Ep. 24: Hunting Wolves with Tom Schneider
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Welcome to another episode of Cutting the Distance Podcast. I'm your guest host, Dirk Durham. I'm sitting here in Jason's chair as he's at Elk Camp and getting ready for the big opener.

You know, for most of us hunters, successful wolf hunting remains a big mystery. Wolves are incredibly intelligent and since the first wolf hunting season, they have adapted to avoiding humans. Today we're going to talk about calling wolves with a good friend of mine who I admire a lot, my buddy Tom Schneider. Thanks for coming on today, Tom. Hey, thank you for having me. I'm excited. This is a topic I love talking about. Absolutely.

Tom and his family are wildly successful with their hunting YouTube channel where they feature elk hunts, deer hunts, moose hunts, caribou hunts, bear hunts, and wolf hunts. Tom has quite a knack for calling animals of all kinds, including wolves.

Thanks for coming on the show. And I just wanted to pick your brain on calling wolves today and maybe a little bit of some tips and tactics and whatnot of calling wolves. Since you're one of the only guys that I hear about successfully hunting and calling wolves in Idaho. Mm-hmm.

I keep on being told that too. Just like I'm consistently being told that I'm consistent, I guess you can say. Every single year I'm finding them and still killing them. Perfect. Perfect. You must have it kind of figured out, must have a good recipe. Can you give us a little background about where you're from and how the wolves have kind of impacted the landscape where you're from?

Yeah. So we live in a very timbered side of Idaho, um, the more of the Northern side. And, you know, I grew up in an area where I think it's, it's almost like one of those deals where, uh,

you didn't realize how good you had it until you lose it. And, you know, we had really good elk hunting, really good deer hunting, quality moose, the species we have in our areas is Shira's moose. And more just, not just hunting, but I've always been a big time shed hunter since I was a kid. We picked up sheds in the spring. We're doing a lot of trail cams, scouting in the summer and then hunting in the fall.

And that's one thing that I've done, you know, pretty much most of my life. Thankfully, my dad got me, got our whole family into hunting, all my siblings. And so we are very active in the outdoors, our entire family. And what we decided to do when we pretty much hit the age of graduating high school was

A lot of our, well, Travis, my older brother, wanted to start a hunting company. And he's like, man, we have some pretty neat experiences that we'd like to share with people, but we don't know anything about the filming side of things. So a lot of trial and error. And we eventually started figuring out how to film our own hunts, showing people online. YouTube has been our best success out of anything. We've had hunting episodes.

We've had hunting videos on the Sportsman channel and other places, but anybody that's bumped into us and said, "Hey, I was stuck in red. I love your videos." We'd ask them, "Where are you watching our videos?" And everything was directed to YouTube. So YouTube was our niche and it's really worked out for us. And so it's a passion that I love, my family loves, and we all enjoy it together. - Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome.

Well, let's shift gears here. We've got some listener questions. Guys, if you have questions that you want to have read on Cutting the Distance podcast, go ahead and email them in to us. I'd tell you the email, but since I'm sitting in for Jason, I can't quite remember it. But if you're a longtime listener, you should probably know that email. But anyway...

Uh, first question is I want to travel to Idaho to hunt wolves, but I don't have any idea where to begin to looking for wolves. So for somebody that's, that's coming in from out of state, or maybe somebody that's just new to hunting and just doesn't have a clue where they should even begin looking for wolves. What, what would you recommend? What would be the first thing to do?

The first thing I would do, that's a very good question. So there's not a lot of information out there in showing exactly the areas where wolves are at. But the one thing I really would like to mention is most wilderness areas in Idaho have a high amount of wolves. So that is like a very good spot to start is those wilderness areas where wolves,

It's you just don't have a lot of people getting out there and hunting the wolves out there. You know what I mean? But for like actual information of like, hey, there's there's wolf packs here. There's wolf packs there. I highly recommend checking out F4WM.org, the Foundation for Wildlife Management. They're very up to date on where which units in Idaho have the most severe wolf populations. And it changes every year.

because they'll give a location and say, hey, this unit has a lot of wolves. So a lot of people start focusing on that area. Then the following year, that area is not so much. But then now this area has been neglected. And so now this area is high with wolves. And so that's a very good organization to get involved with. You don't have to show up to the meetings or the banquets to be involved. It's good to just be a member of it.

And then you get the newsletters, you get updated for wolf hunting, you know, wolf hunting tips. And on top of that, if you are a member of that foundation, you can get reimbursed for your fuel expenses and another hunting expenses when you kill a wolf. The area that I live, it's up to a thousand bucks. So I killed that white wolf recently. I got a check from the foundation for a thousand bucks.

And so it's very helpful organization. And for anyone who's trying to get into and get started, that is the place to really look into is that. But the one thing I do want to mention with wolves versus any other species of animals, you can drop a pin in an area with good mule deer hunting and people can hunt and they're still just good mule deer there. But you drop a pin for where a wolf pack is and you have just a couple guys go in, the wolf pack will completely move out.

And so you have to be careful with that and following pins and following what people say where the wolves are, because where you where you're when you're you're pretty much at that point, you're following people. You're not following wolves. Right. And you're in your in your few steps behind. Now, if you could get a lead from somebody that they have first and tell that, hey, there's a wolf pack here. I haven't told anybody else but you.

That's a great lead to get. But leads, you have to really be careful with those because you can get a lead that, you know, somebody told 10 other wolf hunters and it ends up just being an S show, you know, just doesn't work out well. Right. Yeah. But yeah, hopefully that would be that would be the direction I go. Yeah, that's that's great. That's good intel.

Um, question number two, uh, what is the best time of year to hunt wolves? There's two years, two times a year that I really like hunting. Um, February is a really good time because just like the elk, the wolves, the wolves have a somewhat of a rut themselves. And so you have, um, you have males and females around the age of three breaking off from the pack and wanting to start their own, start their own pack. And so they're on the move. They're,

matings on their mind. And you can catch some wolves doing some stupid things. And actually howling this time of the year is a very good, is very effective because you got wolves trying to find wolves. So howling works really good. The other time of the year I really like is the earlier in the fall, the better. And they're very vocal. And it's not necessarily the adults, but it's the young people

young pups. The younger pups are now, I mean, pups from that spring are now full grown wolves, but they haven't had a lot of experience in the wild. And so they'll howl at an elk beagle. They'll howl at a coyote howl. They're

You know, they're not the sharpest tool in the sheds yet. They haven't had a whole lot of experience. So if you can get them howling, they're not just giving away their location, they're giving away the wolf pack's location. Okay. And so what you'll hear, and again, this is about reading the pack, you can tell if the alpha male is, because usually if the alpha male feels like,

there's no danger, he'll let the howl continue in the pack. - Okay. - They want the young ones to learn how to howl. - Right. - But if he senses there's danger, what you're gonna hear is a lot of yipping at first, like a lot of howling, and you're gonna hear a bunch of barking and yelping, almost like if you've, I think we've all been around dogs. - Yeah. - When a dog gets hurt and you hear a yelp. - Yeah. - That's the alpha male biting the pups,

telling him to shut up. Okay. Pretty much. And so you'll hear this, like it's all of a sudden you hear this like howling frenzy and all of a sudden you hear this and it just goes quiet. Oh, wow. And that happens a lot too. And you'll hear that. And when you hear that, he knows that will, that alpha male knows something's up. Okay. And so he's, he's, he's not, I mean, it doesn't mean they're going to leave, but he's onto you a little bit. Right. So, um,

But when a wolf pack gives their location to me, it's just game on. And the other reason why I like early fall is you have very specific for me to weather is very important to me and Wolfhunting success. Okay. Snow in the February. Sorry, I am backtracking here a little bit. Hopefully I'm not too scattered. No, no, you're good. Okay. So February back to February, you have tracks.

