k0ua
Epic Contributor
I know the feeling; reading this story makes me recall an incident I had 46 years
ago as a young greenhorn living in the Alaskan wilderness.
I stepped out of my cabin door one morning; the temp was about 30 or 40 below, can't remember exactly.
Not 20 feet from the cabin were fresh wolf tracks; I mean really fresh.
Quietly as I could, I went back in, got dressed and got my Win. 70, 30-06.
Didn't really think I would spot one, but I thought I would try since I was broke, and at that time, there was a
$50 bounty and a sure $100 for the hide.
Went only about a hundred yards when I spotted a small clearing about 50 yards away.
Small voice in my head said train rifle on clearing and wait a while.
Wasn't long that I saw a black wolf lope across the clearing, but I didn't have time to take a shot.
Again the voice said keep the scope on the clearing.
Amazingly, the wolf backtracked and actually stopped in the clearing, looking around.
I put the crosshairs on him and squeezed the trigger; nothing, not even a click.
Didn't take long to realize what happened.
Snow had fell onto the bolt, melted, ran onto the firing pin, then refroze.
So, there I was trying to warm up the bolt with my hand to loosen the firing pin, while,
for some reason, that black wolf continued to hang around in that clearing.
Then suddenly I heard a soft sound to my left and what do I see but
a huge brown head of another wolf peering at me from behind a spruce not 30 feet away.
We stared at each other for about 3 seconds, then it quietly went back into the bush.
The black wolf was still in the clearing and with my hand still on the bolt, suddenly, BOOM, the rifle fired.
After the noise of the rifle died down, I could hear both wolves running off.
I was rather sick from realizing how foolish I was not to have left my rifle on the outside wall
of the cabin. You can be sure that is where it stayed from then on !
Yours is not the first one of these types of stories I have heard. I have never had that happen to me, but then again, I have never been to Alaska either. We just don't have those kind of problems down here in SW Missouri. I have also heard that folks up north, clean their guns and then run them dry without any oil to gum up either.