Recently you might have read my posts about the junior hunter that I have been mentoring, Anton. Great kid, good attitude. In 5 trips out he has seen predators on every trip and has so far downed a coyote and 2 foxes.
He called this week looking to go out again. I had already committed to hunting with a couple of guys that are new to predator hunting, so I told Anton that he would have to make the next trip. Well, things changed, so at the last minute I called him and let him know that a seat had opened up and that he would be able to go with us this weekend after all. I informed him, however, that the two guys were brand new to predator hunting so that I would be relying on Anton to take care of himself as I would not be able to.
So off we went Sunday, o'dark-thirty. Now, the new guys we had are new to predator hunting but have been hunting before. I explained what they could expect as we rolled into our first area. The are looked great, the weather did not. The weather men had predicted(guessed) that the winds would be under 8 mph. They missed just a bit. The winds began to howl above 15 mph on our first stand. Not ideal. Worse, we had a storm front dancing around us which had the animals screwed up. We had birds, then they would go to ground when the winds came, then we had birds again. Up down, back and forth. I was keeping a close eye on our new guys and I was having Anton anchor our line. We ran 4 blanks.
Stand 5 we went into an area that I know. There was a guy there with a quad, but he was loading it up. we rolled in past the guy and up into the hills hoping that the noise of the quad and the odd weather would drive the predators into the comfort of the canyons above. I spotted a great looking canyon with lots of rocks. We dismounted and began to walk in. The going was rough, lots, and lots of brush. Thankfully the wind was helping to mask our noisy entry. As we followed the canyon I could see that it took and "S" bend up ahead. I set our stand with our new guy Joseph in the canyon where the "S" met with two other adjacent trails. Tommy, the other new guy right at the bend of the "S." I had Anton go up the hill and anchor the "S" and I dropped in between Tommy and Joseph watching over everyone.
My normal caller for foxes and bobcats is a FoxPro Scoprion. I keep an SP-55 speaker mounted on a tripod just in case of wind. So I opted to run the SP-55 on the stand. I had just started into the second jackrabbit call when I see a fox inbound directly ahead of me coming in over the tops of the big boulders directly ahead of us. The fox paused a the top of a big boulder and began to sniff the air. The wind was coming from the rear but was coming left to right so our scent was drifting away from him. The slick little sucker decided to try to swing into the downwind leg. I saw him drop down into the canyon. This took our scent up over him. I waited to see if he was going to come straight down the canyon. I was hoping for some good video of Joseph bagging him.
BOOM!! What did the fox say? BOOM again!! That little guy had decided to go up the canyon and had run into our little anchor Anton. According to Anton the fox had suddenly appeared about 3 yards from him. Knowing that he wasn't going to be able to swing Anton waited until the fox had continued up hill. that must have been when the fox hit the scent trail because he had turned back towards the canyon so Anton had to light him up.
Turned out that Tommy had also seen the fox coming down the rocks into the canyon. But his angle wasn't great so he opted to wait and see if the fox presented a better shot. Reality started to set in as Tommy saw Anton carrying the fox and he was bummed that he didn't take the shot. I told him that he had done the right thing in allowing the fox to continue in. I reassured him that he had exercised good restraint for someone who was seeing his first predator. I explained to him that our stand set up was such that we pretty well had the canyon covered and had covered most of the possible entry routes. As I explained it to Tommy if the fox came down the canyon directly Joseph would have gotten him. If it skirted into the "S" Tommy would have gotten him. If it tried to circle, Anton gets him, and I was watching the whole thing to make sure that nothing went wrong.
Everyone agreed that it was a good team win. Joseph and Tommy get to see a fox come in and get dropped. Anton hangs fox #3 of his predator hunting career. We wrapped up the day in the hills, but the weather got even weirder so called it a day.
I am pleased to see Anton dialing in as a predator hunter. He handled himself well on his own and made some great decisions. He also seems to be blessed by the Predator Hunting Gods with good luck, so I guess we will keep him around and make him a permanent addition to our team.
