Yesterday I walked into this stand an set up where the purple circle is. Before calling I decided to do a quick scan with my binoculars. I spotted a coyote sunny itself and ranged it at 542 years. 1-3 mph breeze is in my face and blowing slightly to my right. The coyote did not appear to see me and after a minute of watching it, it puts it's head down and appears to be taking a nape at 9am. In the last 12 months I've called in 5 coyotes within a mile of this spot that got away so this could be an educated coyote.
What would you do?
#1 Take the shot at 542 yards. I can get prone with a dead solid rest across my pack. My gun will shoot 5 shots in less than 1/2" at 100 yards when I can get prone with a good rest. The downside is today I have my 223 with only a 40 grain nosler ballistic tip at 3800 fps. With minimal wind I think I could hit him with a 223 at that distance but the 40 gr bullet would be going less than 1500 fps. I passed on the shot. If I had a larger rifle with me I may have laid out prone and taken the shot.
#2 Try to stalk closer for a shot without calling. I could sneak around to the right and could probably get less than 300 yards. Even though the wind is good, I would worry that the coyote might hear or see me while trying to get closer. The ground has a lot of loose gravel and it isn't easy to be completely quite. I was actually a little surprised this coyote hadn't busted me while I was setting up 542 yards away.
#3 Start immediately calling as I was planning to before I saw this coyote.
#4 Wait 5-10 minutes for things to quite down before starting to call just incase this coyote did hear or see me approaching the stand and it just isn't looking at me because I'm far enough away that it doesn't feel threatened. Coyotes in Southern NM Creosote country tend to not be as skittish at 300-500 yards like coyotes I've hunted in more open spaces like Idaho and Wyoming. Would you start calling with an aggressive rabbit in distress sound as planned or would you do a softer sound and not as aggressive? Or would you try howling?
#5 Move stand locations before starting to call. The sun is in my face and I could circle about 500 yards to my right and still have a wind in my favor. In the below picture, the coyote is where the red circle is and the purple arrow shows the wind direction.
I've been in this situation multiple times. I really like spotting coyotes before I start calling so I can see their reactions to my calls.
I'll post up the results of what I did and what the coyote did in a few days.