Summer Yote! Woo Hoo!

R

recurry

New member
Hey Gang,

Well, this was an awesome morning, I couldn't wait to get back in the door and get on to PM:

I had a really bad winter season, because I had to spend the best hunting months in NYC on business. The summer's been pretty lame, mostly scouting and doing some night hunting, with little success...

Anyway, my wife and I stayed up late discussing some work stuff and before we knew it the clock said 4:00 AM. I almost always hunt at night, but haven't had a chance to get out because it's been raining the last couple of days, so we decided we'd run out for an improptu coyote hunting trip; she was going to just going to nap in the car while I popped out, set up some decoys and ran the foxpro for a few minutes.

I figured that after two days of steady rain, the critters might be extra hungry, and I haven't hunted in the morning ever out here in WI, so what the [beeep]...

Well, we got to a DNR site, parked the car in the parking area, and left it running so she could have the heat on. I went about 100 yards down the hill from the parking area, it overlooks a huge field on the edge of a swamp, and set up my Quiver Critter and one of those Lone Howler plastic decoys next to it. I then walked back to the edge of the parking area and set my folding chair up in the bushes.

You have to realize that when I'm night hunting, I drive in with my headlights off (using Night Vision) and then walk in a half-mile or so in the dark before setting up - ultra quiet, stealthy, all that jazz, so it was hilarious sitting 25 feet away from a running car; even if it was partially obscured by the hedges around the parking area.

Anyhow, I ran Female Coyote Challenge 2 on the FX5 for a bit, followed by a few cycles of Lightning Jack and Mad Rabbit... waited a bit, ran some more Female Coyote and then a few squirts of Pup In Distress and Canine Pups. It was quiet for a bit, and I was starting to think it was a total wash, when all of a sudden TWO coyotes run in. I caught them out of the corner of my eye - I had been looking WNW and was sitting on a bit of a slope, they had cruised in from SSW, around the slope. I couldn't believe it, lol, I was so surprised to see two of them I almost forgot to shoot.

Longer story short, I drilled the lead yote from about 125 yards with a .223 from the 700 LTR and he hit the dirt. By the time I got him back in the scope, he'd hopped up again and was strugging through the tall grass. I popped one more, missed, and then got another round straight through his back as he started picking up speed heading away from me. He went down again and seemed to be out for the count, so I headed down the hill to have a look.

I couldn't believe it - when I got about 20 feet away, he hops up again! Like the bloody Black Knight from Monty Python, I guess the first two rounds weren't enough, so I hit him with the last round and he finally goes down.

I felt horrible for the poor guy, because he should have went down on the first shot - pretty close to the heart from the entry wound. Anyway, when I got back to the car, I figured out what had happened - I had brought the wrong ammo pouch and was shooting 55GR solid points instead of hollow points. Sigh...

moral of the story is always double check your ammo.
 
Good job on calling them in!

You had the solid points, as in military type FMJ bullets?
I'm surprised the coyote was still in the area after the first hit. They are pretty tough.

Barry
 
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Good job on calling them in!

You had the solid points, as in military type FMJ bullets?
I'm surprised the coyote was still in the area after the first hit. They are pretty tough.

Barry




Thanks. Actually, I wasn't shooting FMJs, they were the 55GR Black Hills soft-points. I've never shot a coyote with anything other than hollow-points, so the whole ordeal was pretty irritating. I mostly do a lot of night hunting, where follow-up shots just aren't going to happen if one manages to make a run for it, so I've always used hollow-points just for their anchoring capacity.

Oh well, you learn something new every day I guess!
 
I don't see why those bullets didn't work right there the first shot.

I use the 55 gr. V-Max & my wife uses 55gr psp bullets like you shot it with.

In a couple of years comparison, they both have about the same killing power. The psp's will do more damage, but they put a coyote down well.

I give the edge to to V-Max all around though. It kills a little better & dosn't exit in the vast majority of cases. Even in bobcats.

I've seen good results with 52gr HP's too.

Sometimes coyotes are just tough! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif

Barry
 
Quote:
I don't see why those bullets didn't work right there the first shot.

I use the 55 gr. V-Max & my wife uses 55gr psp bullets like you shot it with.

In a couple of years comparison, they both have about the same killing power. The psp's will do more damage, but they put a coyote down well.

I give the edge to to V-Max all around though. It kills a little better & dosn't exit in the vast majority of cases. Even in bobcats.

I've seen good results with 52gr HP's too.
Barry



Yeah, I was pretty shocked. I did go and look up that round on the net, in terms of whether or not other people were using them and found mixed results - some people love them and others say stick with the HPs.

To be fair, my first shot was the only one that was placed relatively well - the second one was while he was running/crashing through the tall grass, at quite a distance. It turns out that second one hit him downward (I was firing from uphill) and in the hindquarters, so it's understandable that it didn't put him down for good. The third time was the charm, but nonetheless I'm switching over to Noslers tonight and am going to stick with those for a while. As much as I love hunting, I still hate situations where something doesn't die quickly.

It's funny you mention 52gr HPs - those were my favorite rounds so far. I used Black Hills Match HPs in 52gr for a while and those things anchored anything I hit with them. I'm trying the Noslers now, on the recommendation of a friend of mine, and I'll see how those do.
 
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what kind of NV are you using?



Hi,

Sorry for the late reply, I had to run out of state on a business trip this last week. I'm using an ITT PVS14, one of the more recent Gen 3 systems. They're pretty amazing systems - you can see almost as well as you can during the day with it, depending on how much star or moon light is available.
 
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