The snow, that's what I love with snow. Wolves are lousy with leaving their sign behind. - Yeah. - If there's wolves in the area, you'll know. An elk or a deer, they'll spend time in a very small area, a small timber patch or something. You can walk past them and never know they're there. - Right. - If you're close to a wolf pack within just a couple miles,

You're going to see wolf sign. Wolves travel so much ground. They're zigzagging. They're trying to jump deer, trying to jump game. They leave a lot of foot, a lot of tracks behind. Should you track a wolf pack? I've done it. It's only worked for me once. But you got to imagine if a wolf, if a wolf packs on a mission, you're not going to catch up to him. Right. I follow wolf packs on snowmobiles.

six hour old tracks and I've never caught up to them with a snowmobile. They, they just, they know they can move. They can move. So now we're going back to August. Why do I, what, what type of weather, why do I like the weather in August and September, even October? I actually have some good luck in October too. The heat is,

Heat really puts wolves in very particular areas. I think with just most animals. Most animals don't like being in heat. They find places to bed down during the day. So it isolates wolves in some way. If you get a wolf pack, they're a little bit more isolated. They stay in a spot during the daytime. If it's really hot, they're not on the move. They're not traveling across the country. They're going to stay there and stay bedded.

and they'll talk that's something so the other question i usually get is what time of the day wolves will talk i could it can be a hundred degrees and at noon and i can get the wolf pack howling wow that's incredible yeah and so i can get them howling but that's remember i talked about don't talk too much yeah you just a couple do a howl you get them talking just shut up it's like okay you know where they're at just try to make a plan um

Yeah, there's and there's a few areas that just seem to be what I would call as rendezvous points where you just actually bump into these wolves every year in the same areas. You spend enough time hunting wolves, you all start to start realizing, wow,

Although this territory is huge, like this wolf pack covers 300 square miles, for some weird reason, this one square acre, they just love it so much. They spend more time in that one square acre than anywhere else on that mountain. And there's reasons for that.

For sure. That was one of our questions. In fact, what is a rendezvous site? Because, you know, a lot of wolf hunters, you know, use that term. But if you don't know anything about wolf hunting, what is a rendezvous site? So there's a couple different. So the rendezvous site is pretty much a spot where they they come back to. And that could be for several different reasons. Some reasons could be just the wolf pack is poor.

Wolfpack is split up in their hunting. And so there's a spot they'll all meet up during the day. There's also like a rendezvous point where they just meet each other. It's like a safe place. Like anytime, it's like an emergency and escape place, right? So like, let's say we're at the, you know, we all were in high school once and they'd have the fire alarm go off and we all go to a safe place, right? Where we all group up.

In case of a fire, in case there's danger, there's a place that these wolves would consider as a safe place. Some, sometimes this is a dense site. They'll actually go and hang out in the same dense site, even though they don't have a den anymore. They just found out that this place is so safe that they're willing to have pups there. Yeah. So they're willing to go back. They're willing to go back and visit that spot. Um, I've seen this, this is where my success has happened in October where, um,

You know, some of these safe places, these rendezvous points are in the high elevation, high mountains. Well, the majority of the game pulls down when you get the deep snow. But when you get the mule deer season, the rifle season, the elk rifle season kick in, it's just all of a sudden the wolves go into a big panic because they follow the game down to a lower elevation. All the gunshots start going off on deer and elk.

And usually after two days, I'll go back in that same rendezvous point up in the high elevation and the wolf pack will single file back up there to get away from all the hunting pressure. Oh, wow. That's crazy. Yeah. And...

So like I said, a rendezvous point can be several different things. Some, and even getting a little bit more in detail, but it can be a little bit more confusing, is wolf packs do split up over time, you know, bees that they grow bigger. And you'll kind of have these wolf packs that are, they're like together, but they're not. So you'll have like two different groups. Like we've had a pack that we were hunting and there was over a dozen wolves in that group. We were able to kill three out of there.

um but then they when the winter came they they split up and they were hunting different sides of the mount but then there's a time where they'll all eventually meet back up together again in the same rendezvous point um but they but that pack kind of splits off together i mean you get to point you get so many numbers that it's actually it actually becomes the opposite of being effective in hunting got too many wolves in the area it's just like you know imagine when you have like a hunting group of

six or seven people together. Right. And, and, you know, you're actually doing more harm than good. You're not helping each other. You're just chasing animals away. So, so they'll split up. They'll have, they have places that meet back together again. Um, it's very fascinating to see those, those rendezvous points. How do you, and I think the biggest question is how do you recognize a rendezvous point?

You'll see areas where you'll, you know, there's the places that always keep track of is the areas where you'll see multiple tracks. You're always going to see tracks on the move. You can follow a trailhead. You can follow a gated road. You'll find wolves, wolf tracks in the road. That doesn't mean they're going to cross that spot again. They're just passing through. They're making their routes. Right.

But then you'll hit this spot where it almost looks like you had a pack of wolves, not single file, but they're actually just playing. They're just hanging out in an area. Right. And it's almost like they've been hanging out there, not just for a day, but for a month. Right. And you see areas like that, drop a stinking pin and make sure to come back to that later because that is a spot they really enjoy hanging out. The spot that, so where I killed that white wolf recently, right?

That pack knows me very well, by the way. It was really hard to kill him. I was on that pack's tail for the entire month of August. But I had to hunt them way differently than any other wolf pack I've ever hunted. Like they were the wisest of the wise. Like I've called them in before. They knew my calls. I had to change things up quite a bit. But here's the thing.

I'd like to say it was six or seven years ago. There's this little rock at the head end of this basin. And it's a random spot. There's this little rock. And one time my brother and I caught him bedded on that rock and put a hole in a big female there. Surprisingly enough, they love bedding on that rock. Huh.

That's weird. And it's a big, like this pack, their square miles is like, their range is so big. It's like 400 square miles just because it's a little bit more migratory. It's a big canyon, you know, when the snow flies, the elk pull down really far, you know, and so do the wolves. So their territory is a little bit bigger, I'd say, than most wolves. So it's kind of hard to really pinpoint where they're at. But when they're in this particular area, when the sun rises, they're bedded on that rock.

Wow. It is the, it is the craziest thing. That right there is a rendezvous point. That's where they all meet up. Um,

So hopefully that made sense. Yeah. Unless you want me to expound on that at all. No, that made perfect sense. That's awesome. Okay. Now you touched a little bit earlier on, um, electronic collars and that was, that was our final question. Uh, the question was, um, I've heard that wolves sometimes get wise electronic collars. In your opinion, is this true? Um, so you talked a little bit about the misuse of an electronic collar. Um,

Are there any other things that you would talk about as far as to be careful with an electronic collar? Yeah. So just, again, put yourself in the scenario of the wolf pack. I mean, if you're back in the wilderness area and these wolves have never heard a howl, they're going to light up when they hear a wolf howl on an electronic call. But if you do have an electronic call...

