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Ahhhh - the US Government only bought the "runts". Good thing.

Just kidding. There will be some bigger ones, too.

Tree stands over salmon streams are good for wolves in the fall. We shot 5 over 'salmon' one fall - got them all except for the bitch, the most important one - damn. It was a family 'pack' of 4 pups and the 2 adults. The male was sick, kinda like mange, but it about was all 2 of us could do to put him whole into the canoe. (stream at the bottom of our camp's lake) Igor, the outfitter and a good judge on animals, figured him at about 160 to 175. Our hunters shot 3 of them & I got the other two.

My .458 2" with 515gr. cast flat points @ 1,850fps worked very well indeed. I tried to line up 2, but couldn't manage it and still let the hunter take the black one. The second was a day later while checking out the Coho run by myself. We never lose an opportunity to kill a wolf. The last spring's 'pups' were a good 70 pounds and rolliong in fat. They don't get that way without eating well. The 'scat' around the lake, old and new, was filled with goat hair from the winter and moose hair from both - both. We wer elucky it was only a family pack, yet the two adults still managed to kill all but one cow on the lake. There were old moose 'kills' around the lake, bones only, couple nice bull moose racks with skulls, more recent, maybe late August. We saw no goat kills - being smaller animals, probably totally consumed. There were no goats on the 'goat' mountain overlooking the camp's lake, but wolf scat full of goat hair back along the ridge for 8 km. Igor failed to see any goats on that long treck with a hunter, yet every few feet was a pile of wolf scat, just like on the trails all around around the lake.

The goats had been wiped out completely, yet that camp had only been a goat and grizzly camp for 30 yards and always goats visible from camp as they only took 2 or 3 a year. They never took any moose, preferring to photograph them only form the cabin and tent camp as the single engine Otter was the only plane that could fly moose meat out without multiple trips to a lake 'up-stream'. Our lake was only 1/4 mile roundish and to get off, we'd get a pontoon off after a complete 360 degree circle around the lake, then yank the other out, do another 3/4 circuit trying to gain enough elevation to clear the grass, then trees at the end of the lake. We'd keep circling the lake, gaining altitude then head for the big lake, 2 lakes away. The ground then angled upwards radically, seemed we only cleared those by a few feet, each time, yet we'd been a good 1,000 feet over S------sh before heading North/West. It was exciting flying, for sure. We used only the Otter for that lake & took one moose, a little 48'er, but it still took 2 trips to the upstream lake to get the camp, 4 people, gear, the 4 quarters, bear and wolf hides out. My buddy flew in one year after freezup to check the cabins. He used his 185 Cessna on skis as the grass flats on the end of the lake gave him another 1/8 mile of landing and takeoff surface. He only did it once, saying it was too close a call for him flying out again.

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Daryl

"a gun without hammers is like a Spaniel without ears" King George V

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