pod at home so I fashioned a makeshift shooting stick. With the rifle propped up and shouldered in anticipation of a fast shot, I was ready. Four hours came and went and nothing showed. The noon hour came and I broke my stand, figur- ing the wolves must be bedded down in the heavy snowfall. On my way out I glanced at the carcass. Nothing had touched it in the night. I figured that was odd, but it further spoke to our idea that the wolves are more active in the day than night. As I crossed the fallen tree in the ditch, I broke out my hand saw and knocked off all the branches that cost me the wolf on Friday. The next time I came back I couldn’t use that one as an excuse. Before breaking camp the land- owner and I stopped down at the river to check on the first bait site. To our surprise the carcass has not only been hit, but it was completely gone! We searched the area for sign, but whatever it was did it before it started snowing last night … sometime during the day yesterday. There were no fresh tracks and whatever it was dragged off the bait a good distance as we searched all over for it. Plans were in the works for an- other trip back to the property before the January 31 season-ending deadline came. Both the landowner and I agreed the requirement to wear blaze orange probably caused us to not see more wolves than we otherwise would have. The nice thing was that muzzleloader season would be over after this trip. So next time I would have complete snow camo.
As my hunting partner and I were trying to arrange another trip up north, I called my local conservation officer to run a question by her. In the midst of our conversation she told me that a bunch of wolves had been harvested this week
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and they had almost reached their quota of 56 wolves. She said that there was a chance the season could be closing early, by the end of the week or the end of the weekend. With those words ringing in my ears I hit the panic button, as it was already Thursday!
Ten minutes after hanging up with the conservation officer, she called back and said she just officially received an email saying they would be closing the season at the end of the day on Saturday. I had barely hung up the phone and I dialed my hunting partner. The rest of Thursday and the first half of Friday were spent frantically searching for a babysitter as my wife had to work on Saturday.
After a dozen phone calls to baby-
sitters and family members, in the end it was her boss who gave in and granted her the weekend off so I could head out of town. With only a few hours of day- light left on Friday, I knew there was no chance of making it up to the property in time. Instead, I spent the time shooting, figuring out my come-ups for the rifle out to 600 yards.
Back at home, I frantically packed. My hunting partner arrived at my house, we threw in his gear, and were on the road by 6:00 p.m. Arriving at
camp late, we fired up the generator and hit the bed. As I lay there, I chuck- led to myself about how much time we had spent hunting and it was going to come down to an all or nothing one-day Saturday hunt.
At 4:30 a.m. my hunting partner
awakened me, saying the generator had died. I got up and made my way out the door when I heard it running. All was good. But at this point I was wide awake, and the excitement and anticipa- tion of the last chance wasn’t going to let me go back to sleep anytime soon. Finally the alarm went off. I had planned to be out there from dawn to dusk. I had packed heavy, but both my hunting partner and I had gone to extreme lengths to keep scent free. The weather was warm, pushing 32 degrees when we left the truck, with a high of 35 degrees forecast for the day. Halfway to my spot it started to mist hard and then drizzle. I smiled and patted myself on the back for buying a set of Butler Creek lens caps a couple of days ago. Then I knew I wouldn’t be fighting to keep my optics clear like I did last week. The snow was wet and noisy to walk in and it took me much longer to make the walk than I would have liked. As I passed the carcass I was floored to
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