Remember, like, wolves can pick up very unusual sounds. So if you have a little static or anything like that, it's game over. The one thing I've noticed with the electronic calls too is not just the fact they'll remember... So, okay, let me back up a bit. So usually when I kill a wolf pack with an electronic call first...

It's, they'll come in pretty easy, right? I'll use a dying rabbit and they'll come running in. I shoot them. You will never be able to call that wolf pack in with that same dying rabbit call ever again. Never. But if you had a read, you can call that pack again. Like a breath call. They remember that recording. Yeah. Same with the howl. If you use a howl on an electronic call, the first time you might fool them once, but you're not going to fool them a second time. Right. Yeah.

If they do howl back at you, it's a warning howl. Okay. It's almost like it's got the electronic has almost like a sound wave signature that's very distinct or something. Yes. And so here's and then I'll bring up the example of the wolf pack. I was recently hunting the one where I killed that big white one recently. So I get in there early August. I find the pack. I'm like, sweet. They're right where I want them.

And I got up on the, it's brushy up here, but you do the best you can. I got up on this ridge top and I did catch a glimpse of one of them down there. And it's just like, I could tell they're bedded in there. I was just like, oh man, like I'm on the top of this ridge. I have a long range gun. This pack is just bedded right at the head of this canyon. I could shoot anything from here. Well, they never came out. Someone was going over the hill. I'm like, all right, I've called this wolf pack in before. I've called them in with moose. I've called them in with a fawn and stress.

I was like, I'll just try something different. So I use something different on the electronic call. And when I ran that call, they ran as fast as they could away from me as possible. They just ran completely out of the canyon. Wow. Now, and this is a call I never used on before is do they have other wolf hunting pressure? No, it's a long, long, long, long, long ways back there.

I mean, it's, it's at the point where like, if I was elk hunting, you're definitely needing horses and mules. The reason, the only reason why I'm not that far back on foot is because it's a wolf. I can just get it out and pack the hideout, but it's a long ways back. And so I was like, so it came to the point, at least on this pack, um,

where i stopped packing electronic call period and i just only used mouth calls and the and the the demeanor of the wolf pack was way different the way i was running i mean they still weren't like they're still really hesitant to come in but their demeanor was way different they weren't running out of the canyon you know they'd still hang around they'd help back i can get close um and then i did end up having a whoopsie i would have had a wolf earlier but i uh

It was my fault. I had a little whoopsie. Dang it. Yeah. I'm sure you saw that post of my face all bleeding. Yeah. And that's, that's a day I want, I want to forget. Yeah. Dang it. But I think we just learned from our mistakes. So I actually, just to explain the situation to everybody. So my brother, so we were getting ready for my brother-in-law's sheep hunt in Southern Idaho. Yeah.

And, and I'm still on this wolf kick. I'm trying to pattern this wolf pack, figure them out. The other thing I was doing, I want to bring up too, is I wasn't putting a lot of like wolves. They sense people pressure really quick. And so I had it like I go in there and hunt and then I have to back out for a couple of days.

And, you know, if I pushed too hard, they would leave the canyon. Sure. And so they, but they really liked it in there. So I just, I knew that if I just was patient enough, just backed out. Anytime I felt like I was giving them too much pressure, I'd back out and then move back in later. So anyways, my brother borrowed like that window. I didn't, I wasn't hunting them. Travis was borrowing that particular gun, shooting thousand yard plates. I was like, Hey, can I borrow it? I need that for Wolf Hunt.

Cause I just got my long range gun and I headed it. Haven't dialed in yet. And so the trap's like, Oh yeah, yeah, here you go. You can use the 300 PRC. So I'm like, sweet. I take it in there and I have a, I go in there and I'm using the, uh, um, uh, the, I guess we'll talk about later, but the prototype, the, the wolf howler. Yeah. And I move around the corner and I have a wolf standing on a log at a hundred and 176 yards. Um,

And I just dropped right to my belly. And I was just like, man, like the wolf is really calm. I could tell he's not running off. He's just standing on the log. And I'm like, man, I got to make this shot count. Like I've been really hunting this pack hard and I shoot and he just trots off. Like what in the world? And, and as I, and I was scratching my head,

I just felt my face just go wet. I'm like, that's bad news. And I just go myself. So yeah, it was just a bloody mess. I'm like trying to see where the wolf's running. I'm trying to wipe blood out of my eyes. I'm like, this is so rookie. Like, why am I, why did this happen to me? I feel like such a rookie right now. Um, but the reason why I scold myself is I had my pack on and it was just plump full of gear and

And it was pushing on my head when I was prone position to shoot the wolf. And I was like, not even thinking of it. Like, oh yeah, like it's pushing my head forward, but no big deal. So that's why I scoped myself. But I still felt like, oh man, I was a solid rest. Why did that wolf tip over when I looked at my scope? And the gun was still dialed up to a thousand yards. And I dialed down the, I dialed it down.

zeroed it and I just heard the click and I just about cried. Oh no. I was like, and I knew Travis was shooting a gun and I knew it was my fault too. So, I mean, our family's all about like when you're done shooting a gun, make sure to turn the scope down, you know, and the MOA. And then it's just like, but at the same time, usually before you leave the truck, you check that stuff too, you know, make sure everything's down. So I can blame my brother all I want, but yet,

I should have checked before I left to pick up. You know what I mean? Again, two rookie mistakes at once. And it was just painful to see that on the wolf. But then I went on that ram hunt that she punt with my brother-in-law in southern Idaho. Killed a great ram. Then I came back and then killed that white wolf in the same area. So that was...

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So, contrast from back in the day when there was a lot of game that was plentiful where you live versus now. Have the wolves put that much of a dent in the population of ungulates? Yeah, and it really has. And it actually kind of started along the Montana side of the Idaho border. That was one of the places I saw ungulates.

what really happened first. Now I want to also give just a slight background of other predators we have too. We have mountain lions, we have grizzly bears, black bears. We have a lot of predators that run our landscape.

And did I mention mountain lions yet? Yeah. I think I did. Yeah, yeah. Mountain lions too. But you wouldn't see like extreme impacts like you would on a wolf, like a wolf pack would do. You know, you would see the deer population dip a little bit. And our family was always taught about predator management. So we were always active with that. But the wolves were like next level when it came to when they move into an area. You would see it. It was hard not to see the impact they made.

And it really started for me, it was back in 2000, like 2011 is when I really started to see a huge impact with wolf numbers. And one of a spot that I would consider like a childhood favorite where I've been hunting this area for years. There's the same elk wallow the elk always use, the same trail systems. It's just, you know, there's a lot of timber, there's a lot of brush, so it can be difficult to hunt elk.

But our families hunted that country our whole life. And so in some way, it felt like a routine for us every single year. You know, this is where the elk are in the earliest part of the year, mid, mid season, late season. And then if you never had a chance to see that big bull, you'd pick up his sheds, you know.

And I think that's what's really neat about elk hunting or just hunting any animals with antlers in general is just the mystery. When you find that elk shed or that mule deer, that monster mule deer buck, man, you live on this mountain. Where do you live? And that was what always drove me to hunt the timber country was that mystery animal that nobody else saw, you know, were animals.

