Hello, friends. This week I am writing to you about some experiences that I had at my hunting camp.

Tuesday, Nov. 10

High 56, low 21

I arrived at my camp in the Meadow Valley Wildlife Area about noon today for a 24-hour visit to try to harvest a deer with a bow and do some important thinking.

Yesterday, I talked to a group of four bow hunters that had yet to harvest a deer after six days. I really had no cares, as this hunt was more for therapy then tagging a deer.

I spent the afternoon sitting in a white pine overlooking three deer trails. Ten minutes after getting in my tree, and during perfect daylight, I heard the often times beautiful howl of a timber wolf. This time my experience was not so perfect as it was close by and meant I would not see a deer on this hunt.

After dark, I stacked firewood outside my deer shack and listened to the howling of timber wolves. I know this land so well that I could literally imagine where the wolves were sitting and looking up at the same moon that I was watching.

After I went to sleep I was awakened by a mouse sitting on the middle of my forehead. Before I flinched, I had a millisecond to think about what was happening, and I really think that mouse had no fear of me.

Saturday, Nov. 14

High 56, low 24

I spent the following weekend at camp, hunting whitetail deer with a bow and arrow and had several experiences with wolves and did not see a deer.

I believe since the eastern timber wolf has basically become pack to pack through much of the northern half of Wisconsin, being a whitetail deer is a bit more dangerous than it used to be.

From what I have learned in my weekly travels since 1989, when you first have a wolf pack move into an area, some deer are harvested by the pack. In reality, most of the deer in the pack’s home range move to the outside edge of the range. This is good news if you have land on the outside edge and bad news if you have 100 acres smack dab in the middle.

What I have witnessed is that with the growing wolf population, there is very little outside edge anymore.

In other words, much of the northern half of Wisconsin has become pack to pack.

Two hard winters in a row and ample anterless permits have also done their part in reducing the deer herd in much of Wisconsin’s big forest country.

Before anyone jumps on me about being anti-wolf, please look back in this column during the ‘90s when I was writing about how incredible it was to have the wolf return to our forests and marshes.

In this outdoorsman’s opinion, there will be a time, when sound management just like with geese, deer and fish, should prevail in harvesting some timber wolf. Perhaps this could be through a limited harvest with a lottery for both hunters and trappers.

Enough said. Sunset.