Oh yeah...the wolf

Back on my September 16th post, I told you about a wolf sighting and included some trail camera photos.

I have an update on the wolf that I forgot to write about!

On September 12th, I got the contact information for the 'Carnivore Specialist' with the WI DNR.  I emailed him the story of me seeing a wolf and attached a few photos.  Namely, I was interested in him identifying the collar as being the same style as one placed on a wolf by the WI DNR.

He replied back the following day stating that it did appear to be a wolf and was interested in the location.  I sent him the approximate location and he said they would take to the air the following week to try and pull a radio ID on the wolf.

On September 18th, I got my answer!

Looks like the wolf in your area is Wolf 825F....she has been missing since early April.  Her location today is shown on the enclosed map.  She was caught in a coyote trap 2 miles east of the Menominee Reservation, northwest of Suring on 11/8/11. Let me know if you have any additional questions....Thanks for helping us find her.

At the time she was trapped, she was estimated to be a 2-4 year old, ~70lb female. 

The DNR tries to locate collared wolves regularly.  This is in an effort to study dispersal patterns of wolves in the state, given that this is a relatively new (reintroduced) animal in the state and the DNR is interested in home ranges and reproduction.  In addition, regular contact with collared wolves lets the DNR know if the animal is still moving/alive or if it has been killed by a vehicle, poacher, etc.

The map they attached showed her location at the time they located her approximately 1 mile southeast of my hunting location.  On the days following the response from the Carnivore Specialist, I continued to get photos of the wolf on my trail camera.  A majority of photos were at night.  And, several photos were minutes after a bear had been at the bait (maybe showing the same tendency to follow a bear around that I saw on the 11th of September).  Regardless, what I learned from the DNR is that this particular wolf seems to have at least a 1 mile range...daily!

Based on the information provided about her last-known location in April, she moved just shy of 30 miles (as the crow flies) to her current location.

What I was told by the DNR is that it's not uncommon for a wolf to use a bear bait as a food source.  I never saw photos of the wolf sticking her head in the bait log eating the bait, but there were probably a couple photos of her picking up some scraps on the ground around the bait log.  Perhaps she was more interested in using the bait as a stalking point for the numerous raccoons that visited during nighttime hours.  Since the conclusion of my bear hunt, we've ceased baiting.  Only time will tell if this wolf continues to call this area home or if she moves on to a new area now that the bait is gone.

A few photos spanning several days (there were many photos captured....she would visit for several minutes, and often several times, almost every night):

(remember...DNR got her radio signal 1 mile southeast of this location on 9/18 during daylight hours)

Possible prey (these masked midnight bandits were regular visitors and were very happy when a bear had opened the bait log for them):

And so it happens!!

On Sunday, 9/30, I was sitting on stand waiting for a bear to approach the bait.  There were only two days left in the bear-hunting season.  Clearly, my anxiety over the situation  - whether or not I would fill the bear tag I had been waiting 9 years for - was through the roof! 

I sat for most of the day and had not seen any bears.  At 6:30pm, I was entering my 110th hour on stand since September 7th.  The sun had fallen beneath the trees, and the slight wind had died down to almost nothing.  The woods was quiet now - except for the sound of a few snapping twigs that my ears were picking up on.  As I scanned my eyes in the direction of the noise, a black bear was working its way out of the swamp to my south.  As my heart raced, the bear slowly and cautiously worked its way towards the bait.  I could immediately tell this was a good-sized bear, so I slowly readied my bow and myself for a shot.  The bear started heading away from the bait for a few steps, and I feared it had either smelled or seen me.  Thankfully, it turned back and headed into the bait.  My trail camera captured one (dark) photo of the bear as it was standing next to the bait log:

At this point, the bear was facing directly away from me, so I took the opportunity to draw my bow.  What felt like an eternity was probably only 5-10 seconds, but when the bear turned, I let the arrow go.  With an illuminated nock, it was very easy to see that I had made as good of a shot as I could have hoped for.  The bear took off and ended up expiring in the thick brush 20 yards from the bait log.  I had my first bear!  With shaking hands and a quivering voice, I radioed to my Aunt, Uncle, and Dad back at the cabin that I had just shot a bear.  After an excited run back to the cabin to get a gun and ATV/trailer for the ensuing tracking/hauling job, we found my bear right where I was sure it was.  I was elated to be holding onto my first-ever black bear!

