After a really short Minnesota season I ended up not tagging a wolf. The closest I got was at one point I had a wolf within 30 feet of me I came to find, but it was after it was dark out when I was walking out of the woods.
I had a great time hunting, but am fairly disappointed. I'm not disappointed because I didn't get a wolf, I'm disappointed because I wanted the experience to be out there hunting wolf late December with full snow camo and no one else around. Muzzleloader deer season lasts until tomorrow 12/15 and the last wolf zone closed today; After being excited to hunt wolves for 3 months I really feel cheated by the dnr to have an 11 day season in my area (NW area). Pulling an early season permit would have gotten me more hunting time. The mn dnr requires blaze orange until the end of muzzleloader season so all wolf hunters were required to use blaze orange all season which limited us to pop-up blinds mostly. On top of that the woods were busy with activity with the mild weather and deer season still happening.
I was looking forward to doing most of my hunting after deer season closed, but hunted 4/5 first days anyways. Right around that time everyone figured out that this party was going to end really soon, so I stayed tough hunting for at least 2-3 hours everyday until my area closed on day 11. There were a lot of hunts I really wanted to do and didn't get the opportunity like hunting Ely and an area around near Red Lake where we knew the wolf were hurting the moose. If I had wanted to hunt the NE (Ely) area I should have been out there first weekend, because by the time the second weekend rolled around that area had already closed.
I was amazed at how fast the season closed and crunched some numbers because I was curious:
In 2012 the late season lasted 41 days with an average of 6.48 wolf/day. It had a success rate (the average success rate of any given hunter on any given day the wolf season was open) of 0.270%.
In 2013 the late season lasted 29 with an average of 5.13 wolf/day. It had a success rate of 0.395%
In 2014 the late season lasted 14 days (11 days or less in the majority of the state) with an average of 10.57 wolf/day. It had a success rate of .705% (sofar, a couple more wolf will probably be taken today).
The dnr claims the wolf population has went down 8% from 2012-2014. The hunter success rate has went up (at least) 261%. If you figure that hunter success rate is directly correlated to wolf population (it's not, but just for numbers sake lets say it's somewhat relevant) and lets say the dnr's wolf count in 2012 of 2898 wolves statewide is somewhat accurate then according to this year's harvest rate the statewide population for wolves should be close to 7564. The dnr estimates it at 2423 and sets their harvest limited based on that number.
It's not surprising to see why the wolf season closed in 11 days or why the moose are on the brink of regional extinction; all while the dnr sits back and studies it rather than coming up with a real management plan for wolf. The NE zone is predominantly the area where the remaining moose in the state exist. 75 wolves were allowed to be taken in that zone this year with all likely numbers pointing to the fact that there's at least 1500 wolf in that part of the state alone. That's not a management plan; that doesn't even give the remaining moose a fighting chance.
The irony here is that the dnr did a comprehensive moose study on their decline and came back with what they said were ambiguous results where global warming was probably the culprit (pretty funny, huh?). The actual numbers were a little less than ambiguous though
Moose Mortality Numbers taken from dnr report. About a month ago a U of M researcher came out with another paper with a far more definitive interpretation of the numbers
Star Tribune article about U of M researcher Dave Mech.
It's going to be a sad day in the not so distant future when moose are going to be regionally extinct in Minnesota due to the DNR pandering to fanatic groups like HOWLING for Wolves rather than using effective management techniques to protect all the animals we currently have here.