Wolf : dumb or afraid of the height ?

[Dominique]

Hunted by a wolf, I found that  it couldn't see me when I took refuge on the trunk of a dead tree lying across the road in upper Milton. I It stopped growling and passed under me.  A narrow escape in all the sense of the word ! 

 

[ajb1978]

Yep, you've just outwitted the wolf's pathing AI.  Besides evading wolves, this kind of trick also comes in particularly handy when hunting big game. A bear or moose that might not drop in one shot and come charging at you, for example.  If you perch yourself someplace they can't reach before you take your shot, they will flee instead of counterattack if they don't drop in one.  Then just follow the blood trail until they eventually collapse.

[Dr. S.]

Other than trial and error, is there a way to know when you’re safe? I’ve had wolves attack me on logs (like the ones across the streams  near Mammoth Falls in HRV) and bears run up rock ledges that I thought were too narrow. 

[Dominique]

What I wonder is whether it is the path or the line of sight. In my example, the wolf couldn't see me if its field of vision is vertically restricted. Another example. Having an issue with another wolf, I crouched into he Trapper's Cabin derelict barn low end  and it stopped chasing me. 

 

Edited November 26, 2019 by Dominique

[ajb1978]

I really don't know how to explain it, so I'm just gonna say yes it's trial and error...to an extent.  There is a science to it but I can't exactly translate it to words.  It's just more a thing you get a feel for with practice, like "yeah that log looks like it'll be safe".  Log bridges are always safe--at least for now.  Logs that are perfectly flat on the ground or embedded in the ice, like the ones you see in the Muskeg to act as footpaths over thin ice...those are NOT safe.  The ones that protrude upwards at a weird angle, like the broken tree by the creek where the moose spawns in Pleasant Valley, that's a prime sniping point.  Actually just bagged a moose from there the other day.

As a general rule of thumb, any position that is A: high enough off the ground that the animal can't make physical contact with you, and B: there's no obvious way to walk to, is going to be safe.  Drop down from above, goat your way halfway down a near-sheer slope, etc.  Also if a wolf is currently tailing you, you will know immediately if you get into safe place, because they instantly go from their "growl and stalk" mode, to "wander aimlessly" mode.

Edited November 26, 2019 by ajb1978

[ajb1978]

I really don't know how to explain it, so I'm just gonna say yes it's trial and error...to an extent.  There is a science to it but I can't exactly translate it to words.  It's just more a thing you get a feel for with practice, like "yeah that log looks like it'll be safe".  Log bridges are always safe--at least for now.  Logs that are perfectly flat on the ground or embedded in the ice, like the ones you see in the Muskeg to act as footpaths over thin ice...those are NOT safe.  The ones that protrude upwards at a weird angle, like the broken tree by the creek where the moose spawns in Pleasant Valley, that's a prime sniping point.  Actually just bagged a moose from there the other day.

As a general rule of thumb, any position that is A: high enough off the ground that the animal can't make physical contact with you, and B: there's no obvious way to walk to, is going to be safe.  Drop down from above, goat your way halfway down a near-sheer slope, etc.

3 hours ago, Dominique said:

What I wonder is whether it is the path or the line of sight. In my example, the wolf couldn't see me if its field of vision is vertically restricted. Another example. Having an issue with another wolf, I crouched into he Trapper's Cabin derelict barn low end  and it stopped chasing me. 

 

Yep there are a few locations like this that you can find as well.  The barn at the Spence homestead is another, but the small shed just to the east of it is not.  I haven't tested this in about a year, but the little roof overhanging the red barn in PV deters bears, and presumably wolves as well, although I usually just enter the barn itself for cover.  The enclosed porch on the PV farmstead is another safe haven, and actually counts as "indoors".  There's a bear that meanders by there on occasion, and that porch makes a perfect hunter blind.  (Ironically the actual hunter blinds seem to amount to jack squat.  I've been attacked by wolves in them before, and unlike a log that you can just drop off the back end, in a hunter's blind you're cornered.)

Edited November 26, 2019 by ajb1978