We quickly took care of the bear, got it registered, and delivered it to the taxidermist.  It was a 270-pound (dressed) female!  I couldn't be happier!

There's a lot that goes into a hunt of this kind.  The planning, the practice, the baiting, and the waiting.  As I think back to all aspects of this hunt, I'm extremely pleased with how all of it went.  The hunt that I had started orchestrating in February ended up exactly as I had pictured it!  God blessed me with this rare opportunity and provided the perfect ending to my dream Wisconsin hunt!

If there's anything that can make a good hunt a great one, it's the people you share the experience with.  I'm incredibly fortunate to have shared this achievement with my Uncle, Aunt, and Dad.  They were all present to congratulate me and help me with my bear on Sunday.  My Aunt helped create/make/bake some of the bait we used.  And, a special shout-out to my Uncle.  His diligence - going to the cabin to bait almost every day for the last month and a half - was without question the key to this successful hunt.

The last chance

I had spent a LOT of time on stand going into the last weekend of the season.  My opportunity to get a Wisconsin Black Bear was to end on Tuesday, October 2nd.  With that in mind, I was going to try my luck once more with some long hours on stand Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday - whatever it took!

We were still seeing bears on the trail camera.  The daytime activity was sparse.  But, the nighttime activity was relatively steady and we were seeing a lot of bears on camera.  On one particularly eventful night, there were five or six different bears at the bait in the course of an hour!!  Here are some neat photos from that series:

While these photos were all at night, I was pleased to see so many bears.  With them all around the bait at the same time, I was hoping they would get a sense of 'urgency' to get into the bait earlier the next few nights to beat their competition.  If luck is was on my side, one of these good-sized bears would approach during daylight hours.

It happened the next night!  A good bear approached the bait about 6:30pm on Wednesday 9/26.

Now I just need to be on stand when this happens again...

Hunt Update

Well....

It's September 16th, and since my last post, I have spent about 68 cumulative hours on stand waiting for my bear to come in!

The previous post left me very hopeful that I'd only have to wait a day or two for a good bear to come in, and there would maybe be some additional activity of small bears for me to watch.  That hasn't been the case.  It's a harder hunt than expected!  The action is slow, and the bait is getting hit every two or three days - most often at night.  It seems the big ones have become pretty nocturnal.  One of the reasons for the change in behavior is likely due to the absolutely amazing crop of acorns falling from the oak trees.  It's very plausible that the bears are gorging themselves on acorns all day and are no longer interested in the bait as a source for food but rather just a place to get a sweet bite before bedtime.

The excitement I do want to write about, however, came on Tuesday, 9/11.  I had sat on stand from 8am to 7:30pm (yes, 11+ hours on stand as silent and motionless as possible) on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday and had not seen a bear yet.  That changed on Tuesday.  At 1:45pm, I was looking another direction and when I scanned back to the bait, there was a bear approaching it!  WOW!  My heart rate jumped from a super-relaxed state to 150 beats per minute in a split second!  What a rush!
I could immediately tell this bear was pretty small and young, however.  There was not a lot of depth to the chest, no 'gut', and a scrawny butt and legs.  It even acted young.  From the stakes we had out, however, it was apparent that this bear would probably be a legal bear (42" from the tip of the nose to the tail).  But, it was a small bear.  I opted to not shoot and instead enjoyed watching it eat for about 10 minutes.  Here are some photos of the bear I was watching from only 14 yards away!

What those photos don't show you is that this bear had a very neat white patch of hair on its chest.  This is a genetic trait common in black bears, but it's not something we have seen on the couple of bears taken out of this area in years past.  Pretty cool to see!

After watching this bear walk into the cedar swamp, I sat there reveling in what I had just experienced!  And, at the same time, I was replaying the events and second-guessing whether I had made the right or wrong decision to not shoot.  Sure, it was a small bear, but was it the only bear I would see all season?  Had I just let my only chance slip away?