I mean, there was elk and mule deer that would die of old age. And that was special to us in some way where you'd have these old deer that would live on the mountain with us. Now, did we ever have an overpopulation problem with elk and mule deer or moose? No, we never did. We have a lot of vegetation.

for them to eat. And we have other, we have predators. So like I mentioned, mountain lions, grizzlies, black bears, coyotes, we got a lot of predators up here. And so we don't have an issue with having a lack of predation. But anyways, when the wolves first came in, it was back 2011.

And I was actually taking my sister, um, at that time, Tana was in college and she needed a white tail to fill her freezer. Like, well, here's a good spot where I've been seeing multiple white tails. And I took her in there and the wolves were howling in their heart. And so I took her in there and I had the privilege to shoot my first wolf. That was the first season they ever opened wolf hunting. Wow. Um, it was that 2011 and I shot my shot a wolf the first day I went in there.

And I called it in. It was pretty easy just because they've never had hunting pressure before. But then that was one of the first aha moments when I realized how quick they wise up to calls. And in that same pack, I had them held multiple times in several different occasions and I was never able to get another shot on a wolf. So it was, that was just like, it really made me scratch my head. I'm like, how are we supposed to manage this predator if I don't know how to kill him? And

But that area is sad to say, but that area, no joke, not, I'm not even exaggerating. Two years later, you could not find an oak shack in there. Two years later after the wolf pack moved in there, um,

And it and I'm not trying to exaggerate what I what I witnessed, but I felt like it was a plague where every drainage that a wolf pack would move in, the wildlife would move out. And it just kept happening. It's just like, why does this keep happening? And, you know, you have to turn a blind eye to not recognize it. I mean, but we go in the wintering range. Like I said, I love shed hunting. You go in these wintering ranges and you're finding carcasses everywhere.

of animals that can't make it, you know, even what they would say the sick and the weak. I mean, these are mature elk that aren't past their prime. But when you get that deep snow that's chest high in the months of February, March, when the snow, you got that hard snowpack, the wolves float right on top of the snow. And according to our wildlife biologists locally here, they say that's when most of the damage is done.

Right. Any shed hunter out there knows what I mean by like when at the very like around the time you're picking up sheds, the animals are so exhausted that they, you know, that same bull that would elude you all archery season. All of a sudden he's standing there staring at you. And it's not because he's stupid. He's exhausted. He's he's trying to make it through the last part of winter. I don't know. Have you experienced that at all?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I've seen the same thing, you know, that same disappearance of game, you know, I've had...

It's the same exact story. And I hunt a different part of Idaho than you. And, you know, at one time we had plentiful game in different areas. And now when we started seeing wolves in my part of the country, when we started seeing a decline of animals was quite a bit earlier than what you guys had saw.

Where I was hunting was where they actually, the first wolves in Idaho were planted. And so we saw the effects a lot earlier. And some of the areas, whether they had eaten elk or driven them out so hard that to this day, I mean, I first started seeing the first effects in probably 2004, 2005. Yeah.

And to this day, there's some drainages that still don't have any elk tracks. And I always go back because I love the country. You know, there's always the romanticism to go back to the places you once loved and still walk in those places and hunt elk. But I go back to this last summer and did a lot of scouting. And there's still not a single elk track in those places. And it's crazy. And a lot of it has, you know, the habitat has improved. We've had a lot of burns.

since the wolves have been there, you know, and there's been a lot of proponent proponents of, of wolves and they're like, well, you know, it's habitat related, but gee whiz. I mean, we've got, we've got a lot of fantastic habitat now and still it's almost like they, they, they pruned back the population elk past having any seed to replenish these, some of these places. So,

Yeah. It's going to take a long, long time for it to come back. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of those areas for sure. And I'm hopeful, you know, with the right kind of predator management, you know, aggressive predator management, you know, we're never going to just kill off wolves in Idaho. Um,

I don't think there'd be any way to do it at this point. Um, but so, but with a, uh, a pretty, uh, aggressive predator management system, maybe we can keep the numbers low enough to where the elk and deer have a chance and the moose too. So. Yeah. Well, no, and we're already seeing it too, where we live. Um, thankfully we have a very dedicated hunters and trappers in our area, mostly trappers. And I think out of our area, we probably have,

I would say, yeah, I would say we have some of the best trappers in Idaho, just right where we live. If you actually look at the unit I live in, we have the highest wolf harvest. And I know that the majority of it is from three trappers. Okay. And so they are really putting a smack down to the point. One, again, I'm not going to state any names because some of these guys, they like staying in the down low. Yeah. But some of these guys are so good, they can trap out an entire pack in one time. Wow.

And I am finally, to this day, finally starting to see a rebound in our elk and mule deer. Now are the wolves gone? No, there's always one or two wolves that move in and they try to start a new pack. And it pretty much just keeps the trappers occupied. Some of them are getting to the point where they're like, man, I actually kind of think it's like any hunting where you start getting addicted to hunting

specific species you're hunting or trapping, you kind of start wanting more. And I think a lot of trappers are worried to say that, but some shoppers I know they've got, they've learned to enjoy wolf trapping so much that they all, sometimes they slip up and say,

I would like to have more wolves. I was like, well, let's hold off for a bit. How is our moose doing? How's our elk doing? How, how's our deer doing? Right. Okay. Yeah, you're right. They're not that good right now. It's like, yeah, we need to stay on it. So, um, but yeah, I've,

And here's the thing too. I can't tell you how many times I, as an elk hunter have been ambushed by wolf pack. Oh, multiple times. Wow. Multiple times. Um, one time it was just the perfect timing where I, um, stuck three wolves with my bow. Wow. And, and that was, again, I was still through the learning curve at that time. I was just trying to fill my elk tag and I went 18 days without getting an elk bugle. And I just pounded the mountains, one mountain drain, you know, one drainage after another, um,

And there was this one particular area where there was just a, like, it just seemed to hold big bulls. Like the quality was good. You know, there was a really popular, um, kicker genetics where you'd get a six by six, but then you get kickers out of the side, which would make it a seven. And that area had that type of genetics. So it was always an area that drawed me, you know, there. And, um, I went in there and,

in hopes to get an elk view. And I got into some elk tracks, but nothing was talking. That's another thing that you learned with elk is if there is elk in an area with wolves, they tend to stay quiet a little bit longer because they, they know when they, they give that way their location, the wolf pack moves in. Well, I mean me,

being just trying to find an elk. I'm bugling, I'm cow calling, I'm trying to get an elk to answer. Well, guess what happened? A whole wolf pack surrounds me and I have one trotting at me right at, right toward me. And I just pulled back my bone. By the time I got an arrow in its chest, it was, it was just a couple of steps away. Holy cow. Yeah, it was really close. And he took off. He took a couple of leaps, tipped over,

And I, at that moment, I was in so such thick brush that I thought that was the only wolf. And then after I see that wolf tip over, the whole pack came out looking at it and just trying to figure out what's going on. The wolf pack was just as confused as I was. Right. But I, I just knew it was another opportunity. So I knock another arrow, pull back and I stick another wolf.

