If you enjoy heartbreak, go wolf hunting. “Please, no” I believe were the words I said to Savage Arms when they reached out and said they wanted to come film a wolf hunt. I knew our chances of finding tracks let alone seeing a wolf on a three-day hunt were slim to none. With hunters having only a 1% success rate of harvesting wolves and with 1/16 of that 1% doing so on purpose (meaning that less than 1/16 of 1% of hunters actually shoot a wolf with the intention of going out wolf hunting as opposed to going out elk hunting and shooting one by happenstance), I knew it was going to be a rough and possibly quite dull hunt. But, as an avid wolf hunter and Board Member of the Foundation for Wildlife Management I also knew the importance of disseminating correct information about wolf hunting and management and so away we went.

The Start

Before we get too far into wolf hunting, let’s go back to the beginning of my hunting journey. I was late to the game compared to most people when it comes to hunting. I was a three-sport varsity athlete all through high school and also played some in college. When that was over, I still had a hunger for competition but didn’t know quite how to feed it. When I was 19, my mom married my stepdad, Tom, who was a hunter. I had always been interested in hunting but up to that point no one in my family hunted so I never quite knew how to go about it. My stepdad was the one who introduced me to it and from the very first time we went out together I was absolutely hooked. 

I instantly fell in love with it and looked at it as the toughest “sport” I have ever played. Hunting allowed me to fuel that competitive drive, the only difference here was that I was in competition with myself and Mother Nature. Hunting also solidified an unbreakable bond between my stepfather and me. We still make it a point to hunt together at least once every year. It’s something very special for us to share and allows us to create some amazing memories. He always tells me, “I was there for your first hunt, and I hope you’re there for my last”. Where I am today, I owe to him.

Hunting quickly became, aside from my family, the biggest part of my life. My husband and I recently moved across the state so we could be closer to public land and be able to get out more, so in that sense hunting has quite literally been life changing for me. We both share a passion for it so whenever we have a free moment, we are on the mountain hunting. Instead of date nights, we go hunting. It’s where we would both rather be. Not only does it serve as a way for my husband and I to connect, but hunting is multifaceted for me. Our family eats wild game for almost every meal. So, for us not only is hunting fun, but is essential to our way of life.

The Backcountry

When I first got into hunting it was how most people hunt, a typical “deer camp” with an RV or tent and we would go out for the day and come back and sleep relatively comfortably. This was fun and a great way to start, but I craved more and wanted to learn more. I had always wanted to do backcountry hunts but never quite knew how to go about it.  It wasn’t until I moved to Idaho that I went on my first backcountry hunt.  It took a lot of preparation, research and figuring out the right equipment. There is a huge learning curve but each time I went thereafter, I figured how to do things a little better or which piece of equipment I needed to tweak to make my life easier in the backcountry or my pack lighter. Now, backcountry hunting is typically all my husband and I do, and it has become second nature to us. A home away from home. 

Throughout the years I picked up different hunting skills and techniques. I wanted to be more successful on the mountain and that takes time. I watched YouTube videos, read blogs, and asked a lot of questions…learning from other hunters that had been successful but also learning from their mistakes. My husband has also been a wonderful mentor. I had a lot of failures but those slowly turned into victories. This journey has led me to feel confident in the backcountry and has increased my success on the mountain. Of course, there are still times when I don’t tag out, that’s just how hunting goes. But I’ve put myself in a position to increase my odds. 

I also do my best to increase my odds for a successful deer or elk season by hunting wolves. These days, when out hunting, more often than not I come across a wolf kill. With the heavy predation by wolves on our ungulates, I make sure to always have at least three wolf tags in my pocket.

The Foundation

I truly believe if I am going to harvest an ungulate, it is my duty to also help manage predators. Wolves have decimated the ungulate populations here in Idaho. My biggest fear is that if I don’t try to help mitigate our wolf issue now, my children won’t ever have the opportunity to be on top of a ridge at sunrise and get to hear a bugling bull in the future. They won’t know what a mule deer backstrap tastes like cooked over an open fire on the mountain top. But most importantly, if our ungulate populations continue to be annihilated by wolves, my children won’t have hunting as an ethical roadmap and skillset to help guide them throughout life in a way that also teaches them the power of hard work and perseverance. 

I am originally from Oregon and was well-acquainted with the devastation wolves can cause pertaining to the ungulate populations. The only difference in Oregon is that we aren’t allowed to hunt them or do anything about it.  This is what motivated me to become involved with the Foundation for Wildlife Management (F4WM).  Here in Idaho, we have no excuses. We have the ability to take care of an issue and as sportsmen, I feel as though it is our duty to step up, create a change, and educate people about wolf management.

About 4 years ago, when I originally heard about the Foundation for Wildlife Management and what it stood for, I immediately became a volunteer. I have since founded the Treasure Valley and Salmon Chapters and currently act as one of the nine F4WM Board Members.

The Hunt

Hunting wolves regularly, I knew certain areas that wolves ran through. A week prior to the hunt my husband and I had seen a pack about 3,000 yards away up on a ridge, so we decided it would be best to start in that area. 

Arriving before first light that frigid February morning, we hopped out of the truck and immediately found tracks. The pack had run the road the night before. In my eyes, finding these tracks was a huge success, although wolves have the capability to travel between 10-20 miles per night and this very well could be the extent of wolf signs that we saw for the next three days. The rest of the day we glassed fervently to no avail.

