain bullet. You would think that an animal would go down where it stood. If we had to guess, this wolf was probably 150 lbs or more. We are taking magnum rifles out next time we call. I should have taken out the .264 magnum like I had originally intended, but the old man thought that it would be too much gun. All my blame goes to him.
What a day it was. Here are a few pictures of the area we were hunting.
My stand was on top of the rocks in the center of the picture. Photo was taken from spot of impact.
Bloody hair from impact
Spot where it did circles and layed down
Ridgeline the wolf ran down
Blood and track next to extra large glove for scale
Me pisssed off with a clump of the wolf's hair
