Wish I had the answer to that one...and many others of my own. They will make you pull hair out I swear. A couple days ago I had seven sets to check. Nothing doing in the first three. Had time to kill waiting for the tide to access the others so I figured I would sit and howl and drink coffee. I thought at the very least I could keep the old vocal cords in shape, but maybe something would answer and I could go in on them, or better yet something would pop out. Anyway, it had been snowing hard, for a few hours, about six inches had built up below the tide line, but it stopped and suddenly became crystal clear with a nice blue sky. I thought "man, these are great conditions to see something." This lasted about a half hour and began snowing pie plates again. I was wet and cold and though I'm usually patient while calling I decided I would try and make it to the next set. I jumped in the skiff and slowly putted my way across the bay. It was only about 400 yards,but visibilty was maybe fifty. I hit the beach by the set and started walking to the timber. I cut a smokin fresh set of tracks in the mud heading to the set. Then they cut through the snow and they were in the intertidal snow, but there was a small skim on top of those. It really didn't register with me that those tracks were less than a half hour old. I saw that they were snowed in and my thinking was well I either got him or he's long gone. The tracks headed straight down the beach and past my set anyway. I went up and checked it out and then made a large swath in the timber to see if a wolvy was in the area. Big drainage and nice creek, had potential. Didn't see anything. So I start walking back to the skiff and I figure I'll go check out the tracks one more time since it's the only thing of interest I'd seen all day. I took one turn and caught something out of the corner of my eye. At first I thought it was an otter playing around at the water line. Then a monsterous wolf busted out of a snow bank headed full tilt away from me. The movement I'd seen was him busting through some ice and piling into a snow bank in his haist to vacate. Gun in the skiff.
I knew he was long gone, but I went up to check out the story. Plain as day in the snow, like reading a book, he was coming to see what my howlin was about, hit the beach and started cruising towards my set, he passes my set about the same time it starts snowing hard and I jump in the skiff. At this point he was up wind. I hit the beach and walk into my set and do my search for wolverine sign about the same time he gets downwind and smells my set. He turns around and starts coming in. He's sixty yards away when I stumble out with my head to the ground looking for his tracks! He had probably a good thirty seconds of free escape time before I caught that movement. As I was running to the skiff in a vain attempt to get my gun I howled over my shoulder. It was a pathetic sound, but he did stop for a second and looked back. If I had packed my rifle with me I would have had a nice 150-200 yard shot. Heck I was even standing next to a huge rock/perfect rest if I wanted it. Bummed me out. Timing is everything.
I was on a little dry spell there-frustrations abounding-and now all of a sudden I'm kind of on fire(for me anyway) Picked up my sixth in the last eight days today. But still had two more passes, this time it was obviously my fault. I didn't pay attention to the creek level falling off with all this cold and snow and half my #9 was sticking out for all the world to see. Heck you guys probably saw it from where you are. Man, that drives me crazy. I've waited three weeks for this pack to come through and I let this happen. And on another pee set, the big snow fall just pushed em right off the trap, just like always happens around here. Snow, rain, freeze, rain, snow, freeze, freeze, freeze, rain, rain, snow, sun, rain, rain, freeze, snow. You get the idea. I feel your pain brotha.
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