Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Wolverines

That marten has nice color to him. No reddish or orange I can see. A couple more of those and you'll have the makings for a nice hat.

Go to Wikki to see a wide range of colorations from around the world

I was lucky enough to see two wolverines at close range, as they hunted marmots near the top of Wonder Pass near Mt Assiniboine many years ago. I watched them for a while, and they basically looked at me once and then ignored me as they continued to hunt.

I ran into a badger at close range once, at the head of Brownlee Reservoir in NE Oregon. The badger stood it's ground and made some some "mock" charges at me while growling and showing its teeth. I only had a fishing rod with me and backed off to watch it from a distance. I think if I had gotten really close it might have bitten me but I wasn't about to find out.

I've had garage attic squirrels (somewhat related to badgers and wolverines) charge my pellet gun...to no avail.

bowmanh,

In 1995 I was hunting mule deer in the Missouri Breaks with a couple friends. Was driving along a two-rut dirt road, per usual with telephoto lens camera on the pickup's seat beside me, when a big badger popped up behind a sagebrush maybe 20 yards away. When I stopped the pickup to take a photo the badger started loping off, so I jumped out and ran after it. Was in good shape and a pretty fast runner, even in hunting boots, so jumped out and started chasing the badger, hoping to make it turn and snarl at me.

The ground was mostly open but slightly uphill. I chased that damn badger, at one point getting within 15-20 feet, but it never did stop, just kept running. Eventually I started running out of gas and he started pulling away, so I stopped and watched as he disappeared in the sage.

Apparently badgers differ in attitude, just like humans!

I have been forchanet enough to see a few Wolverine in the wild over the years. I spent many days hunting and trapping the buggers in SW Alaska as well as Montanas Bob Marshall Wildernesss prior to the 2012 trapping ban, that helped a lot.

A couple of the more memorable sightings kinda went like this.

I'd joined up with a packing buddy of mine for a early season ride crisscrossing Montanas Great Bear and Bob Marshall wilderness areas. It's alway nice to be first for the year in that country if you don't mind cutting endless amounts of blow down and pushing your stock over snowed in mountain passes.

We'd picked three destinations, starting from the middle fork of the Flathead river off highway 2 by Glacier Park with the next stop being Holland Lake lodge down in the Swan Valley to re-supply. We'd taken one pack animal each, one being dedicated to our stock loaded with grain and pellets, the other was a meager amount of camp gear and food. After Holland, our plan was to hit the North Fork of the Sun River on the east side of the Continental Divide then back to our stock truck off hwy 2 from there. We had no true route in mind, we just picked our way day by day.

One night, due to lack of planning, we found ourselves running out of daylight with nowhere to camp along the banks of Pendant Creek above Holland Lake, we settled on the middle of the saddle horse trail for the night since it was high country and everything else was still covered in deep snow. Pendant Creek is narrow, shallow and runs fast in early spring, it was loud.



We broke outta there at first light, we didn't want to suffer the embarrassment of being caught camping in the middle of the trail if anyone was to come trudging along and run into us there. Steaks and whiskey would be waiting for us at the lodge, we were motivated, we'd been riding for about a week at this point, our supplies had dwindled and we'd easily make the lodge by dark.

As we rode along Pendant creek we spotted a dead mule deer washed up on the opposite bank, something was moving there and it wasn't the dead deer. We couldn't quite tell exactly what we were seeing so we rode closer, the creek was only about 20ft wide and we were able to get directly across from the deer carcass with the noise our stock made being covered by the noisy fast running creek.
What we were seeing was the back half of a Wolverine that had bored a hole in the deer's gut and was busily feasting away.

We sat silently watching for a good two to three minutes before that sucker sensed something was wrong and pulled his blood soaked head out of the deer and looked our way. Talk about embarrassed, the look on his face was priceless, he hauled azz in a flash. Not often a Wolverine screws up like that....

Another time, I'll try and keep this short so I don't bore you to death with trivial details, even though it's a little late for that...:)

I had some Pine Marten traps set out in SW Alaskas Tikchik mountains, as I was running my trapline one morning I came across the craziest sight.

I'd set a little 1 1/2 victor trap on a leaning tree for Marten, I'd nailed a chunk of Chum to the tree above the trap. As I neared my trap set on my snow machine I could plainly see this Wolverine standing on the leaning tree. I hit the kill switch about 60 yards out and grabbed my beater 22 and took cover behind my machine. Using my seat for a rest I focused in for a long shot through the open sights.

I couldn't believe what I was seeing, he was holding one paw up and shaking it vigorously. Apparently he'd become interested in the salmon I'd used for bait and got his foot snapped in my tiny little trap.

I shot, he fell....

When I approached I found he had a single toe in my trap, I don't think he'd been there more that a minute or two before I arrived or he'd have torn loose.
His is the only hide and skull I ever kept, It was just a once in a lifetime kinda thing.




Then there was the Wolverine that tried to kill me but most of you guys already read about that.

