Well that time of year is upon us again where things are starting to shutdown and the meat I have in the freezer is going to have to suffice. I myself had a fairly unproductive season. Partially because of time constraints and for much of the season being limited to road hunting with my little fella riding shotgun. I did manage to shoot a doe that is all vacuum packed away in the freezer. I only shot in the direction of one other deer this year and that was a pathetic attempt at a spike buck. He was nothing to write home about, but would have been tasty. I say it was a pathetic attempt because, well, it was. I was so excited to see my first (and only) buck of the season that I could get a shot off at, and I would compare it to a heroin addict in withdrawal trying to hold a rifle still. I was aiming for the lungs and probably ended up somewhere closer to the North Atlantic. Completely ignoring the fact that I had my shooting sticks strapped to the side of my backpack and all the time in the world to set up for a nice calm shot, I opted to rush it free hand and blew it. Twice. Not proud, it is what it is. Lesson learned, again.
All of my personal shortcomings aside, I refuse to accept that I am a failure, so I'm going to blame it on wolves. WOLVES EVERYWHERE! The time I was able to put in on foot and actually hunt, I noticed this year that I was constantly on wolves, or visa versa. Where last year I would see plenty of deer and elk sign, this year it was nothing but paw prints and fuzzy poo everywhere I looked. Obviously I sucked at hunting this year, but there definitely was not the same level of opportunities at shots as last year.
This year I was able to pick up a cheap sled, now I have a bit easier access into the winter wonderland so I am going to put forth a better effort at wolf hunting. I've basically finished the internet researching and learning whatever tips I can from RedTube, errr I mean YouTube so I am hoping to have some success. I will have a fair amount of time to dedicate but it will only be in the day time hours while the lad is off book learning at school and I'm on days off. I live in a rural area so it's easy access to the trails to get out on the sled to some good wolf country. I should be able to get 4 hours in during the day while the boy is busy driving his teachers insane. Of course this is not ideal, but it's what I have to work with. I have some locations picked where from what I can tell, the local wolves are passing through on a regular basis and will be making some meat sickles and using calls to try and get the elusive creature to come to me. I will also be following the birds and any other sign of fresh kills to set up on. If I can get on them and calmly shoot like I know I can, I should be able to roll em.
Feel free to chime in with your tips from personal experiences gents and ladies. Especially around what calls and sequences of calls you have had success with.
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