Wow. And it died. I mean, that one died really quick. It yelped and just tipped over. I was like, holy crap. I can't believe this is really happening. Wow. And I knocked a third arrow. And at that point, the wolves are really confused and they they bounced. I saw two other wolves. One disappeared. There's another one.

right there close to me still still about 20 yards and i stuck it and it ran in the brush too um so the unfortunate thing is the third one i was not able to find okay but i stuck him good and i saw the blood pouring out so i mean it was a good shot he ran in the brush somewhere and died in some hole but it was kind of raining too okay and it was really hard to follow that blood trail um

But I was, I did successfully pull two out of the three that I stuck out of the woods there. But that was kind of a nerve wracking experience in itself. But I think, I mean, honestly, that's what really got me in the wolf hunting. I just started, I think as most people feel, they just, just got so sick and tired of dealing with this. You know, I moved back to my hometown because I loved hunting.

so much. I love the mountains. I love the moose. We pull some incredible moose out of here. If like one of our friends drew a tag or one of a family member, we'd pull some great bulls out of here. Sheds,

My gosh, I can't even talk about how many elk moose sheds that we still have. We still have the proofs in the pudding. The only moose sheds we've kept are all the ones that are over Boone and Crockett. And, man, we have a pile of Boone and Crockett bull moose from just our area. Wow. So real...

There was a lot of moose. Let's just say they're actually one of the first to go. Um, in my opinion, just cause they're a little bit more of a, they're not as adaptable as elk and other animals. So I feel like the moose were the first to go when the wolves came through. Yeah. Um, but anyways, um,

Yeah, it took that much, just hunting mule deer, hunting elk, and just getting no results anymore like I used to. And I felt like I was always on the tail of a wolf pack. And finally, I'm just like, enough's enough.

You gotta do something about it. You gotta do something, yeah. And I felt like any wolf hunter and really skilled wolf trapper that I know right now, they were once really skilled elk hunters. It's just everybody that has, that were, anybody that I know that's so passionate about wolf or that they were so passionate about elk hunting, they've just all turned into being really good wolf hunters. Just,

just out of spite of what's happened, you know? I think we all want to bring back what we used to have. - Right. - And some people say, "Well, is it that we have an extra amount of hunters?" No. I actually think we have less hunters now than I remember as a kid. - Really? - I think so. And I think the reality is it's not good hunting here. Most of the locals that I know that are elk hunters now don't hunt here. They travel.

what I see, I bumped into a guy the other day from Texas. I felt bad for him. I felt bad. He's just like, he's putting on miles and he's in a, he's in a wolf hub. I'm telling you, like, I'm like, he is, if I have an elk tag here, that's the last place I would go. And he was pounding that mountain and he's like, man, I'm going to find an elk. I'm like, oh boy, you, you,

You can have this mountain to yourself, my friend. I was like, you're not going to come back here? I'm like, no, I'll wolf hunt back here. If that gives you a hint. Yeah, yeah. But anyways, it's just, I'm starting to see, and I guess we could talk a little bit more about this, but I am starting to see a little bit of a rebound come back. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Now, you've told me before about calling wolves.

- Mm-hmm. - You had to kind of get a little bit tricky, had to try to improvise and try new methods, new sounds, new things to call in wolves instead of, you know, it's been my experience trying to call wolves.

I'm going to, let's face it. I'm, I'm a major novice at it. Um, every time I'm elk hunting and I hear wolves howling, I, uh, I start howling back and, and I haven't howled any in yet. They'll, they'll howl till the cows come home. But, uh, and then I'll kind of use some, like maybe some calf and distress type sounds, but I just never have had any, uh, close the distance. Um,

what made you kind of decide to mix things up and try some different sounds until you kind of figured out what wolves like? Well, a lot of it is just I was really passionate about it. I'm a sucky trapper. And so I'm like, okay, all I have is

is to be like, I'm a really good hunter, but I'm a sucky trapper. And I'm like, I feel like the only way I can benefit to people or to, to this area is to, to hunt wolves and to hunt them when the trapping season's not around. Cause the trapping season's very small. It's very short window. Right.

And I feel like I can do a lot of good if I can figure it out. A lot of it was talking to some Canadians that have hunted wolves in the past. But also, surprisingly enough, a lot of what I learned about hunting wolves is the same as I would hunt a herd bull elk. There's just some things like, you know, if you're from a distance and you're calling in a herd bull elk,

Sometimes he's going to run from you. Sometimes he's not really going to acknowledge you. He deems you as a threat in some way that you're trying to take his cows. But if you can get in that window of his territory where you're just close and he feels like he can't run anymore, he comes in. That was one of the first things that I did that was really helpful with wolves is you get them howling. But the one thing you always have to think about, the one thing I always had to think about

I'm not just running calls aimlessly. I'm trying to put myself in a scenario and put myself in their head. I know that sounds funny to say or cliche, like, be like the wolf. But you literally are. You're trying to create a scenario for that wolf. I think it's very ineffective if you had an electronic call and you have wolves and you try to run a dying moose.

And it's like, oh, that's not working. Let's run a dying deer. That's not working. Let's run a dying elk. That's not working. Let's run a dying rabbit.

By then, you just wised up that wolf pack so much, you're never going to have a chance. Right, right. So those are natural sounds in nature, like all of those one after another in the same little spot. Yeah, it's like, huh. So, yeah, there's a dying fawn, a dying elk. There's a wolf howling all in the same spot. How weird is that? Like wolves...

Pick that stuff up really quick. They know, like you said, that's not what happens in nature. You have to make things natural for them. One of the first things I tell people is like when people ask, well, what calls do you use? I'm like, for predator calls. Well, I ask them like, well, what animals do the wolves eat in your area? You don't want to use the dying moose if there's no moose in the area. Right. You know what I mean? Like use, try to customize your calls to the area.

- Sure. - So that's one of the first things that I've taught myself as a customizer. Two, when it comes to calling, you gotta remember that wolves don't like other wolves that are in danger to their area. Wolves are always in war with wolves. The one thing that the environmentalists are right about is wolves are very similar to people. That's true. And that's from, you know, they have the family,

dynamic, but also they're at war with each other. It's almost like people like back in the day with people in villages and wolves are trying to take other wolves territories. These things happen all the time. So when you're howling wolves, a lot of the howling you're getting back is warning howls saying get out of our territory. This is our territory, but they're too afraid to come in.

Right. Because they know that if they come in too close, they're going to start a war. Right. With another wolf pack. And so they're kind of standoffish. And so that's probably the biggest thing that most people get is they howl back and the wolves don't come out. Every so often you get a dummy that'll walk out and get shot.

But usually if you're howling from a distance, they don't just come running in wagging their tails. Right. They'll, they'll usually, you know, you can set up in a wide open spot. You call in the wolf pack and they'll hold up right at Timberline and never poke their head out. And they will howl and it'll sound like there's a hundred of them. But you know, they're actually doing that on purpose. They're trying to make themselves sound like even if there's three or four dogs in the pack, they're going to try to make themselves sound like there is one.

over a dozen. They're trying to be as aggressive as they can. They're trying to chase you out and say, look, we're a big pack. Get out of our territory. Move on. And so a lot of people when they're howling, they really don't know what the vocals mean either. You know, like you don't know. Like if you hear a wolf howling, you got to know what is that wolf saying?

