Thank you everyone for all the kind words!!
I dropped the wolf off at the taxidermist tonight, and got a pleasantly surprising weight of 148lbs, so it was bit larger than we had originally thought...Now, it will be a long year or so waiting to get it back, but well worth the wait as this taxidermist does excellent work on all canines and cats.
Someone had asked if I had considered calling for wolves...YES, I have called them out previously (3 times now to be exact), but I missed on one opportunity, a friend missed on the other chance, and one time we got busted and never got off a shot (2 times responded to howling, 1 time to mouth call elk in distress). I have also done a couple dozen blank stands for them as well. The reason I chose to stalk this wolf the whole way, is that I have not found them to be particularily responsive to calling, so I just decided to move in and see what happens. If he wouldn't have been there, then I would have tried calling (like we did on the first wolf of the day), but I didn't want to risk spooking it by calling without first seeing the stalk through (as i have only very limited experience with calling wolves, I am more confident in my stalking than calling abilities with them, an experienced wolf caller may have done things differently).
Anyway, thank you all again very much, and good luck to everyone (this colder weather, up here anyway, should really get things moving)!!