DesertDawg
New member
Friday I went to weatherunderground to check the winds for the weekend. Saturday called for 10 mph, with temps running down to 20 below. Sunday was a balmy 7 degrees with winds up to 35 mph. We went with Saturday and planned to layer up with extra clothing. Our first two stands produced nothing. I wasn't suprised, as my average is 8 stands per having some type of predator coming in. Alaska is huge and the animals are spread out. Third stand landed us in a tight swamp area. There was 50 yards in both directions that I could see. I put the cs24 up in the tree 30 yards in front of me. I started off with snowshoe hare and ran it for about 2 minutes. I waited 3 minutes and ran the same sequence again for an additional 2 minutes. I went through this process for about 15 minutes. I don't think much about it when one raven comes over and starts circling. When 4-7 ravens are on me, that means one thing, wolves. They follow the wolves and wait to clean up their kills as time permits. Once I had several ravens on me my senses went on alert. I looked down at the FoxPro remote and saw 18 minutes on the call stand. At about the same time, I heard some snow being suffled at my 6 o'clock. Patiently, I waited. I knew I had a visitor coming. Wolves are not quiet when the come in. Unless they wind you, they bolster they way into the call with little concern. If you have coyotes in wolf country, they tend to take much longer to come in and will wait to be certain wolves are not on the kill. I turned to my left and looked as I heard the sound coming from that direction. 30 yards out, was a single gray wolf. I had put the cs24 to sound level 8 by this time, just enough to pull the attention of what was coming in, but not so much to where I could hear what was going on around me. The wolf was looking at me and turning its head back to the FoxPro. I went to pull up to shoot but forgot I had a sleeve over my fingers that I had to remove. Once done, i placed the cross hairs center mass on its shect and squeezed. Once my rifle answered, it turned around and started to run. I ran another shell into the gun and found the right flank and shot again. I knew I had hit my target twice. The wolf ran into teh tree line and disappeared. I agthered all of my gear up, including my camera that didnt work due to the extreme low temps. I began following the tracks and found blood after the first 20 yards. We worked our way to the tree line where we last saw it and found the wolf folded up 40 yards in.
What a rush!
What a rush!
