When we open up our deer camp in Montana we expect to get rid of some critters like pack rats, but did not expect to run into a Wolverine. When we pulled up with the truck it came bursting out from underneath the cabin snarling and off into the breaks. A few days later we were woke up by snarling and a ruckus under the cabin. We stomped on the floor boards to end it, but the ruckus continued, A couple of us went outside with shotguns and headlamps. Ol Luke had enough and shot a couple rounds into the floor with his 44 Mag Ruger Redhawk and out come three Wolverines so fast nobody got a shot off. They left an awful stink that lingered for days.
By "breaks" I'm guessing you mean the Missouri River Breaks? Have hunted them a lot over the decades, and haven't seen any wolverine tracks, much less a wolverine, but that doesn't mean it isn't possible.HAVE seen what were definitely wolf tracks, long before they started drifting back into Montana from Canada, and were transplanted in Yellowstone
I agree with you, anything is possible.
My people settled outside Winifred Mt after World War II, first hired out on ranches in the Judith River area, then purchased their own spreads near the Missouri Breaks. Never heard them speak of Wolverine sightings, until the 1970s. Big rain storm hit the area in 1973, lightning hit the Methodist Church and it burned down. A neighbor, last name was Peterson, went to check cattle after the storm and he came across a Wolverine scavenging one of the dead cows that drowned in one of the washes. Fish and Wildlife out of Lewiston was called to verify what he saw was a Wolverine. Tracks in the mud confirmed. Since then I can recall some news relayed a few years ago to me that a Wolverine was killed by a car on Hwy 87 between Great Falls and Fort Benton.
I will bore you with one more story. While celebrating success of a hunter on a nice Mule deer in a bar in Winifred the conversation with some locals lead to talking about the Big Horn Sheep now found in the breaks. One guy said there are other critters he had not seen before. He and another guy were fishing on the Missouri and they saw a critter swimming and motored over to it. It looked like a small bear. They kept their distance and followed it to shore and when it got out of the water they realized it was no bear. Surmised it was a Wolverine after looking at pictures on the internet.
