I heard they voted to have a season on the radio this morning on my way to work. Anybody else know anything about it?
I read in the WON that the paremeters of a season are set. To be honest all it takes is one lawsuit to derail it. I hope to see a season soon.
I also heard that you can hunt them at night? IMO, I do agree with a season, but the hunting at night i dont agree with.
I've been looking into this lately. From what I can tell, the vast majority of wolves shot (both rife & both) and hapinstancial. Basically, if you're hunting in wolf country for deer, elk, moose, what have you, you buy a wolf tag just in case one walks by. You can also hunt them similarly as you would a coyote, but wolves are far less likely to come to a distress call, as small game makes up a much smaller portion of their diet. Howling at a pack can bring them in, but like calling to a deer, they're on high alert looking for the source of the call. This will probably be my approach, as I often hear wolves howling when I'm on stand. If they're close, I'll try and draw them in. Wolves cover large teritories and can move more than 15 miles of that teritory in a day, so you can't set up and hunt them like you would a deer. If you can identify a consitant scent marking post, you may be able to set up there, but it's been my experience that they only mark these maybe once a week or so. They can be trapped, but I hear they're much harder than yotes. Historically, the two most effective way to hunt (and how they erradicated wolves) was by poisoning and hunting by air. Both will obviously be illegal. I'm excited to see how the MN season pans out. I'd love to be the first Minnesotan to legally take a wolf with a bow in 40 years I'm hoping anyone with experience chimes in. I'm eager to hear from them.
From what I know about hunting wolves, they typically bait them. Somewhat similar to bear hunting, except wolves are quite a bit more weary than a black bear. I thought Wisconsin already had a wolf season. You know - the Three S's. :D
The most common way.....get lucky as hell. Also, if you have the patience and the right set up, baiting. In the winter you drill a hole in the ice on a lake and shove your bait into it and let it freeze. Bait as in deer parts, beaver, livestock entrails, etc. With the bait freezing in they can't carry it off. The few we did, we set up closer to shore so they felt comfortable coming out. Up at camp they would run the lakes and any snowmobile track you laid down looking for food and hunting. It didn't take long of the baits to get it. But, we never did hunt them over them. Up there you couldn't hunt at night. But, if you could down here, I would do this and sit over it around a full moon. That would be killer. I have also called them in. I used a rabbit in distress call and really wailed on it, making it sound like a fawn in distress. Once we could hear some wolves over a period of about 5 hours and they kept getting closer. As it got later in the day we figured they were about 300 yards away and broke out the call before it got darker and we had to walk a mile back to the boat. I hammered that call for about 30 seconds. I mean, hammered it hard. My brother in law could hear it over half a mile away. Within 15 seconds of stopping we could see wolves on the other side of the marsh on a rock looking around. Then another and another.....like ants. We had 12 of them come right to us, sitting in the tree. I had shot 3 before and I really wanted a white one. The first two were not the biggest, but they were white. I drew my bow, squeaked my lips and stopped the first white one at 20 yards. I was sooooo jacked up as it was my goal to kill a wolf with a bow. I released and watched the arrow sail just over its back. To this day I could almost cry. If that wasn't bad enough, 5 days later we're out hunting an area with insane buck sign. But, we could hear wolves about 3/4 of a mile away howling like crazy. We still hunted towards them looking for deer, as there was sign everywhere. But, nothing. It was like a ghost town there because of the wolves. Over the next few hours we got closer and closer to them and they hadn't moved. We figured they must be on a kill. Then, we saw a raven circling about 200 yards from us in a thick pine plantation and we knew where they were. We circled around down wind of them about 100 yards away and got set up with a 15 yard wide grassy clearing between us and them. I wailed on that call for about 10 seconds and almost **** my pants when I saw two wolves circling to the downwind side of us about 25 yards away in the trees on the other side of the clearing. Then another set of legs and then I see a big bastard standing on a log staring me from 18 yards. I was already at full draw, but he was facing directly at me with a couple small pine boughs in front of him. I knew I had no choice but to crouch down a bit and try to sneak one between the branches. I wasn't going to miss again, so I settled my 20 yard pin on the middle of his chest and released. Damn arrow caught one of the small boughs and grazed him. I was sick again. To this day, I can still see his eyes staring at me. I knew I wasn't really in any danger, but man was that a fricken rush. So much so, that I want to do it again.....soon.
Here's one I killed with a .270WSM while deer hunting in Ontario. I first saw him walking towards me at about 100 yards, but waited until he was 17 yards to shoot him. I was still hunting and on the ground. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. My brother in law carrying him out for me. (Wish I had a better camera back then)
Unless I see a lot of them on trailcams I probably won't buy a tag for $100. Dean - Any idea on how many are in my area? My guess is most stay north of 64. Edit: Found this. Looks like an active pack in my area.
I would absolutely love to match wits with wolves. I'd be willing to bet if you were able to cover ground with an e-caller and rifle you could call them in successfully. I have no doubt that even if you couldn't get responses to distress calls that you would get responses to coyote/wolf/dog vocalizations.