He called this week looking to go out again. I had already committed to hunting with a couple of guys that are new to predator hunting, so I told Anton that he would have to make the next trip. Well, things changed, so at the last minute I called him and let him know that a seat had opened up and that he would be able to go with us this weekend after all. I informed him, however, that the two guys were brand new to predator hunting so that I would be relying on Anton to take care of himself as I would not be able to.
So off we went Sunday, o'dark-thirty. Now, the new guys we had are new to predator hunting but have been hunting before. I explained what they could expect as we rolled into our first area. The are looked great, the weather did not. The weather men had predicted(guessed) that the winds would be under 8 mph. They missed just a bit. The winds began to howl above 15 mph on our first stand. Not ideal. Worse, we had a storm front dancing around us which had the animals screwed up. We had birds, then they would go to ground when the winds came, then we had birds again. Up down, back and forth. I was keeping a close eye on our new guys and I was having Anton anchor our line. We ran 4 blanks.
Stand 5 we went into an area that I know. There was a guy there with a quad, but he was loading it up. we rolled in past the guy and up into the hills hoping that the noise of the quad and the odd weather would drive the predators into the comfort of the canyons above. I spotted a great looking canyon with lots of rocks. We dismounted and began to walk in. The going was rough, lots, and lots of brush. Thankfully the wind was helping to mask our noisy entry. As we followed the canyon I could see that it took and "S" bend up ahead. I set our stand with our new guy Joseph in the canyon where the "S" met with two other adjacent trails. Tommy, the other new guy right at the bend of the "S." I had Anton go up the hill and anchor the "S" and I dropped in between Tommy and Joseph watching over everyone.
My normal caller for foxes and bobcats is a FoxPro Scoprion. I keep an SP-55 speaker mounted on a tripod just in case of wind. So I opted to run the SP-55 on the stand. I had just started into the second jackrabbit call when I see a fox inbound directly ahead of me coming in over the tops of the big boulders directly ahead of us. The fox paused a the top of a big boulder and began to sniff the air. The wind was coming from the rear but was coming left to right so our scent was drifting away from him. The slick little sucker decided to try to swing into the downwind leg. I saw him drop down into the canyon. This took our scent up over him. I waited to see if he was going to come straight down the canyon. I was hoping for some good video of Joseph bagging him.
BOOM!! What did the fox say? BOOM again!! That little guy had decided to go up the canyon and had run into our little anchor Anton. According to Anton the fox had suddenly appeared about 3 yards from him. Knowing that he wasn't going to be able to swing Anton waited until the fox had continued up hill. that must have been when the fox hit the scent trail because he had turned back towards the canyon so Anton had to light him up.
Turned out that Tommy had also seen the fox coming down the rocks into the canyon. But his angle wasn't great so he opted to wait and see if the fox presented a better shot. Reality started to set in as Tommy saw Anton carrying the fox and he was bummed that he didn't take the shot. I told him that he had done the right thing in allowing the fox to continue in. I reassured him that he had exercised good restraint for someone who was seeing his first predator. I explained to him that our stand set up was such that we pretty well had the canyon covered and had covered most of the possible entry routes. As I explained it to Tommy if the fox came down the canyon directly Joseph would have gotten him. If it skirted into the "S" Tommy would have gotten him. If it tried to circle, Anton gets him, and I was watching the whole thing to make sure that nothing went wrong.
Everyone agreed that it was a good team win. Joseph and Tommy get to see a fox come in and get dropped. Anton hangs fox #3 of his predator hunting career. We wrapped up the day in the hills, but the weather got even weirder so called it a day.
I am pleased to see Anton dialing in as a predator hunter. He handled himself well on his own and made some great decisions. He also seems to be blessed by the Predator Hunting Gods with good luck, so I guess we will keep him around and make him a permanent addition to our team.
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