Natenlsn2 wrote:So just last night I started the thread about preadator sign near bedding....little did I know that several hours later I would be standing in a buck bedroom and have the craziest, scariest experience of my life to date. Here is my story!
I wanted to go out in the woods scouting in this new area that I’ve never been before. It is on an oxbow of a river. I was just watching Dans newest YouTube video and he talked about Oxbows so it got me interested to do some scouting! It was a very cold -8 degree morning. I took my dog Leo out with me and we were searching along the river for buck beds. We were about a half mile walk back in the woods when we got to the spot where I wanted to get. We started looking around and found 3 nice buck beds in the snow on the oxbow just as Dan said it would be, so this was a nice predictable deer bedding area. We went up onto the hillside a little further away from the river towards the main body of water and turned around and I heard some noise coming through the snow about about 25 yards away from us at this point. I saw flash of something coming through and I thought it was a deer initially (which was confusing to me because a deer wouldn’t be 20 yards away from me out in the woods since they are so afraid of humans in big woods areas), but then out steps behind the tree the biggest wolf that I’ve ever seen in my life....and he is standing 20 yards away… And it just so happens that I decided that morning not to bring my pistol with me Dummy mistake. Luckily Leo was standing right next to me and I reached down and grabbed his collar. Leo didn’t bark or do anything he just sat there and was probably just about as scared as I was. The wolf was standing over our back trail sniffing where we had just walked. Come to find out later Leo had a small cut on his foot and was leaving little drops of blood in our trail every seven or 8 feet. So this wolf was standing 20 yards away from us following our blood trail, I don’t have a pistol, and it is the biggest wolf I’ve ever seen in my life. The wolf was a grey, white, tan mix with a huge barrel chest....absolutely massive...it looked like a mountain dog. Not exaggerating, he was at least 140 pounds, he looked bigger than me....And so I did the only thing that I could do...I yelled in the nastiest fiercest way I could and it didn’t move....he wasn’t even afraid of me!!! He kept sniffing the blood trail...I yelled again and it looked up at me, and then it slowly trotted back from where it came.
At this point the danger was far from over because we needed to get back a half miles to the truck. For all I know, we might have been part of an ambush with a pack of wolves. After a few moments of waiting and processing what to do next, I decided to keep hold of Leo’s collar to head back....but Leo didn’t want to move… He was pretty scared. Very thankful though that he didn’t go berserk because that could’ve resulted in both of us getting attacked by the wolf. So I finally got Leo going took about 10 yards at a time...stop...look around....wait then move another 10 yards stop...look around....wait. We did this for a quarter-mile and then we felt comfortable enough to run 30 yards stop and wait. We did that the rest of the way back to the truck. Made it back safely. I learned a pretty valuable lessons this morning. Bring your stupid gun with you! It does no good sitting in your gun cabinet, and it is not a fun feeling to know you are being hunted!! This experience gives me some serious respect for deer who live under incredible stress with cold hard winters and predators hunting them 24/7. Just my one experience was absolutely terrifying...imagine what these deer go through on a daily basis....Welcome to the Northwoods!
Nathan Nelson
Still Water Outdoors
Wow. I would have had to change py pants after getting back too truck for sure. I dont have a carry permit yet in delaware. But plan too. We dont have wolves but we have lots of coyotes and they when packed up can get really aggressive ive heard stories so. Dont forget your gun next time its our right to carry anyway. So take advantage of it. Be safe