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbt...privileged-in-remote-alaska#Post14471900

yeah, i guess certain times of the year, in the middle of the night, they belt out an indescribable growling scream that sounds human-like...not sure i want to hear it.

did watch a digging badger once, 30 yds from my blind, moved a lot of dirt and sand in a hurry, which explains some of the mounds i've seen over the years

Good story, Jeff.

Forty plus years ago when lived up near Eureka, MT, a local trapper took 27 wolverines off one mountain in the upper Whitefish Range. Fish and Game didn't know that there were that many wolverines in the whole mountain range.

I saw my first wolverine in the early '80s while hunting bighorn sheep in one of the Unlimited tag units near West Yellowstone, MT. My hunting partner and I stopped on a ridge for a lunch break. We had spotted 3 mule deer bucks bedded down on a small knob about 100 yards below us. As we watched the bucks, they all started looking at the hill below them. We looked below and saw a wolverine stalking up toward the bedded deer. Then the smallest buck, a 2x2 stood up and took a couple of steps toward the approaching wolverine. The wolverine then turned and loped away.

The only other wolverine that I've seen was in the late '90s when I was hunting a Dall ram in the Mackenzie Mountains in Canada's Northwest Territory. My guide and I were packing our camp and my ram down to the Super Cub pickup point when we spotted a wolverine working his way up the valley that we were in. I had bought a wolverine tag "just in case." He now has a spot on my trophy room wall.

Not to be messed with. If you leave them alone they will return the favor.

Saw two in Colorado back in 2016 & gave them wide berth.

cool

I noticed they wimped out of playing OSU this week!!!!

That is the only way Harbaugh can get one over on them.
Poor picked on Wolverines.

I spent a lot of time kickin around the upper Whitefish Range myself 40 years ago and still do today.

There was a abundant amount of game in that area in the earlier years.
Before they shut down the over snow winter travel it was a given you'd cut Wolverine tracks while touring around and the Lynx were as plentiful. There were enough Grouse and Snowshoe Hares to support plenty of predators.

To apply a accurate number of the total population would have been a challenge.

Then came the re-introduction of Wolves....

The competition for winter food alone the Wolf added helped clear most smaller predators out.

We took Elk, Deer and Moose out of there too, the best areas were above Red Meadow lake in the higher country. Link lake and the small chain of mountain lakes to the north of it were really strong.

I was back in that area just this past Fall.
The hike into Link Lake produced zero tracks of hooved animals.
The entire drive for 50 some odd miles through forested country it takes to get to Red Meadow Lake and back produced just a couple small deer, you're re more likely to see Bears and Wolves.

The decimation of the Moose population is particularly sad. They were managed well, tags were few but the Moose seemed plentiful prior to the Wolf population explosion.

A friend of mine was lucky enough to be drawn for a tag in that region and we literally went in there and picked out which bull he wanted.

The bull on the left in this photo came from above Red Meadow Lake.


These two mounts are currently for sale due to the recent sell of this home if anyone would be interested, both are very similar in size with the heads being turned left and one right for display as you see them. They were both mounted by Bruce Babcock.

They have been moved to storage in the last two weeks.

The one on the right is a Pope and Young bull scoring 156 0/8 typical that was taken on the upper Middle Fork of the Flathead. At the time of the kill (1981) it was #5 P&Y bull in state. There is less than one inch of deduction, it's a all but perfectly balanced bull.



PM me if you'd be interested in purchasing, the owner is quite hesitant of breaking up the pair.

I've never seen a wolverine but would love to. We have fishers on our lease in Pa - alot of them. I saw 2 this past week. I was within 30 feet of a female hunting. She knew I was there and had zero concern, even when I moved to 20 feet to take pics. She hunted up alongside a big log, jumped off the log, caught a mouse and sat there eating it in front of me. They are way cool animals and very bold.

My nephew videoed one this fall during archery season. It knew he was in a treestand. It came right up to the tree, sat up, looked him over, and started hunting mice. I told him it was sizing him up and trying to decide if he was going to come up the tree and eat my nephew.

My dad and nephews caught 4 last year in trapping season. They tried to let one of them go from a leg hold trap - I wish they would have videoed it...... needless to say they ended up killing it because no way was it going to get released alive. If Wolverines are like a giant fisher, I'd pay money to watch someone release one from a leg hold trap.

I had one run across the road in front of me once on a winter caribou hunt. Season was open and I grabbed my rifle and bailed out. Gone like a ghost into the puckerbrush, never glimpsed him again.

Had a buddy who killed one with his 44 revolver one time. He was sitting in a lawn chair nursing the effects of the night before’s celebration after killing a moose. Wolverine sauntered right up into camp and he snatched his pistol out of the holster hanging on the back of the chair and let him have it. Talk about luck.

JeffA, Nice looking room there and a couple of fine Moose.
Forty some years agoI had Bruce Babcock do my first mounts of Elk, Caribou, and Moose.

The true trophy there is one man being drawn twice in NW Montana and successfully taking two decent bulls.

Most apply for a lifetime and never get one tag.

Bruce was an amazing taxidermist, due to the quality of his work and continued cleaning and grooming these two mounts show no age.

I watched a wolverine run a young grizzly off a dead winter kill caribou on an open mountain side years ago. It was quite a sight.