Day Two started out much the same as the first day. Drive in before first light, see if we can get on tracks or hear some howls. Except on this day, we ran into a buddy of ours who is a guide for an outfitter in the area. He happened to be guiding a hunter who had traveled out to Idaho from New York for a wolf hunt. This man had been out 4 other times to hunt wolves with no success. Upon finding out our friend was taking this hunter to the area we were going to go, we all decided it was best to stick together so we weren’t pushing animals and blowing opportunities it for the other party. My husband and I told the guided hunter that if we saw a wolf, he could be first shooter. This is a decision that will haunt me for a long time to come.

Not 40 minutes after we all arrived at a glassing knob, we hear the unmistakable song of a lone wolf howl. We spotted a beautiful gray wolf across the canyon howling in our direction. This is a dream scenario and not one that is likely to happen again: wolf in the wide open, sitting down, within range.  It is here that I should explain that my husband and I are both proficient at long range shooting. This skill has come with a lot of practice and the right equipment and I do not recommend it for everyone. My husband and I quickly grab our rifles (for this particular hunt I was using a 110 Ultralite in a 6.5 PRC, a long-range rifle and caliber I feel extremely confident with), get to a good vantage point, obtain a range, and are dialed and set up on this wolf within a minute. The guided hunter struggled to find the wolf and after what seemed like an eternity, my husband got up and helped him get his sights set. This was the most difficult situation I have ever encountered in my hunting career. Both my husband and I could have pulled the trigger 10 times over and had another dead wolf under our belts. But we didn’t, we promised this man he could have the first shot.

Unfortunately, the guided hunter ended up shooting and missing. The wolf took off and was gone before my husband and I could take a follow up shot. I feel torn about this situation. It is extremely important to me to respect other hunters and especially the outfitters in our area as they do so much for predator control. So, in that sense, I am glad we let the guided hunter take the shot. On the flip side of that when it comes to wolves, things work differently. Wolves are intelligent animals and quickly become educated. Shooting at a wolf and missing it educates it and makes it that much harder to hunt in the future. Harvesting a wolf also means saving ungulates. Having cross hairs on this wolf for over three minutes and not pulling the trigger took more self-control than I thought I had and I will be haunted by that scenario for a long time to come. But as you all too often learn with hunting, you can’t change the past you can only move on and move forward.

Needless to say, aside from finding a few kills, that was the end of our wolf hunt, and I was elated that we were able to get a wolf on film and that I am able to share my passion for wolf hunting and management.

The Journey

While this hunting journey has already led my husband and I to quitting our jobs and moving across Idaho to be closer to public land. I hope this journey leads me to provide an unforgettable life for my children. A life full of hunting, which in actuality is a lifestyle doused in heavy ethical value. It’s an unbreakable bond between my family and I. It’s memories to last a life time. It’s an unbelievable respect for nature and its creatures. It’s a food source for our family. It’s our best and worst days. It’s a life lesson every time I am duped by an animal. It’s pushing ourselves to the limit and then going a little further. It’s building character at 8,500 ft. It makes me a better person. And one day, it will be a moral compass, a skill and a tradition that will help mold my children the way it helped shape me.  

Because at the end of the day, it’s so much more than just hunting.

The Redemption 

After the hunt with Savage concluded, we continued to hunt this pack of wolves. Every time, learning more about their territory, habits and movements throughout. At one of our Foundation for Wildlife Management banquets this winter I decided to bid on some wolf traps. We’ve never trapped before but having recently gotten our wolf trapping licenses, we decided to try it because we had become fairly familiar with this packs route and figured the traps could hunt 24 hours a day as opposed to us driving a couple of hours and only being able to hunt about once per week. With all the research, hiking and time spent learning about this particular pack we looked at it as though we weren’t trapping but we were hunting with traps. 

In Idaho, you must check your traps every 72 hours, so we teamed up with a friend of ours who had also never trapped before, knowing with two little kids and work it would be nice to switch off checking the traps if need be. So at least every 3 days either one, two or all of us hiked in a couple miles in 2 feet of snow and checked the traps. Each time getting a little more discouraged. We knew trapping was difficult and that many trappers will never catch a wolf but it was discouraging nonetheless. On March 22, 6 weeks to the day after we set the traps my husband hiked in while I stayed home with the kids.  He had been gone a couple of hours when I received a message from his InReach saying “wolf tracks everywhere. 4 traps missing.” The traps were attached to drags and since the snow melted it was easier for the wolves to go a greater distance. I knew he was going to need help finding them and packing them out so I quickly called up another buddy whose mom also doubles as our emergency babysitter, asked if she could watch the kids and then asked him if he wanted to come along for a pack out (our trapping partner was out of town for two weeks at a time). I sent off a quick message to Justin saying “on our way!” and our friend and I made the two-hour drive to the traps. We hiked in and found Justin who had already found and dispatched two of the wolves. Spirits were high but with the snow having had melted it was more difficult to track the wolves. After a total of 19 miles hiked zigzagging through drainages and searching every nook and cranny on the mountain we found the other two wolves which I dispatched. 

The adrenaline of the day’s events beat out any exhaustion I should’ve felt. Never in my wildest dreams did I think we would ever get four wolves in one day and to be honest I could hunt and trap the rest of my life and never have it happen again. Having had a long history with this wolf pack made it an extraordinarily sentimental day. As we packed out four wolves off the mountain, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of great respect and honor towards these animals. For months, playing a game of cat and mouse; seeing what they are capable of, their intelligence, strength and speed…with the wolf on my pack I came to feel not so much as a hunter packing out her kill but more as a pallbearer taking this worthy adversary to his final resting place.