After two days of up early and waiting we decide to try a different stakeout, which has never disappointed expectations, but which we had discarded due to the long and bumpy path necessary to reach it. "I'll take you there with my unstoppable off-road vehicle!"Franco, our hunter friend and head of the district in the area where Vincenzo hunts, offers himself,"I have a stakeout in the adjacent land, tomorrow we go together then!".
From the early afternoon we see you at Franco's house to consult the map and plan the route we will take off-road, in order to warn the owners of the land we will cross. We open and close gates, fences, nets and cross various fields until we reach the post that in "healthy" conditions requires a half hour walk at a brisk pace. "Never take anything for granted"I think to myself as I bounce in the back of the off-road vehicle"Sometimes we don't realize how lucky we are even just taking a walk in the woods!".
The sun is still high in the sky when Franco greets us and goes towards his stakeout ..
Vincenzo and I settle down as best we can, near large bales of hay, open the tripod and place it in a position that can serve as many angles as possible. Shooting lying down with the rifle on the backpack is certainly the most comfortable and stable position, but in this season with tall grass almost everywhere it is not always possible. And then the bending of the ground means that the best view is from standing up… unfortunately! I find it hard to stand up having to load all my weight on my healthy leg, and I am tempted to sit down often, and then get up crawling behind the hay bale so as not to attract attention.
The sun makes its imperceptible arc over our heads, until it touches the tops of the trees in the woods in front of us. The yellow and green brushstrokes that the light spreads over the fields retreat, leaving room for the advancing penumbra. It is the good time. "Look look!”I shout voicelessly at Vincenzo who is stirring. I can't get his attention, I'm crouched in the grass, like a young roe deer, surrendered to the tiredness of the good leg. A wild boar is running diagonally towards us. He has a decidedly escape-oriented gait, almost as if he had a canizza behind him. Vincenzo intercepts him and even manages to photograph him. Suddenly, without even lifting the griffin from the ground, he inexplicably turns on himself and continues his run in the opposite direction. Maybe he rushed us? Maybe! "But where did he go so quickly?”Vincenzo whispers. Mystery….
After a few minutes our attention is attracted by a somersault that appears among the thistles on our left: it moves cautiously, grazing and walking with short pauses, but with a decidedly sustained step. After a few meters it begins to run and with two long leaps it too disappears into the woods.
Vincenzo turns to me, looks at me with an air between suspicion and reproach "Did you have your Chanel on? !!!" ask me. I don't even answer him, offended by the insinuation. I know perfectly well that he doesn't think so either, but, in fact, the behavior of the two wild ones around us seems to indicate that they have "felt" something strange!
While we each wonder in his head what is happening tonight, a shot interrupts the flow of thoughts and announces that things have gone differently around Franco. His text message confirms our deductions. We continue to nibble around, with the increasingly faint hope that a young male will appear on our post, but the binoculars intercepts another presence: a splendid specimen of wolf reveals itself to our eyes. A large male advances on the steps of the somersault, revealing to us with his majestic presence the mysteries that tormented our minds. We had never seen a wolf so closely, we remain hypnotized between the admiration and awe that this animal arouses.
While Franco reluctantly lends himself to the usual photo with his adult male, we congratulate him and reflect, between the cheerful and the thoughtful, that this year we will have to share the hunting area with another "hunter", without ties. , regardless of sex and age classes, and free to roam night and day in search of roe deer.