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had had plenty of time to kick into full swing while we watched the animal close the distance. The rifle I had was new to me,
a Winchester 30-06 that I had picked up for deer hunting. I hadn’t had the chance to shoot it long range with the new handloads so I was very uneasy about taking shots over 200 yards. As the wolf closed the distance, I became more aware of a downed tree in the drainage ditch. It would pretty much be a shot blocker until the wolf crossed it. The tree was about 166 yards away but the branches blocked most of the shooting possibilities out to 300 yards. A closer look at the tree revealed one large opening. If the wolf crossed just right, I could get off a shot. As the wolf closed the distance to 200 yards, it paused for a second or two, giving me a slight quartering shot. I would be shooting between the branches and I was concerned I would hit one. But I figured I’d give it a go. With the safety off I began the squeeze on the trigger. Just as the trig- ger was about to break the wolf turned back toward us and continued on up the
trail. I backed off the trigger, thinking if he was going to come closer I would let him clear the branches.
As I watched the wolf slowly
advance, a horrible feeling came over me. After leaving the truck this morn- ing, I loaded the magazine but never put a round into the chamber! As the wolf was looking side to side while he walked, and not paying us any atten- tion, I figured he was coming into the bait pile. Since he had yet to clear the tree I had a short amount of time to slide my support hand back and quietly open the bolt.
I took my eyes off the wolf as I
cracked open the bolt and, to my sur- prise, I had indeed loaded a round. In an instant, with new found confidence, I began closing the bolt and decided I’d take a shot regardless of where the wolf was. As I brought the rifle up … he was gone. In the instant I took my eyes off of him, he stepped off the trail back into the dense forest, never to be seen again. I wanted nothing more than to hit
the “do-over” button. I couldn’t believe I had come so close and yet let the op- portunity pass by. I glanced down to my
hunting partner who was sitting below me watching the whole thing unfold. He had that look on his face of, “Why the hell didn’t you shoot?” After a short time of waiting to see if he would come back, my partner and I met up and I replayed the issues I had with the unchambered round that actu- ally was. He said in the instant I looked away the wolf closed the distance to 170 yards, just on the other side of the tree, and then walked off the trail. After beating myself up over the missed op- portunity, we both agreed that was one of the coolest things we both had seen in years of hunting.
We hunted the area for the rest of the day but nothing else showed. That evening my partner had to make an unplanned trip back home as work was having a crisis that he must attend to. After quickly getting packed, he made a comment to me about trying to avoid getting eaten out there, and hit the road. Saturday morning I was back out to the drainage ditch. I recalled a con- versation that my hunting partner and I had about how both wolves we had seen had been between 11:00 and 11:30. So I
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