The following is a Wisconsin bear hunting story written my friend at Willowridge Calls.  This is the first time I’ve heard of wolves eating a large adult black bear.  Usually wolves stay well away from bears. There are many reports from hunters regarding their encounters with  aggressive wolves and coyotes during the 2015 hunting seasons.  Not all want to share their stories because some of the anti wolf hunting/trapping people will harass them and in some cases threaten violence.

I spent most of my fall up north at the cabin Bear hunting. I did all my own baiting and placing stands. I had two good baits that were being hit twice a day by big bears, and lots of sows with cubs. They were hitting the baits at noon and 7pm. I hunted with my crossbow this year. I finally got a big bore that came in at 5pm and he gave me a good clean shot. I drove an arrow in him just behind his front leg and off he went towards the marsh. I gave him 30 minutes, then got down and went to the truck to get my shotgun/slugs for trailing, I had my sidearm on me just in case a sow got to close in the tree. I picked up the blood trail and followed it about 100 yds. and heard growling ahead of me. I hesitated a bit just to be safe, the brush was so thick you could only see about 60 yds. at best. As I waited 5 wolves stepped out of the brush and stood facing me then 3 more showed up. Two went to my left and one to my right. The two on my left kept getting closer when they got to about 30 yds. I fired a few rounds at them with my 357. They backed off about 25 yds. then started coming towards me again, the other wolves just stood watching. I backed off and out. Two  wolves I could handle, but 8 would of been trouble. The lone wolf to my right followed me all the way back to the truck, and watched me leave. I went back in the next morning to see how bad they ate my bear; but they were still there feeding on it.  I never did get to lay a hand on my bear. That was the last bear that gave me a shot so I ate tag soup on the bear.

That’s the problem up there in that area of northern WI. The wolf packs are getting so big that they are starving themselves because there is so  little for them to feed on anymore. I had that bait set out the 4th of July and had cameras on it, got quite a few wolf pics on the bait. The time I spent sitting on that bait I saw a total of 27 different wolves around that bait, I’d see 3-5 usually, but 3 days before I shot that bear there was a pack of 11 that came through. Usually they would send in one wolf to the bait to see what scent they could pick up, if there was a scent of a sow with cubs they would follow it off through the woods. The people up there are screaming about the wolves. The other bear hunters I talked with that ran bear dogs, said they couldn’t run a bait more that once a week and not more that 3 times a season, because the wolves would lay in wait for them to turn the dogs loose and attack their dogs on trail. Even some of the home owners won’t let their little kids wait for the school bus at the end of their driveways anymore because the wolves would come on to their front yards and watch the kids run to the bus. One of the TV bow hunting shows had shot a big buck and the wolves got that before they found it. They warn all the hikers and skiers that use the trails up there to make sure you’re armed before entering the woods. Even when I let my dogs out to go I followed them out with my sidearm because  wolves wait in my driveway some days, it doesn’t take them long to learn what times you let your pets out.

I could have shot both those wolves that came at me, but I didn’t want to have an issue with the feds, as long as they backed off and didn’t come at me as fast as they did the first time, if they would have I’d have had to drop them both. That’s why I backed off, being alone with no one around for back-up with 8 wolves is too risky. With having 3 attacks reported this year, and a lot of others that had wolves circling bow hunters in their stands, it’s gonna get worst before it gets better. I had posted my story on Facebook on the Wisconsin Wolf Hunters page  there was a lot of reports of the same problem with other hunter in northern WI.

By Willowridge