Wolves in the Tuchodi

[gathto]

We all hope to do well on our hunts and dream about the big ones, but this years dream didn't happen. I posted earlier that I drew my dream hunt LEH Grizz in 7-50 as well as a cow Elk in the same area. I have hunted the area every year for almost ten years and have had good success as long as I put in the work. This year it was like a vacuum went over the valley. I didn't see any game at all, except one small group of goats. It was also way to hot as well which had an affect on things.

What I did see was lots of wolf kills. We could hear wolves howling all day and all night. They were particularly active at night, you could actually hear the animals stampeding in the forest behind out camp on more then one occasion.

Did any of you Tuchodi area hunters experience the same? How about other areas in general?

[Stroodle]

Huge loss of all animal sign on our recent trip in the Muskwa as well. We were lucky enough to the pull the trigger and within 2 minutes a pack of wolves started howling below us. We heard them most nights at camp as well. Talked with a group that comes up throughout the year and spends time shed hunting in the spring but they were also seeing extremely low shed finds this year but tons of wolf sign. We also saw wolf tracks at every beach we got off the boat. It is a problem there as well, no question.

[Deadshot]

Very slow where we were up north.
Covered and glassed way too much territory to see what we saw.
Wolf tracks everywhere. Saw one very well fed pack of twelve.
Was a bit on the warm side, but still seemed "vacuumed".
Makes me wonder if we're going to have to wait for the "eat all the game , then starve" scenario to happen.
How long does that take?
I'm not getting any younger.

[Xenomorph]

Very slow where we were up north.
Covered and glassed way too much territory to see what we saw.
Wolf tracks everywhere. Saw one very well fed pack of twelve.
Was a bit on the warm side, but still seemed "vacuumed".
Makes me wonder if we're going to have to wait for the "eat all the game , then starve" scenario to happen.
How long does that take?
I'm not getting any younger.

Time to plan a winter harvest. Pack out a few hundred wolf pelts.

[gcreek]

If every HBC member put up $250 on an annual basis, could we buy and operate a helicopter? Under First Nations approval and protection from our own government of course...

[RobTurbo]

Was up there in 2015 and wolves seemed bad then. One in our group got a shot at 1 of them only found fur no blood. I saw one about 50 yards out but it disappeared before I got the rifle shouldered. Amazingly steathly animal. Heard them howling often and any game we were on went silent as soon as the wolves started. Luckily found a valley they were not in and harvested the moose in my profile pic

[264mag]

We hunted the Tuchodi as well and found at least 15 wolf kills all in a 1 km spot on the river. This is a spot where the elk winter and it was evident that the wolves had their way. I personally have never hunted as hard as we did and only encountered elk twice. I have spoken to at least three other groups that had similar results.

[eric]

Same here, hunted up there for 8 days, nothing but wolves all around us.
No animal taken..
Also talked to a group who hunted for 10 days, one cow Elk amongst the 4 of them.

[Bugle M In]

Very slow where we were up north.
Covered and glassed way too much territory to see what we saw.
Wolf tracks everywhere. Saw one very well fed pack of twelve.
Was a bit on the warm side, but still seemed "vacuumed".
Makes me wonder if we're going to have to wait for the "eat all the game , then starve" scenario to happen.
How long does that take?
I'm not getting any younger.

Exactly.....waiting for the natural cycle takes too long....

[pnbrock]

never gonna happen mylie cyrus is gonna feed them through the tough times !!

[BTF]

Hunted 7-24 this year and heard wolves almost every night. buddy tried calling them in but they wouldn't break the tree line, howling like crazy, freaky. Usually hunt north of Fort St. John, and hear wolves up there at night also. Had a wolf come in to my cow call two years ago, shot it at 14 yrds. The game is hiding deep in the bush, we would need to shoot a lot of wolves to turn things around.

[RiverOtter]

I heard 50 wolves were trapped/shot out of the Tuchodi valley in the winter of '15/'16. Apparently that wasn't enough.

[kendoo]

hunted the upper Muskwa for last 32 years we just about always passed up shooting the first week so we didn't have to come out early & always limited out. this year 4 of us up 14 days & only saw 1 cow elk & 2 cow moose came out skunked. Wolves were howling every night. 1 couple that shed hunts said they saw wolf scat that had wolf hair in it. Maybe they are running out of food & eating each others. Has any onr heard of Wolf Canibalism?

[Rampager]

3 of us hunted Tuchodi last year and had 2 wolf encounters.