Is he warning me? Is he warning the pack? Or is he saying, hey, how you doing? There's that friendly howl where it's like, it's not aggressive. It's not a warning howl. It's just saying, hey, how's it going? And you got to know what the howls are to know what you need to do next. And so a lot of what my success came through is understanding the dynamic of a wolf pack and

and understanding the sounds and what they mean. Because if I hear a warning howl, then I know I need to be a little bit more aggressive. I need to get in there. In a lot of cases, like I was saying with the herd bull, I move in quiet and I just sneak in, stop howling, get in as close as I can, and then start barking and yipping right in their territory. And sometimes you can get them to come in. Well, some

It's even nice to do that with a predator call where you get really close, you know, you howl. So they can't put that two and two together where if you howl, let's say you got them located 500 yards away, right? Right. You got them howling. So you know their location, you know where they're at. You move in there, you get in close to the point where you feel really uncomfortable.

where you're like, man, you can feel it. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. You feel that you're getting close to the pack. Stop, run a couple little prior calls. The less calling, the better. Like if it's a dying rabbit or if it's a fawn, run it for 30 seconds and just stop and just stay still. Sometimes you have wolves that are, you have the pack, but then you have wolves on the outside of the pack that aren't howling. Yeah.

And sometimes if you try to get yourself too close, you're going to bump wolves. Doesn't mean they're afraid. They're just, they may not know what you are and they may be a little confused. But you just want to, you try to play it safe. You try to get in as close as you can. Set up, try to do a little protocol, 30 seconds, stop, nothing. Try to move in a little bit closer.

And in the worst case scenario, if you move in, you're just really scratching your head and you don't know where that wolf pack is, try to throw one really quick howl and try to get them talking again, see where they move to. But in a lot of cases, when I did that, they would just come running in like it was a dinner bell. And it was almost like you didn't have time to grab the gun off the tree. You'd set the gun on the side, you'd run a protocol for 30 seconds. The majority of the wolves I have killed

Like after I do my last call is within seconds, not minutes. Wow. If a wolf is ready to come into your call, you don't have to wait long for it. The longest it took for wolves to ever come into my call was six minutes. That was a very long time for me.

And I almost got up and left because I had one wolf already spotted me when I moved in. It was, I tried to, like I was telling you this whole scenario, I moved in, I bumped the wolf already. I was like, crap. And the pack was still howling another, um, I'd like to say it was about a quarter mile. Right. And I was like, shoot, like this ain't good. Um, but it's still, it took him six minutes to get to me.

But they were at a very low trot when they came in. But besides that, most wolves, it's just they come in running fast. Your dinner bell, when you do the right calls that they want to hear, especially a dying animal, I mean, it's no brainer for them. Why would they be hesitant unless they've been shot at before with those calls?

Okay. Um, the one thing that I always tell people is there's a lot of wolves that aren't wised up and this, this, and that technique is very effective.

and just moving in, get as close as you can in prayer call. The thing is, without the howl, though, you'll never know their location. It's not like coyote hunting where you can sit yourself out in a desert and just expect to run in a prayer call and expect a coyote to show up. Wolves aren't like that. There's not wolves. There could be a lot of wolves in an area, but it doesn't mean they're just scattered among the landscape. They're all together in a group. And you can, I'd say...

Some of our wolves, their territory is about 15 by 15 square miles or sometimes even 20 by 20 square miles. Or sorry, not 20, not square mile, but like 20 by 20 miles, which would be like, I'm not doing the math right now in my head, but I mean over 200 square miles. Am I making sense? So a territory is really big for a wolf pack. And so I'd say that the biggest challenge you're going to face while trying to find wolves is finding them.

Period. The final wolf pack is your biggest challenge. I mean, 12 dogs can do a lot of damage to an area. So in 200 square miles, even 300 square miles, a dozen wolves can really mess up an elk population in there. So I think the reason why there's not as many wolf hunters as there is other hunters is

because it is so challenging. You really have to put in the extra effort to find a wolf pack and then pursue and kill one. But I'll tell you this, it is the biggest high you'll ever get up in the woods. There's nothing like it. I literally, I'm telling you right now, Dirk, that I had an elk tag in my area this year. And the first week of archery elk season, I chose the wolf hunt. Wow.

That's how addicted I am to it. It's like, why am I not elk hunting? And then when I killed that white wolf, I was like, all right, let's get back in the elk hunting. I tried a couple of days and I was like, you know what? I'm just not getting into it. I want to go back wolf hunting. I was like, how about this?

I will elk hunt in an area where there's wolves. So that way, if an elk doesn't come in, a wolf comes in. There you go. And that's when I killed that young six point. I went in there and I bumped in the wolf tracks. And I actually, I think because wolves are on my mind, I actually thought it was a wolf coming running in because it came in quiet. Okay. I let off a bugle.

um phelps phelps bugled the renegade right the big one yeah yeah yeah i ran the renegade just one bugle um a mile from the pickup and i heard the woods come alive and i was literally looking at a wolf track when i bugled i was like i thought it was a wolf pack oh man and um that six point and a and another young bull came out on the gated road and was staring at me and i was like oh

This is too easy. Knocked an arrow. As I knocked my arrow, he turned broadside for me. Holy cow. Like, okay, okay. This is too easy. I gave him one and yeah, he didn't, he didn't go far. So no, I was super grateful. And then two days later I caught up to that wolf pack and that was a different wolf pack. Um,

So, yeah, I think I just listening to you talking, you and I have talked a lot in the past. And I think there's a lot of similarities to calling elk and calling wolves. Yes, there is. There's a time, you know, you kind of break it down. OK, you have to locate elk to call one in. Right. So from a distance, you're going to locate an elk.

Or a wolf, you know, locate a wolf from a distance. Okay. Then once you've located them, get in close. You know, we're typically, we don't try to call in an elk clear across the big Canyon unless, you know, most of the time you're, you're trying to close the gap. So same with a wolf, you know, once you get them talking, it's like, okay, I know where they're at. Put the calls away, get over there, get close. I do the same thing. Like when I'm, I'm creeping in on a bull and like, I start getting that little funny feeling like, man, I'm, I'm,

I'm gonna bust him here any second. - You can feel it, yeah. - You can feel it. And you said the same thing about, you know, getting in position for calling wolves, you know, get in close to where you're almost thinking you're gonna bust them and then set up and then do some calling. Now elk calling, sometimes I call a little, a lot, sometimes I call a little, just kind of depending on the situation and stuff, but...

Um, like you said, uh, call a little bit, you know, 30 seconds or so and get ready. And if nothing happens, move on. Whereas elk sometimes we'll call for a while and then maybe just kind of wait for maybe 30 minutes because it may take a bowl a little bit longer to kind of come in quiet or whatever. Um, but so there's some similarities and, but some differences too, but I can see the allure. I, I, I'm not a patient person by nature and, uh,

I really like the thought of things happening a lot quicker as far as calling in a wolf. Sometimes I get a little bit impatient on elk. So that sounds really fun, and I'm going to definitely –

definitely pencil in some time to go wolf hunting and wolf calling. You kind of let the cat out of the bag a little bit there when you said prototype wolf howler. So I don't know if I'm supposed to talk about this. Jason, if you're listening, don't fire me, but...

