Flew up to Graham last night to stay over and have a little "shock and awe" with the squirrels. I didn't heed my own former advice and only bought 75 rounds for the .17HMR. I actually had to slow down to not shoot all of them in under two hours. Needless to say there many squirrels to be had. I figure about 300 rounds a day a piece for this weekend's trip is in order.
Anywho once we (Wup, Jason came along too!) ran out of ammo we bgan cooking on the pit. All of a sudden a deer just eases out of the trees to the south of the cabin and begins to circle us up. It just kept getting closer and closer until it was standing across the fire pit from us. After a while we got bored with sitting still so we just started going about our business. As I went around the side I noticed two more standing near the outhouse. Then two more came bounding in from the trees to the south a few minutes later. Finally one last one came from the east side of the runway. So we ended up with SIX deer just milling about the camp, under the airplanes, one even stuck it's head INSIDE the cockpit of the Cub! They hung out until we went to sleep around eleven.
Now cut to 4:45 this morning when we were woken up by the extremely loud and close howl of a WOLF! The first was followed by another about 30 seconds later and his was answered by another about 100 yards to the west. We managed to get moved around so Jason could see the one just outside near the camp stove and cooler and I could see the one approaching from the west. They were just checking out what we had for breakfast. This was thefirst time I have ever seen a wolf, at all, and they are not dogs, they are BIG. It was barely twilight so we couldn't see detail just shapes but it was enough to see how big they are. After about a minute we made some slight noise and they left. Jason had to keep his dog Roper quiet, but I think that Roper knew to keep his mouth shut somehow anyway. After that we decided to get up (we were getting up at 5 anyway.) and after a few minutes of dressing and packing up a bit we went out to start coffee and they were down by the river, probably six to eight just howling and carrying on.
All in all a most excellent overnighter at Graham! Followed by a most excellent 6:30 departure and flight back to GNG just in time to take the kids to school (it's nice to live 30 seconds from the hangar!).

The deer probably wanted to negotiate protection from the wolves as payment for the squirrelcide.

"only bought 75 rounds for the .17HMR" CHILDS PLAY

My son-in-law and I are leaving O46 (weed ca) early this Friday. We were not sure if we were going to stay the first night at Owahee or not but either way we will be at the first annual BCP squirel shoot an Saturday and spend the night.

When you all showing up?

Tim

John you always have the coolest stuff to shoot! I've been looking at those but twice now that I've gone to Sportsman's they have sold out of them. They are only getting a few at a time. Nice gun though. I like my lttle .17HMR but a faster one would be great!

Wolves Roper is one smart cookie sometimes!!!

That pack of deer are most likely gone now

By the way there's a pack of wolves in the chamberlain basin also. I haven't seen them but they are there.

In September of '05 we had a wolf rattle us awake early in the morning from nearby in Warm Springs. His buddies howled back from what sounded like across the canyon. While it was pretty cool to hear, it was also enough to get the adrenalin really going and the hair on the back of your neck to stand on end. That coupled with all the deer walking around, it was hard to get back to sleep.