First was on day 2 we were charged by a wolf who came to our cow calls but as soon we he saw us/we saw him he took off as fast as he came in. We heard howling in the valley for a few minutes but that was the last we saw/heard of them.

A few days later we saw two on the opposite side of the river and they had a cow elk cornered in the river. They spooked (found out about 15 seconds later it was because they heard a jet boat coming up river before we did) but I managed to drop one, my buddy missed the other.

One less wolf on the Tuchodi.
http://www.huntingbc.ca/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=6528&stc=1

[HarryToolips]

^^^^very nice wolf, congrats...

[HarryToolips]

hunted the upper Muskwa for last 32 years we just about always passed up shooting the first week so we didn't have to come out early & always limited out. this year 4 of us up 14 days & only saw 1 cow elk & 2 cow moose came out skunked. Wolves were howling every night. 1 couple that shed hunts said they saw wolf scat that had wolf hair in it. Maybe they are running out of food & eating each others. Has any onr heard of Wolf Canibalism?
Let's hope the predator pit is occuring and we'll see a major drop off I hope..

[REMINGTON JIM]

^^^^very nice wolf, congrats...

YUP Because hes DEAD ! :smile: RJ

[Huntfarm2]

Pulled one six by six out of there this year... lots wolf sign and heard them lots called them close but no shot presented saw a few elk not piles

[Buck]

This year because i still had plenty of moose meat left i decided to concentrate on predators during our annual hunting trip.I stopped in at Cabelas on the way north bought a fancy predator call and as luck would have it i was watching the edge of a piece of timber actually hoping a deer would come out.Just before Dusk a pack of 6 wolves came out of the timber and straight in my direction they were going to run into me for sure so i unloaded my clip into them hitting two for sure and maybe more . I did get out each night after that with the call and pulled in 2 lynx though not in season. Never really liked hunting deer in the evening so now i predator hunt instead.

[444marlin]

Spent 9 days on the Tuchodi this year. Wolves were calling most nights. Both sides of the river.
On our hikes off, up and down river we saw around 18 cow elk and one moose. Did not have a LEH.
The elk did seem to be more nervous than last year.
Watched a grizzly chow down on an elk carcass (hunter kill). Then spent quite a while watching it cover the meat.
Great trip in all though no meat for the freezer.

[blackhawk19]

hunted 7-11 in the moose rut, didn't see or hear a bull .saw 1 cow in full heat for 2 days right in the middle of a large slash .absolutely no sign of moose,very few wolf . I think the wolfs have completely wiped out the area and have moved on.moved from 6-04 to 7-11 but pretty much the same

[Stone Sheep Steve]

Very slow where we were up north.
Covered and glassed way too much territory to see what we saw.
Wolf tracks everywhere. Saw one very well fed pack of twelve.
Was a bit on the warm side, but still seemed "vacuumed".
Makes me wonder if we're going to have to wait for the "eat all the game , then starve" scenario to happen.
How long does that take?
I'm not getting any younger.

Its too bad they are so mobile. They'll clean out one area and then move on to the next.
Same scenario in much of Western North America right now.

The great Yellowstone experiment has been one massive over-achievement......just like doing a prescribed burn in August.

SSS

[BCHunterFSJ]

Seems to be the same story all through Region 7b. We hunted the Halfway area and saw 1 moose and nothing else. Hunted Nig creek with my wife and saw exactly 1 cow moose.
There are practically no whitetails left on my farm near Buick. As some of you know, this used to be a great area for big bucks.
Like someone said, there seems to be an animal "vacuum" out there!
Are there other factors out there besides the wolf devastation???

[hellojello74]

That country between the prophet and tuchodi used to be the true Serengeti of the north. If as bad as I'm reading a true shame. So much great country.


I wonder how all the outfitters are doing? Any body hear how there seasons went? They must be scared the wolves will gain a larger sheep appetite.

[palmer]

I talked with a guide from 7-42 and he said game numbers were down from wolf kills. Seems to be all over that country

[gcreek]

Some on here would disagree with the "anecdotal" evidence presented here. You folks can rest assured I'm not one of them.

[pg83]

That country between the prophet and tuchodi used to be the true Serengeti of the north. If as bad as I'm reading a true shame. So much great country.


I wonder how all the outfitters are doing? Any body hear how there seasons went? They must be scared the wolves will gain a larger sheep appetite.