You can fire me. Right? We didn't have you sign an NDA or anything, but... Yeah, I didn't sign anything. Last... Was it last fall? Or last winter? I sent you a message, a video of me blowing on a call, and you're like, yeah, that don't sound right. Right.

a Wolf Howler and I'm like, okay, okay. So I kept messing with this Wolf Howler and I was sitting around my house here getting kind of bored and I took that mouthpiece off our Easy Bugler bugle tube and I put that on one of our other smaller bugle tubes, a PlastiTube and I started cutting it here and there and I cut this and I cut that and then I started experimenting with different thicknesses of latex on that Easy Bugler to where I finally figured

got it to where it sounded like a pretty good wolf howl and you're like yeah that don't sound too bad i'm like all right i'm gonna send you one so i sent you one up there to try it out and um and in your opinion what what do you think did it does it sound right does it sound good yeah yeah and wolves have all different you know like young the younger wolves have their their own volume um

older ones have their own volume. I feel like it's kind of in the middle. I like it. Yeah, I like it quite a bit. I don't feel like you want one that's too like low, like a heifer cow. You get that. Ooh.

you know the really low alpha howl yeah that's that really scares other wolves out you know like that's if you get like a little bit more of a younger wolf howl it is sound it's it's less intimidating um i like it because it's just so convenient packing it in the back country too yeah i actually throw that one now in my pack while i'm elk hunting it's it's no extra weight

It's hardly any weight, you know, just throw it in the bag. And in case we get bumped into a wolf back, that sucker gets pulled out and I start howling them. Yeah. I mean, literally right when you sent that to me, that was it a week after I, I, it was so funny. Did I tell you that story where I howled and one just came running in almost to the pickup? Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. It was so mind blowing to me. So I get this prototype to try and,

And usually when you get out of the pickup, it's like the same with the oak bugle, right? You throw a bugle from the pickup. You never know if there's one close by. It was like wolf howling. I knew it was an area where wolves run often, but I still had a few miles that go from the pickup before I got on the wolves. So I throw a howl. I hear a howl up the canyon. I'm like, huh.

Well, I'm getting my pack on, my gun's still in the rig. All of a sudden, I hear the howl closer. I'm like, oh, crap, I need to get that gun out. So I get the gun out and lock the pickup, and I just start running up the canyon. And I still thought I had a long ways to go. And then I heard the howl up close. I'm like, oh, shoot, it's right there. And then the wind switched and was blowing right toward its direction, and then it stopped. I was like, huh, that's weird.

But I mean, obviously, if it smelled me, it smelled me. I'm sitting there walking. I look right behind me. And the pickup is still in sight, by the way, if I look behind me. I look behind me and the wolf is standing in the trail right behind me. That's incredible. And by the time I tried to pull the gun out to shoot, it already darted off in the timber. But that was my first experience with that prototype, with that wolf right there.

And no, it's definitely versus, you know, like I was telling you, this recent wolf pack I was working on, the demeanor was so different when I was using that howl. But here's the thing. So I did shoot out that wolf with that howl. And that doesn't help any, you know, when just wising up the pack. Unfortunately, I know I'm always telling people, don't wise up the pack, don't wise up the pack.

And then I miss a wolf. My crap. I wised up the path. Yeah. Dang it, man. And they were still vocal. So that, so I'll tell you, do you want the story of the, the white wolf? I didn't, I didn't go full detail. Yeah. Yeah. Let's, let's hear it. We got a little, okay. Okay. So, so the day I get back from the ram hunt and you know, I'm like, I just, wolf was still in my mind. I felt like I had to redo myself. I still had that. I still had that scab on my head. I'm like, come on, I got to make this right.

This is the pack I really wanted dead anyways. I can't tell you how many elk our family's taken out of that drainage. So we go there. Tana, by the way, is up because Adam was hunting with us. So Tana, you know, flew from Alaska home to Idaho. And as, okay, back up a little. She wanted the wolf hunt, so I just dropped her tons of pins of places to try. But I'm like, stay away from this area. This is my area. You can only go in there with me. Like, that's a pack I've been working on, you know.

And so I was sending her to these other places, you know, to try out.

And then finally I was like, okay, you can try that area. But I think a grizzly, she met a grizzly and she backed out in the dark or something, kind of spooked her. Oh, yeah. And so like, okay, I'll go with you, you know. It's a pretty high infested grizzly place too. But anyways, so we get in there and I forgot that, you know, well, I didn't forget, but elk season started. So there's people everywhere in the mountains, right?

And, and there's usually is a camp there right at the head end where I usually get into the wolves. Okay. So I kind of messed up my whole hunt in some way, having those elk hunters in there. Like shoot. Yeah.

And so I'm sitting there scratching my head and this was actually kind of a God given or just a, just a fluke. But I was, we were about ready to leave and we were just driving away from where I normally start hiking and a wolf crossed in front of us. Oh, wow. And I was like, Whoa, okay. And we jumped down to hell, the whole pack lights. I'm like, Whoa, okay. So that means that all the elk hunters were packed in and the back country was

it pushed the wolves out. Okay. Makes sense. Yeah. So, and so we were, we had, so we had the wolf pack located and I was running that howler. Um, but the thing is, I mean, beans that they've already have been messed with before they weren't real. I could tell, I could already hear their howls. And my sister's like, we need to go in there. I'm like, no, Tana, those are warning howls. We need, we need to do something different here. So I actually, um, we went around the wolf pack, um,

Tana sat at their escape route and I came back down. I just told him I was like, just stay there. You got shooting lanes. If the bull pack runs past you, you're going to have some pretty good shots there. And I'm just going to move up the gut of the canyon and, and try to help my way up. And what happened when I moved up is I split up the pack. Oh, no kidding. Yeah.

And so part of the pack went one way, the other pack went another way. So then I met it back up at town. We came back down. I mean, there's this old, there's this old, older road in. It's not maintained. And I hit that road and you could see tracks going both ways where they were held that morning. But you could see there was some young ones that went one way and the other went the other way. And so, and this is kind of, this reminds me back of,

You know what happens like sometimes if you split up a herd, an elk herd. Yeah. But the herd bull is not all that alarmed. Yeah. But what like for me, maybe it's happened to you too. Like doesn't the elk, sometimes the bull does a loop around trying to round up the cows. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So that's kind of what happened here. So I split up the pack and I was just like, well, Tana, like the majority of the tracks are going up the road.

So we'll head that direction. There is a spot where they'll hang up the canyon there. And I throw a howl every so often, but I just mainly just walking up the road. And just around the corner, he came back around the corner of that old brushed in road and at point blank, and I just shot it. - Oh man, redemption. - It was redemption. And I think he was the alpha. And the reason why I see that is because, well, you see all the tracks.

when you're going up the road. Yeah. And you can see there's one track that's just unusually large. You know, it's like, that's the other thing. Some people say like, well, how do you know it's the alpha? Well, sometimes you can just tell based on the tracks. If you're following the pack, you can see the alpha track. You can see just one track is just unusually bigger than the rest of the pack. Right. And that's the one I killed. I killed the one with the unusually large track that was with the pack. Man. Yeah.

