timberwolves and bird dogs

[pointerspal]

A couple of years ago now my english setter and I were out chasing grouse up around little fork, and had a timberwolf chase him right back to my feet. My dog was working 30 yards to my right in a thick young pine stand when all of the sudden I could hear him coming back to me on the spirnt, when he got back to the logging trail I could see the hair on his back standing up and tail between his legs. He stood there looking into the thick pine stand and then turned and ran right back to my feet. No more than 5 seconds later a big timberwolf was standing eye to eye with me about 15 yards down the middle of the trail. and just like that he was gone. I still think about it all the time. Anybody else have any run ins.

[LABS4ME]

Had one at 10 yards when I was bear hunting. I was on the ground in full leafy camo incl. leafy facemask and downwind so he could not smell me or make me out. He tried like heck to, for about 20-30 seconds and then just turned and met up with his pal 40 yards away and ambled back in to the woods. It was a littel unnerving, but I knew if he could make me out as human, there would be no attack, and I did have my muzzleloader loaded if needed anyways.

Pretty neat to be that close and stare into the eyes of a wild wolf! They are big!!!

Good Luck!

Ken

[Eric Wettschreck]

I've never come face to face with a wolf in the wild. However, last winter while pheasant hunting my very large GSP mix found a yote and the fight was on. I ran to about, seriously, 5 yards from them. They were going at it pretty good. When they parted to stare each other down the yote was dispatched.

I wasn't nervous for me but I was wondering how my dog would have made out if they kept going at it. Luckily for my dog the yote, while in the heat of battle, didn't seem to care that I was standing right there.

[JayinMN]

When my dog was a pup I was walking it on a trail not to far from my house and two deer came crashing out of the brush and started to run full speed towards us. I thought I was going to be taken out by a deer but they turned at the last second and jumped off the trail. My pup took off after the deer for about 50 yards and realized her chances were pretty slim of keeping up. She was about 4 months old at the time. We walked to the top of the ride the deer came down and there was a big wolf looking at us through the brush. No doubt if she was older and took off after the deer like that for any distance she would have been in the middle of a wolf hunt and probably would have became the main course. I was bird hunting so I fired my gun in the air and he trotted off back into the woods.

[R. Miller]

When my brittany was about 3 years old, she had a pack of timberwolves attack her in the woods off of a logging trail up by Bemidji. My dad heard her yelps, and could hear what we thought were wolves. He fired off a shot and we ran into the woods...there were 5 wolves scurrying off. Our dog had her stomach ripped open pretty good, but we got her back to the truck quickly and stitched her up with mono fishing line until we could get to a vet. It was crazy. She was back out hunting two weekends later! Man, those bird dogs have drive...scary situation, and fairly rare, as that was our first incident after hundreds of times in the grouse woods.

[Tom7227]

Jake the Brit smelled a bobcat in a big tangle down in Kansas a few years back. I didn't know what it was and kept telling him to go forward to flush the birds. All of a sudden the bobcat erupted from the pile and took off. It ran right towards my wife. It got about 10 feet from her, saw the problem and did a quick right turn. She popped off a shot but missed. When we got back to camp the guys were astounded that my wife had seen one that close - some who had hunted for decades said they'd never seen one.