Minnesota Wolf Hunt Chris Melberg
So I was lucky enough to snag a highly cov-
eted wolf tag for Minnesota’s first wolf hunt. When the tags were put on sale at noon that day I was lucky enough to be first in line at the local gas station. I couldn’t believe there was a line. But when the tags sold out in about 30 seconds after becoming available, I understood. A friend has property up north and said he has seen one or two wolves over the years while out deer hunt- ing, so I figured that would be my best chance at seeing one. Little did I know what I was in for.
Because neither of us knew the first thing about wolf hunting, we figured we would go at them like coyotes to start. We had an understanding that if a wolf showed up I’d shoot since I had the tag, but if any other predator responded to the call they were all his. We had low ex- pectations of the outcome of the hunt as muzzleloader season was still in full swing, and we were required by law to wear blaze orange.
Thursday night, the second week of the season, we both arrived in camp. Armed with leftover butchered car- casses and one road kill, we made two separate bait sites where the wolves had been spotted in the past. We decided to leave these sites alone for the first day to let the critters find them. Friday morning came early. Our
first stand down by a frozen river came up empty, but hopes were high when we found very fresh wolf, coyote and fox tracks littering the river banks. On the second set of the day we found a thicket edge and a trail that we could use to get in and out of the area quietly. We set up about 80 yards apart
Page 18 Spring 2013
long to pinpoint the caller’s location and spot the blaze orange of my partner. The next thing I saw was him leaving just as fast as he came, heading straight away. Unfortunately my part-
ner never even got to see the animal. After finding the tracks it was clear the wolf had snuck in within 50 yards of my partner, but because of a brush pile and the extreme denseness of the thicket, he snuck back out unnoticed. Throughout the day we made several different stands, using a variety of cottontail, jackrabbit and deer bleat calls. But no other critters showed. We blamed it on the fact we both were wearing large amounts of blaze orange.
The author got his wolf very late in the afternoon of the last day of the state's season.
with the FoxPro caller between us. With the call blasting a dying cottontail in my usual routine, I glanced down at the time. We had been on stand for about 25 minutes. Just as I was thinking about moving on, I noticed movement off to my right in the thicket. There before me, sneaking through, was the first wolf I had ever seen in the wild.
He was moving with speed and grace unlike any coyote I had ever seen, and I was a little taken aback at the size of the animal. As the timber wolf crossed in front of me from right to left, I struggled to find a hole in the thicket to get that bullet through, but to no avail. He was moving too fast.
I helplessly watched at a mere 60
yards away as this animal approached the call. In my haste trying to get off a shot I made a rookie mistake and didn’t shut off the caller. It didn’t take him
The next couple of days we hunted and scouted hard. The bait piles never were hit by anything but eagles and ravens. The lack of tracks in
the fresh snow and trail camera pictures concurred. Not a single canine visited the bait piles.
During our scouting we found
drainage ditches once used years ago to try to drain excess water from large tracts of public land in hopes of farming these areas. We found that these drain- age ditches acted like a superhighway for the wolves. They could cover large amounts of ground without having to fight the thickness of the brush. In the fresh snow it was evident that the wolves were using them, as they were littered with tracks.
During the later part of Saturday we decided to focus on these areas. After our first stand produced nothing, we walked a few hundred yards down the trail where we found a vantage point. Even with being so close to the first stand location, we decided to try it.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196