Hunter or Hunted?

Hunter or Hunted?

The Rainbow Lake Wilderness area; the best thing Bill Clinton ever did! Eleven-odd square miles of big woods country in Bayfield County in between Delta and Drummond Wisconsin. This is where I call home when it comes to hunting. This is also where the wolf calls its dining room when it comes to eating.

This is a short story of my encounter with wolves that haunts me to this day, and it happened last fall.

For years, I’ve stuck in the private/public lands of Delta. Though it’s big woods, there is enough private ownership to keep things interesting if you can get sole permission to hunt in certain places.

In the first week of November, when the morning air was crisp and the forest was alive with the sounds of the rut, my friend, Kris and I decided to do some scouting in the wilderness area. After all, it’s only 2 miles from my cabin. We found an old logging road in the deep woods that was worn down to China with a runway and scrapes. The area was also loaded with acorns. We marked the spot and because I had committed to hunting elsewhere that evening, my friend hunted it.

Upon his return, we all gathered around to hear his tale of seeing 4 bucks that afternoon and 3 of them were shooters. He told us that the first buck he saw was a barely legal spike that will show up again later in the story. One of the three shooters was the first non-typical buck he had ever seen. He decided to return the next day. He had virtually the same encounter but never had anything within range.

Well, I had enough! It was my idea to venture in this direction. It was my turn to hunt there. So, another hunting partner, Dan, who had already successfully tagged a fine 8 pointer, said he would videotape for me. As we walked to the spot I had decided to hunt in with our climbers, I was pointing to a tree and we both caught movement. It was a doe, and it was running in a direction that would take it right past us at 30 yards. We hit the ground. I barely had time to nock an arrow as I saw the buck approaching from approximately 80 yards behind her. The wise old doe, with her keen senses caught our motion and stopped right in front of us. Wishing the buck was right on her heels, I prepared for what would take place if she stood there for 10 seconds and gave the big boy a chance to catch up. The wind was good, but it didn’t matter, she sensed something was wrong and off she shot in the opposite direction with the brute hot on her trail. Dan and I looked at each other with excitement knowing darn well what an afternoon we were in for, and we hadn’t had a chance to get set up yet!

I wish I had more to write about that evening hunt. However, the small spike buck that showed up for Kris made an appearance for me too. That was it. After that, we sat and waited for the woods to get dark before we snuck out.

Now, this stand had been hunted 3 afternoons in a row and was pretty well stunk up. I wanted to let it settle for a couple of days and hunt another spot I was excited about. The next day came and the wind was all wrong for my other spots and I had no choice but to return because the wind was perfect. What a mistake this turned out to be.

The wind was too perfect. Let me explain.

I crawled into my climber, getting more pumped the further I got off the ground. You see, we had a fresh dusting of snow that night and for the first time, everything was white. I was walking on freshly buried acorns all the way to my stand and I couldn’t wait until the first deer would show up downwind from me pawing them up. It wasn’t long until that little spike, probably not old enough to even know why his tarsals were stained, came poking his tiny antlers down the runway pretending to be a vacuum cleaner all the way. His chewing of the acorn sounded like my 12 year olds eating popcorn during their favorite movie in the stillness of the woods. He came within 10 yards and caught a whiff of my drag rag I had hanging over a nearby scrape. He seemed puzzled by the unusual scent of Tinks. (Side note to this story, I’ve never used Tink’s since) The little buck made a circle and slowly meandered his way back in the direction he came from.

That was the last deer I saw.

As the sky darkened with clouds, the sunset soon followed, and as the light switch of our November sky works, it soon became time to get down.

I typically scan the area a few minutes before legal hours ends. If there isn’t anything around, I’ll get down early so I can get out without spooking anything in the dark. I don’t use a flashlight. My GPS gets me to where I’m going.

As I was scanning the area, I caught motion to my right. It was an animal that seemed to be pacing back and forth on the horizon, almost like a buck trying to scent check a trail. The shadow of the creature made a half circle in front of me and eventually made it’s way towards me on the same path the little buck took. I decided to wait to see what it was and hope it would make it’s way by without an incident. It was clearly not of body size to get excited about a big buck. However, as it darkened further, I was in awe as it wasn’t until it was thirty yards away that I made a discovery. It was a wolf. Not a deer, nor bear, nor any other northwoods animal that I had grown accustomed to seeing. It proceeded to sniff the trail of that little buck to the exact spot where it stopped 10 yards from my treestand.

It was as beautiful as I had pictured my first encounter with a wolf to be. It had a mixture of earthy gray tones to its full furred hide. Its face was whiter than the rest of it. But, all beauty quickly diminished as it sat down 10 yards away, with it’s back to me, upwind, and let out the loudest HOOOOWWWWLLLLLL I had ever heard.

Up until that point, I had never seen a wolf in the woods. There was no ignorance to their existence due to the fact that we hear them all the time and occasionally lose a questionably shot deer that we let sit overnight. No sir. We knew they were out there. Others in my group had seen them. I was one of the few who hadn’t. I wished it was with other circumstances because as soon as it held its head high and chilled my bones to the core with its yell, others chimed in around me. My knees buckled as I collapsed into the seat of my API Grand Slam Supreme. The seat is usually comforting on a long sit, but not this time. It was all I could do to not fall out of the tree. I did the first thing I thought of and yelled, “Get outta here!”

At this, I startled it and it jumped off the snow, whirled around and stared up at me. I’m not going to lie. I carry a .44 magnum for this very reason, and as it stared at me, making me shiver like a dog crapping razor blades, I fumbled to draw my weapon and shoot. With a cloud of dust about 3 feet away from it, the wolf ran. It quickly disappeared in the brush and everything went silent except for my heartbeat. As I write this I get goose bumps.

I sat back down to regain my composure and get a game plan. By this time it was dark. Like I said earlier, I don’t carry a flashlight. I holstered my weapon, let down my bow, and began to climb down, one foot at time, pausing to listen. You could have heard a pin drop. Did they all run away? Were they all around me watching? Were they sitting in front of a chalkboard with X’s and O’s plotting on how to take me down as a team?

It didn’t matter. I was on the ground with my back to the tree and my pistol at the ready once more. Ever try taking down a climber with one hand? Well, I did. It’s not easy in the dark. Nor is it fun. I managed to take a deep breath and get everything bundled up. Stand on my back, bow and backpack in one hand, pistol in the other. I’m not going to say I ran, but nothing, and I mean nothing, got in my way back to the truck.

Upon my return, all my hunting party had a great laugh. Not at the story, but at what they saw on back of my truck. There it was, in all its glory. My climber, with branches stuck all over it. I must have looked like a combine going through the brush. I told you nothing got in my way, and I had the proof stuck in every nook and cranny of that thing!

I returned to that spot. During the last day of rifle season. WITH a rifle. What I liked was that there were no man tracks. What I liked even better was not seeing any wolf tracks. I wish I could say that I scared the wolves out of the area, but that’s not the case. I wonder if they wished they scared me out of the area, or if they are waiting for my return with some barbeque sauce.

Howling for bow season,

Chris Diesing

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Tags: hunting, outdoor frontiers, whitetail deer, wilderness area, Wisconsin, wolf