And he was a big dog. He's a really big dog. And so, I mean, he's, we, the fishing game actually couldn't even get the tooth out of him. You see that, that usually indicates like if the teeth are really in there, because you know how they, they get rid of a bear tooth, how they take a bear tooth out to age it. And the wolf tooth too. The fishing game couldn't get it out. And usually that's, that means like an older, mature wolf, it, it,

Those teeth are so set in, they won't come out. So, um, so he's definitely got some age to him. I have to get him aged, but yeah, he's a beast. Wow. That's awesome. That's awesome. If you could leave your, our listeners, uh, with one last closing thought, uh, maybe one, one piece of advice for, uh, someone who wants to get into calling wolves, what would that be? Um, get out, just, uh,

Be ready to hike. Cover lots of country. You want, you remember I said how like you got to be like a wolf in some way. Now I can't, I can't walk as fast as a wolf, but you got to be willing to put on some miles. But I think the other thing to say too, and, and getting into wolf hunting is the hunt smart. It's, it's so hard to find that balance. And I know some really skilled elk hunters who,

And you probably know these guys too. They're just too aggressive. And they're the type of guys that actually doesn't... Their type of mentality in hunting wolves doesn't work because they're just too aggressive. Sure. But it works for elk. But then also there's the opposite where you're too safe...

And you don't kill a wolf either. So it's good to just play it smart. I mean, I'm always on the attack mode. I always want to, when I get a wolf pack howling, I'm there to kill one that day. I'm not sitting there, oh, I'm like working on them. Maybe I'll come back tomorrow. I'm like, no, I hear them today. I know where they're at. I'm going to go in there and kill them. But play it smart. The wind's blowing bad, back out. Even if, you know, like you don't want to wise up the pack.

I just if they can if they can relate your howl to that scent they'll never come into your howl again. Sure. Never come to that call again. It's the same thing like I mentioned before. I can't tell you how many times I kicked myself because I was too anxious to get into the wolf pack even on a bad wind that I knew I could have avoided versus starting to swirl and it's like I should have just stayed out a little bit longer waited for my wind to stable itself.

and then mess up the pack and then never having that opportunity again. So hunt smart. I don't want to say hunt smart and not hard. Hunt both, hunt smart and hard, but be willing to put in some time. It takes some time to learn about the pack that you're hunting. And it's not always about learning how to hunt wolves.

It's about learning how to hunt the particular pack you're after. So if there's a pack you're particularly after, you want to learn everything about that wolf pack you're after because they gain different habits than the wolf pack next door. Right. And so learning about that particular wolf pack, it's the same thing with the herd bull. Yeah. You know, like that big bull I killed three years ago, I think it was 2019. Yeah.

He was different than any elk. And so I had, I can't, I couldn't use the same routine that I would do another elk. I had to customize my hunt and to kill him that bull. Same thing with wolves. Learn, learn to adapt, be willing to adapt. Yeah.

And have fun doing it. Yeah. Well, man, I love it. That's, that's some great, great information. I find it fascinating. And I think a lot of our listeners are going to love this. Tom, you have an educational platform that teaches people tips and tactics and wolf hunting, and then a lot of other animal hunting too. Why don't you briefly tell us about that real quick before we wrap things up? Yeah, absolutely. So I do, I started a wolf hunting masterclass and it's, and it's a very thorough course and,

When I first created the course, I wanted to be very affordable for people because I knew it was going to be a challenge. But after I put in so much time and money into creating this course and making it big, like it's actually turned out bigger than I thought. And so even the tech lady that created the website for me, she told me I needed to charge a good price for it.

And, but as cheap as I can make it, I made it 447 bucks. Um, so far I've had really positive reviews on that Wolfhunting Masterclass. And, and the positive thing about it too, is you'll get your money back if you kill, you know, you kill a wolf. And if you're signed up with the foundation, um,

for wildlife management you'll make that money in return on top of that the fur is worth that um i've sold furs for over 500 bucks and the skull you can get between 100 150 bucks too so um so one wolf will pay for the course sure and then you you know knowledge is just it it was one of the most

painful learning curves. I'll be honest. Yeah. Well, I'd say it took me four years till I really started getting that aha moment where we're like, wow, this is working. Like me going out there and killing wolves. This is actually working. And now it sounds like I gave a lot of information on this podcast. I actually have given very little. Um, like there's a lot of information on the Wolfhunting Masterclass hours and hours later.

video footage where we go over maps show where wolf packs like to live we go over sounds wolf sounds vocalizations several different scenarios that are effective calls so on and so forth so there's a lot of information I highly recommend checking that out again it's worth it I even had a really positive review it was one of my favorite reviews so far we're at this longtime wolf trapper

say that he bought this course being skeptical and then after the course he says man i'm glad i spent the money and i'm really excited that we'll find i was like that is like one of my that's what i like to hear yeah and and i want and i got more information to add as well too and i'm always doing what i can to add more information to the course um so

And if anybody has additional questions, you can always ask me on Instagram with stuck and right and ask, you know, if there's anything that you don't see on the course, feel free to ask and I'll, I'll get it on there. Um, but then another thing I've been to is, is getting, um, getting other experienced wolf hunters involved in the course. Oh yeah. People that have different experiences and different techniques and hunting wolves than I do.

Um, that's very important to me, especially in areas outside of timber country. Cause we're, I hunt in heavy timber country. We have friends that hunt Southern Idaho where it's really open sagebrush and they're very successful wolf hunters. Well, I've got them involved in that side of the wolf hunting masterclass where they teach about that, their experiences. Um, but in the end you start realizing that there's a lot of similarities between our techniques and tactics and how to hunt them.

Okay. But, but yeah, so that's with that. Yeah. So that's the wolf hunting masterclass.com is where you can find that. And then I do also have a mule deer masterclass as well, which has actually been very successful as well. I've been really pleased with how, how that's turned out. But a lot of that comes with our experience in hunting mule deer in the timber. It's a different challenge that a lot of people haven't experienced before. Yeah.

So, so those two classes, but yeah, the main, the main one just means that we're on the wolf topic. Um, that will funny master class would be the one to check out. Excellent. Excellent. And, uh, where else can they find you on, uh, social media? What, what it's stuck in the rut. So yes, stuck in the rut, uh, stuck with an N the right. We have a YouTube channel, Instagram. I do have a tick talk is actually, we have a big following on tick talk, but I'm, I'm pretty, uh,

tied to what I can do on TikTok. Yeah. I get in trouble a lot on TikTok. Censorship. But we...

Yeah, the censorship is really bad. If I have a gun on my belt or a pistol on my belt, they flag it. Oh, wow. So that's like pretty much every outdoor video. Yeah. That makes it challenging, but we still... Yeah, so I wouldn't focus on that. Instagram is actually the easiest way to reach out to me. Okay. Yeah. I mean, YouTube, a lot of people love our YouTube videos. It's just...

We get so much comments and a lot of, I mean, a combination of people that support, but you also get a lot of the world too. Yeah. So it's hard to really keep track of hunters and non-hunters on the comments on the YouTube. Instagram is the easiest for me.

Tom, I can't tell you how appreciative I am for you coming on tonight talking. I know it's late at your house and it's late at my house too. So thank you so much for coming on. And maybe we'll be able to get you on again here one of these days and talk about some more wolf hunting stories. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I love talking about it. Thanks again for having me. Awesome. Thank you so much.

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