These thoughts made for a long five hours until 7pm.  The sun had fallen beneath the trees and the ambient light was fading.  From the swamp 40 yards from where I was sitting, a black object appeared out of thin air.  It was another bear!  When I first saw it, I was looking at a front-on view, and what I was seeing was a very broad, round, 'plump' bear.  My heart raced faster than earlier in the day, as I thought this was a big bear and the bear I would shoot.  It approached silently and cautiously - carefully calculating every step.  As it approached the bait stump, I assumed a 'ready-position' for a shot.  The instant it put its nose to the bait log, I caught myself second-guessing the bear's size.  It didn't look that big afterall.  It was another young, short bear - but definitely a different bear than the one I saw earlier in the day.  This one lacked the white crest on the chest.  Here's the one photo my trail camera snapped of this bear:

BUT - here's where it gets really exciting!
Thinking to myself that maybe I just wasn't looking at the bear right and it was maybe a good-sized bear, I wanted to give it a chance to spin around the bait a few times so I could size it up some more.  I never got this opportunity because after 20 seconds at the bait, this bear stuck its nose in the air and in one visual and obvious breath, it took in a smell of its surroundings.  As it was doing this, a twig snapped behind it - on the trail it had just come in on.  Both the bear and I looked back on the trail to see what made the twig snap.  Before I knew what was happening, the bear BOLTED from the bait and went tearing through the woods - crashing through whatever was in its way.  When my eyes locked on what it had seen, it took me only a fraction of a second to realize I was looking at the black and gray face of a wolf.  Yes, a wolf!  In all of the time my family and friends have spent in these woods of Northern Wisconsin, no one has ever been able to say they definitively saw a wolf...until now.  There was no question in my mind.

The following day, we pulled the card from my trail camera, and low and behold, the wolf appeared in over 100 photos!  It is wearing a DNR-issued radio collar and seems to be comfortable hanging around the bait -using it as a food source and a possible stalking spot for late-night raccoons.  I sent these photos to the Wisconsin DNR and they confirmed it was a wolf but couldn't tell me which wolf it is.  They will be taking to the air in a plane this week to try and locate and ID this particular wolf. 

Soooo...the bear hunt is maybe not going as well as I thought/hoped it would, but this day in the woods was certainly full of all the excitement I could ever wish to have!

I have until October 2nd to fill my bear tag.  I'll be spending at least another weekend and a few vacation days in the woods before the season is over...hoping and praying for a good outcome!

I'll leave you with a picture of the absolute beast of a bear that only comes in during nighttime hours...and I hope he makes a daytime mistake when I'm sitting in my treestand.

Bear Activity!

After starting baiting in mid July, there have been several bears visiting the bait!

My Uncle has been baiting daily since early August, and there has been a bear at the bait every day since August 6th!

Interested in trying to pattern when the bears have been at the bait, I put together a spreadsheet and marked down all the times a bear was at the bait, as my trail camera captured.  Here's an image of that spreadsheet, showing a lot of bear activity with some pretty good mid-day consistency, all things considered!

And, a sampling of the bears!

Added stakes that are 42" from the outside edge of the bait log with a piece of flagging tape 36" from the ground.

The Setup - Continued

Here are some pictures of my completed hunting setup for the fast-approaching hunting season!


Big Game Boss XL treestand with some custom camo paint:

Not a great photo of it, but here's a homemade shelf I welded up and painted...it straps onto the tree next to me for a place to put some things.  Spending all-day on stand, I want to be comfortable and have easy access to accessories, snacks, etc so I'm not making a lot of movement digging through my bag!

Here's a view of the stand in the oak tree, from the bait log:

And, from up in the stand, looking down at the bait log which was checked with my laser rangefinder to be only 14 yards away!  The base of the stand is about 15 feet off the ground, which puts me about 18 feet up from the bait given the slight rise in elevation to the tree.

A nicely-cleared and raked path up to the backside of the treestand, to ensure a stealthy approach into the stand each day:

The ladder is a Rivers Edge 20' climbing stick, and I have a rope tied to the tree with a carabiner attached to that rope with a Prussic knot...allows me to clip my safety harness in and climb the entire height of the stand while being safely attached to the tree in case of a fall (no need to unclip once in the stand).

And finally, I installed a bow hanger so it's in easy reach when a bear starts to approach.
Here's the view my eyes will see for as many hours as it takes to get a bear this fall!

Past Successes!

I keep mentioning my Uncle and Dad who successfully harvested black bears in 2007 over bait on the same 40-acre parcel.

Here is the photographic evidence!

My Uncle's bear - shot on a Sunday evening in early October, 2007.  A 150-pound dressed boar.  The 'dressed' weight is the weight not including chest-cavity vital organs and entrails.  A 'boar' is a male bear (the female is a 'sow'). 

My Dad's bear - shot minutes before the end of the last day of the season.  Exactly one week after my Uncle shot his from the same stand and bait station.  A 300-lb dressed boar.