Originally Posted By: JTPinTXOriginally Posted By: Infidel 762I hear ya on carrying 2 firearms. It's hard to setup any stand without a little slop. Specially hunting private land you will return to hunt later, some are going to get your wind that you never even see. It don't bother me as bad if a coyote burns in and out without taking a shot, but shooting and missing them rubs me wrong.
Hey Brad, I know what you meant. It's all good
I'm just to the point I keep paring my gear down to the lightest reasonable load. There are lots of things that every now and then I wish I had on me, but I dang sure don't want to carry all of it all the time on the off chance something "might" come in handy. The older I get the more minimalist I become. Light is fast, and the more stands I can fit in a given window of opportunity.
Missed opportunities, lol. I could write a book Jeremy. It is all part of coyote hunting, one of the things I like about it. If it was all just cut and dried science, it would be boring. Just the fact that on any given stand you can get thrown something new, unexpected, is what keeps me doing it.
It doesn't bother me too much when I lose a coyote due to unexpected circumstances. Something that I should have planned for though, rankles me more. Like when I sit down and say "I'm OK unless one comes right through there," and then that is exactly where it comes though. I feel like I should have planned better in those situations. The ones that piss me off though are when I just flat screw up. Miss a chip shot, scope dialed for the wrong distance, just get mentally sloppy, something like that. And I know it is gonna happen. We are all human after all. The ones that are a "Gimme" that I manage to pooch, I will fume on them for days.
Dad was the same way. He hated to lose a coyote about as bad as anyone I have ever seen. He would generally find a way to come back and get it within the next few weeks. Some of the coyotes he was most proud of were ones that had given him the slip a time or two but he would figure out a way to come back and trick them.
I remember one old smart coyote he went after 4 times before he got it. It kept hanging up on a hill 500-600 yards away and wouldn't give him a shot. So one day he gets out his old Johnny Stewart cassette tape caller, and records a special tape with 10 minutes of silence on the front end. Sets it up same place but a fresh sound, and starts it rolling. Then he hurried 400 yards closer to where the coyote had been showing up, and set up. Coyote shows up same as it had been, but this time it was a 200 yard shot, and he smoked it. You would have thought he killed a trophy buck when he was telling me about that one.
I agree about the two guns on stand. I already carry too much gear, so I don't two gun very often. Mostly I practice shooting my rifle up close and learn my aim point. Great way to maximize your primary gun.
But I have to admit that the Mossberg Shockwave and Remington Tac-14 are tempting possibilities. if only they came threaded for chokes, they would have had me right away...