Back in '91 I was on an elk (Maral Stag) hunt in Mongolia. I was riding in the back seat of a Russian jeep about 5 miles from the Siberian border when the two guides, neither of whom spoke English, started yelling and pointing frantically as we slid to a stop.
They jumped out with their rifles and I wiggled painfully out of the jeep and saw that they were aiming at a wolf that was running full speed broadside across the plain about 350 yards away. The guides fired several shots as I moved to the side to avoid deafening them with the blast of my .340 Weatherby.
I swung the rifle past the wolf kind of like using a bird gun and fired a shot just as the wolf was about to enter some high grass. To my astonishment, I hit him and he somersaulted to a stop and lay still.
There was a big celebration in camp when we arrived and the wolf was butchered and eaten. I was told that the meat of the wolf was considered good medicine for lung diseases. Since all of the Mongolian men I met smoked like chimneys, I imagine they needed all the help they could get. It was interesting to see the love/hate relationship they had with wolves.
The shot was blind luck (either good luck for me or bad luck for the wolf...who knows?), but I was considered quite a rifleman for the remainder of my stay with those wonderful people.
I have some nice trophies, nothing that would make the books, but I never carry a tape measure when I am hunting anyway. The wolf was a gift, I think, from above. It's the last trophy I would ever part with.
