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ACCURATERELOADING.COM
WORLD HUNTING REPORT FORUMS
Hunt dates: 02/28/09 through 03/05/10
I always want to go to new
areas and hunt species I have not hunted before, and had been thinking about
Wolf hunting off and on for a couple of years, but almost all outfitters that
offered wolf hunts either offered them as hunts of opportunity or baited
hunts with no more than a 10% to 15% chance of ever seeing a wolf, let alone killing
one.
I did a lot of home work
spoke to many outfitters and references and
ultimately found Peter Martin who hunts wolfs in a very unique way by driving
them out from forest squares towards his hunters who have been placed at the
most likely points where he expects the wolf to come out. All this improves
your chances of killing a wolf to about 40% to 50% given the right snow
conditions.
I flew by Air Canada to Toronto
and then caught a connecting flight to Timmins, which is an hour and twenty minutes
flying time north of Toronto.
I rented a car at Timmins airport and drove
another 2 hours to Kapuskasing a small town with a
population of 9300 where Peter Martin lives.
Kapuskasing’s
economy is totally dependent on a paper mill and the timber industry that
feeds the mill. There are no significant towns north of Kapuskasing;
the land is covered by huge spruce forests stretching out 300 to 350 miles. A
large part of this forest is not being logged and there are very few or no
forest roads intersecting this huge stretch of forest, this is a strong hold
of Moose and the Northern Canadian Wolf.
The forest land south of this
uninterrupted forest is being actively logged and has many logging roads, the
forest here is divided by roads and clear cuts into blocks 4 to 8 square
miles, which act as magnets for the Moose because of the abundance of the
plants they like and the Wolfs follow. Peter helps keep the Wolfs in these
blocks by maintaining literally a 100 or so bait sites, which are replenished
every few day, a remarkable feat in of itself.
My day started with a
knock on my bedroom door at 5 am, Peter had been up since 4 am, making lunch
bags for the five of us on this hunt. When I came up to the Kitchen the
coffee was on the table, bread was being toasted, cereal an milk were there
if you wanted them, by 6 am we were out of the house.
Our first stop was always
Peters farm and kennel where we would load up more bait consisting of dead
pigs and cattle which Peter buys from farms up to 3 hours away from him, these
are brought up and buried in snow on the farm. Two to three animals are dug
out every morning, cut in two pieces with a chainsaw and loaded on to a
trailer.
Every morning by sunrise
we would be at a bait site and check for fresh signs of wolf activity, if
fresh tracks were found, the hunters were placed around the forest block
where the bait was located, and either Ryan or JF would go into the forest
block with snow shoes on and follow the tracks until they saw signs that the
wolf or wolfs were pushed out of their beds and were running, the pusher had
a GPS and a radio and would call at regular intervals about the direction the
wolf was moving towards. Peter would then make last minute changes, moving
hunters about as the wolf would change direction. All of us were given a
radio so we knew what was happening.
This is not passive
hunting, it is an active hunt and when a wolf is found it may be pursued for
hours, the wolf moves fast when pursued and Peter reacts fast moving the
hunters as the chase changes directions.
I saw wolf signs every day,
on the 3rd day I was placed on a 20 foot wide gap between two forest blocks,
as I sat in the snow I could hear on my radio that the wolf was on the move,
I turned the radio down as I could hear Ryan’s holler coming closer
towards my direction as he followed the wolf’s tracks deep in the
forest block. As I stared into the tree line I caught a movement from the
corner of my left eye, as I turned raising my rifle I caught a glimpse of a
large black wolf as he disappeared into the woods to the left of me, I was
not expecting him to be so far ahead of Ryan, and not fast enough, but I had
seen my first northern Canadian wolf and what a sight.
The snow conditions were not good
this year, the snow is usually 4 to 5 feet deep at this time of the year but
it was half as deep. The deeper the snow the slower it makes the wolf run and
the better the chances that the wolf will run on the trail, or its old tracks
to avoid cutting a new trail in deep snow, which improves the hunters chances
of getting a good shot.
On the 4th day we went to
a bait site about 45 min away from town at the edge of a large frozen lake.
We immediately saw fresh wolf tracks going into the forest block where the
bait was located.
I was sent forward from a side
route to the edge of the lake with Shiny one of the assistant guides, the
other hunters were placed at other strategic points to block escape. I had
just built a blind from spruce branches when I and Shiny saw the wolf break
cover about 300 yards to the left 9 o’clock position as we sat in our
blind at 6 o’clock. The wolf was crossing the frozen lake at full
speed, Shiny told me to hold my fire until the wolf was at least 200 to 300
yards from the forest edge. My first shot was a clean miss, the second shot
only made him increase his speed, but now swinging my rifle like a shotgun I
saw the cross hair go past the wolf’s chest and I squeezed the trigger
and saw the wolf summersault, I had done the impossible, hitting the wolf at
full throttle 200-250 yards away, it is hard to convey my feeling at that
time in words but all of you who have made an impossible shot know what I am
talking about.
I had my male Canadian Wolf and
what a trophy, he was a bluish steel grey in color, even Peter said his color
was very unusual. I slept well that night.
The same day, moving to a
second bait sight we again saw fresh wolf tracks and Jimmy a hunter from
Boston was placed on one edge of another frozen lake while I sat on the
opposite edge with another hunter and Peter as luck would have it a large
black wolf broke cover where Jimmy was sitting and the 2nd wolf of the day
was shot.
We did not see any fresh activity
the next day. The last day of the hunt was a disaster with two snow machines
breaking down, they were fixed fast but it wasted the morning. These snow
machines take a lot of beating, it is amazing that Peter is able to keep them
in good running condition; he always has 2 spare machines and is now thinking
of adding another couple.
We would usually stop hunting
by 5:30 PM, and go to Peters home for a fabulous 3-4 course meal prepared by
Terry, Peter’s delightful wife. She had a different menu every evening.
Terry and Peter are excellent hosts and I felt I was amongst friends.
Aziz
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