Not sure about the moose, but elk were being killed at the tops of mountains a lot the last couple of years according to an outfitter and guide from the area. Only legal bull we saw last year was on a peak.

[kendoo]

Not sure about the moose, but elk were being killed at the tops of mountains a lot the last couple of years according to an outfitter and guide from the area. Only legal bull we saw last year was on a peak.

Tompkins & Omestead (outfitters) have not been using there areas in the upper Muskwa for the last 3 or 4 years. WHY? No animals. Pack rats have taken over Omsteads camp at Grizzly lake

[LBM]

Tompkins & Omestead (outfitters) have not been using there areas in the upper Muskwa for the last 3 or 4 years. WHY? No animals. Pack rats have taken over Omsteads camp at Grizzly lake
Interesting spent a bit of time there but been awhile ago, seen some very nice moose and rams in the area quit often right from the cabin.

[Buckzilla]

Tompkins & Omestead (outfitters) have not been using there areas in the upper Muskwa for the last 3 or 4 years. WHY? No animals. Pack rats have taken over Omsteads camp at Grizzly lake

Was In upper muskwa this fall for a couple weeks. Yep animals were scarce and what was around was in the thick thick way off the river. Interesting that when we came over the ridge to grizzly lake, there was a tin bin cruising across the lake propelled by an out board?!?! WTF? All we needed to see to not head up that way.
Heard wolves often this trip. Tracks and shit everywhere. No sightings.
Got 1 5x6 Elk between 4 of us in 12 days up there. Only had very few bulls come into cow calls far off the river in the thick. And only a handfull of elk sighted at all. I may have counted 10-12 elk in the entire trip.
saw about 10 moose, no bears at all.
Compared to as close as 4 years ago where I could count up to 30 animals a day.
those days of the "Serengeti of the North" are no longer. Very sad.

Also have not seen River Jet Adventures ( Kevin Willis- packer) run his boat above Alligator alley before. He had a camp of 9 guys up in the burn?!?! Pretty big crew in the patch...

[emerson]

I have seen a very similar "emptiness" of moose around PG and Houston the last 5 years. Even 3 yrs ago on the Dease river things were much slower than previously.

[Taylor329]

Went up Tuchodi for the first time in 2014, lots of grizz sign, no wolf sign. A few caribou, a few sheep, a couple deer, and a handful of elk we saw the whole time.
2015 my Dad went up with a buddy of his, wolf sign everywhere, wolves howling every night, he put a stalk on the pack during the day but couldn't close the deal. Didn't see more than a few elk the whole trip.
2016 all three of us were there (still have to get around to writing up that story), lots of wolf and grizz sign, no sightings though. We saw maybe 30 elk total and 2 or 3 deer, nothing else. A grizz ripped up the ground by one of our carcasses and carried the thing clean away, we couldn't find it anywhere. Ran into the outfitter on top of a knob and the hunter he was with had a bear tag, said there was quite a few big bears in the area and that the wolves were hammering the place pretty bad.

2014 had a moose draw by Williams Lake, was there 5 days, saw one deer, two moose. Everywhere I let out a moose call, I had an almost immediate response of howling by wolves/coyotes, and lots of them, although no sightings.

[northof49]

Lots of proof here fokes....wait not scientific tho. OMG no PHD.....how can it be true??? Predators are the problem. Lots of hungry mouths chewing. Ungulates are f’d with no help.

[ianwuzhere]

All this action is what a predator hunter dreams about. A FoxPro caller or even hand calls of rabbit distress or wolf calls by your mouth can all call in the wolves. Howl back and they may show themselves enuf for a shot. More needs to be done to target predators if we as hunters want to continue to be successful, not just in the winter but all year when we can.

Crappy to hear the Serengeti of the north is no longer. Have read old books about how the old time trappers of the northern BC would poison, trap and shoot wolves from aircraft and after they harvested many of the wolves during the winter the populations of all ungulates increased bigtime.. Ive often have heard about good hunters who usually get success north who are coming home skunked recently..

Good luck to all the predator hunters and hopefully can get out there as much as possible.

[Stone Sheep Steve]

Thought this one was due for a bump.....

[Salmon Belly]

Was in 7-50 for an elk hunt this past September. Saw pack of 11 wolves tear across mountain side, covered an unbelievable amount of ground in no time. No chance at a shot they were 2kms away. Grizz too (no LEH draw for any of us). More predators than seen in many 7-50 trips.

SB

[HappyJack]

It used to be good hunting up there, so sad to hear the wolves have ruined it.