The luckiest wolf alive, or how to (not) shoot a wolf

[Okanagan]

Day before yesterday.  Way north...

We drove around a bend in the isolated highway and a wolf was loping down the road ahead of us.  I was legal to shoot it if the wolf and I both got off the road so I grabbed my rifle and loaded clip, and opened the door ready to bail out.  My brother-in-law pulled up 40 feet behind it and we followed.  A two-tone grey wolf with a beautiful coat, it liked the road.  It would glance back at us casually once in awhile but wasn't alarmed and not interested in leaving the road into the solid wall of chest high willows.   Finally after 400 yards it angled off into an open area.  As I stumbled out before the vehicle stopped rolling, the wolf stepped up on a four foot high ridge 40 yards away and stood broadside looking at us.  I jammed in the clip and cranked the bolt as I ran off the road far enough to get legal. 

I could feel that the bolt did not pick up a cartridge.  Thinking I'd short stroked it, I cranked the bolt again.  It didn't pick up a round that time either.  By now I had slid to one knee to shoot so I looked down to see what was wrong and saw the bolt ride over the cartridge without contract.  After a millisecond of puzzlement I decided that the clip wasn’t in all the way.  I slammed the bottom of the clip with the heel of my hand, heard and felt it click home and this time the bolt cycled a round into the chamber.  The wolf was standing broadside watching this performance, but as the rifle came to my eye he turned his head and stepped into the wall of willows.  I got a glimpse of his tail and rump in the edge of the scope but no crosshairs on him.  It was that close.

But this story ain't over...

I ran to where he'd been standing and looked beyond it over a low willow flat such as moose favor, hoping to see the wolf in one of the tiny openings.  I blew an open reed predator call that was around my neck to try to get him to pop his head up or something.

Just then my brother-in-law started honking the horn.  He yelled, “Come back!  The wolf is on the road!”  He’d pulled the pickup 70 yards farther to a wider shoulder.

I sprinted in the warm sun like I haven’t since my last high school track meet and jumped in the truck as we took off again.  The wolf had loped past 15 feet from the rig and eyeballed my hunting partner.

We caught up as the critter cut across a wide flat gravel pit area, and wouldn’t you know, the only building we’d seen in the past 100 miles was a house across the road from the gravel pit!  I hesitated and then realized it was abandoned as I bailed out again.  The wolf obligingly stopped 60 yards away on top of a ten foot high dirt bank at the edge of the open.  He turned before I got the scope on him.  Déjà vu.  My second of hesitation about the house cost me the shot.

We drove a quarter mile farther and I thrashed across a willow bottom, waded a creek and set up a calling stand on top of a 50 foot high hogback ridge covered with open poplar trees.  Lots of birds came in but no indication of wolf.  A third crack at him via calling was a lot to ask but a man has to try.

If he had nine lives to start, he’s down to seven…

[FinsnFur]

Wow 
So close but yet..............so faaaaaaar

Probably better that you hesitated due to the house though. That could have been not such a fun post to read.

[JohnP]

That would be enough to drive ya to drink or in my case sobriety.

[KySongDog]

No wolf but you got a great story out of it.  And thats the fun part me thinks.      

[HuntnCarve]

It's the one's that you don't get that will live with you forever..Great story!

Dave

[Jeb]

Great story Okanagan !!!  Hopefully you can bag one soon! 
                                Jeb

[alscalls]

Keep after em you will get one!     

[Okanagan]

It's the one's that you don't get that will live with you forever..Great story!

Dave

Thanks.  Thanks to each of you.  What you and Semp expressed helps me sort it out.  It is a good memory, and makes me laugh and shake my head ruefully.

We tried calling for wolves a bit in that country but were after other stuff and were afraid of grizzlies so didn't go at it hard.  Mostly we used a WT to howl and try to locate some to call.  Our first stand a wolf howed back immediately but he was across a DEEP huge canyon, probably 3/4 mile from us and I don't think he came any closer.  He didn't reply after the first howl.  It was really open above timberline.

I am impressed all over again with the WT unit.  Wow that thing is LOUD and clear. 

[pitw]

Excellent story and I appreciate your pain.  I will hunt with you though cause you sound kinda/sorta safe to be around .  Always more fun to say next time than Ooooopppppppps .

[Okanagan]

Excellent story and I appreciate your pain.  I will hunt with you though cause you sound kinda/sorta safe to be around .  Always more fun to say next time than Ooooopppppppps .

Thank you.  That's a significant compliment.  Hope I'm safe anyway.  No one is immune from a shooting accident and it would be awful.   FWIW the derelict house in question was across the highway from the wolf, opposite direction, so no danger from shooting toward a building.  I just don't like to shoot near anyone's house unless they are in on the decision.  Not all those little decisions about the shot make it into a story because they bog down the pace with detail.   I.e. In each case when the wolf stopped, a higher bank or hill was behind him so I wasn't concerned about shooting bullets over a near horizon without knowing what was beyond.  Last year I had a moose in the cross hairs with my hunting partners in line with him several hundred feet higher than the bull and 1000 yards beyond him.  The bull started trotting and I let him get 35-40 degrees out of line with them before shooting him.  One of my partners never noticed but the other quietly took me aside and said, "You were waiting to shoot till he was not in line with us, weren't you."

[FinsnFur]

 One of my partners never noticed but the other quietly took me aside and said, "You were waiting to shoot till he was not in line with us, weren't you."

:roflmao:
Seems like the logical thing to do.