TaterTot
New member
Well after 1 year and 12 days, (not that I was counting... lol) I decided that it was time to put some fur on the ground. My hunting buddy was in town for a few days, so we decided to try a private ranch that he has access to.
We met up a little before shooting light and started our walk in. We hunt a little draw that is about a mile long, and have had success in this draw on several different occasions. We had a little snowfall over the last couple days, which showed us that there was plenty of coyote traffic in our draw.
The few of our first set.
We set up the call and the Mojo Critter, and walked up the hill about 85 yards away. After settling in, I fired up the Firestorm and played a few interrogation howls for about 2 minutes. After waiting maybe 3-4 minutes, I switched the call to our favorite jackrabbit distress and patiently waited. At about the 7 minute mark, I noticed some movement to my left and saw a beautiful coyote charging in hard down the road.
I slowly pulled my rifle up and followed him in the scope. He ran up and decided that the decoy was gonna make an easy meal. He tried to grab it and run off, but the frozen ground had my decoy anchored well.
(Notice the tracks in the snow, and the "crooked decoy")
After failing to score a free meal, and probably tasting and smelling me, he started started to head back to where he came from. My buddy buddy barked at him and got him to stop. I sent a 50 grain Ballistic tip his way and anchored him.
The coyote is laying in the road, just left of dead center. He's left of the tall sagebrush on the road.
Now based on our history with this particular ranch, we knew that our chances of calling in multiple coyotes was pretty good. The Foxbang kicked in started playing some pup distress. I let the call play for 5 or 6 minutes and shut it off. We waited probably 10 minutes in silence and didn't see anything coming in. I started glassing around and looking for any lurkers. I slowly turned around to the left, to look towards the our downwind side, and caught a glimpse of something moving in the sagebrush. Apparently the coyote saw me moving as well, and started to leave. She made a fatal mistake of stopping for one last look as I settled my crosshairs on her, and I put her down for the count. Coyote #2 sleeping in the snow!
She came in on the first little knob just above the trail in the center of the pic. Shot was probably 70 yards.
I figure we were at about the 25 minute mark of this stand. We decided that since we only had about 2 stands left in this particular draw, we would wait a while longer and continue to call. I alternated between pup distress and jackrabbit distress for about 20 more minutes, when my buddy spotted a coyote way up on the hill above where the first one came in. This coyote was much more cautious. I switched the call to Nutty Nuthatch. She decided that she like the new sound and slowly and cautiously started our way. It took her almost 5 minutes to make her way down the hill and followed the road towards the decoy. She stopped 40 yards from the first coyote, still laying in the road, and started sniffing the air. My buddy decide it was time to shoot, and anchored her. This was now the 3rd coyote on this stand, and tied for the amount of coyotes we had taken out of this draw in one day.
3rd coyote came from the top of the lower hill and followed the road in to her final resting place.
This put us at almost an hour on stand and had produced 3 coyotes. We gathered up the coyotes and made plans for the next stand. Our next stand was a blank. The wind had changed and stared to blow down the draw in the direction that we had planned on hunting. We decided that it was time to hike over the hill and try to make a stand in a draw that we had previously called 3 coyotes in to the sound of my baby boy crying.
As we started setting up the call and the decoy, my buddy spotted a coyote running across the hill side. This coyote was looking behind it at something other than us. I sat down and started glassing. I saw a German Shepard and what looked like a Pit/Lab mix, running across the hill. This is the second time we have had house dogs chasing coyotes on this ranch. I continued to glass and saw a second coyote behind the dogs. This one took off and started towards us. The house dogs didn't seem to notice this one. I told my buddy to get ready to shoot because it looked like this coyote would be coming up the hill within range. Sure enough, she came racing up the hill. I barked at her and managed to stop her as my buddy put her to sleep. This coyote ended up being a pretty young pup.
All said and done, this made 4 coyotes and our best day at the ranch so far! All of this in about a 1 square mile area. We have previously had 2 days here where we called and killed 3 coyotes and saw more than that.
My pack mule!!! Lol.
Final results of the day! The coyote on the far left ended up bringing 40 bucks after skinning. The others had the begginings of mange I guess, (and a large hole in one... oops!) and I managed to eek out 5 dollars for one because the guy felt sorry for me skinning it and it not really being worth anything. I guess if coyotes are gonna be worth something this year, it's time to learn to put up the the fur myself!!!
Sorry for the long write up, but thanks for reading if you made it this far! Good luck on your future outings!
We met up a little before shooting light and started our walk in. We hunt a little draw that is about a mile long, and have had success in this draw on several different occasions. We had a little snowfall over the last couple days, which showed us that there was plenty of coyote traffic in our draw.
The few of our first set.
We set up the call and the Mojo Critter, and walked up the hill about 85 yards away. After settling in, I fired up the Firestorm and played a few interrogation howls for about 2 minutes. After waiting maybe 3-4 minutes, I switched the call to our favorite jackrabbit distress and patiently waited. At about the 7 minute mark, I noticed some movement to my left and saw a beautiful coyote charging in hard down the road.
I slowly pulled my rifle up and followed him in the scope. He ran up and decided that the decoy was gonna make an easy meal. He tried to grab it and run off, but the frozen ground had my decoy anchored well.
(Notice the tracks in the snow, and the "crooked decoy")
After failing to score a free meal, and probably tasting and smelling me, he started started to head back to where he came from. My buddy buddy barked at him and got him to stop. I sent a 50 grain Ballistic tip his way and anchored him.
The coyote is laying in the road, just left of dead center. He's left of the tall sagebrush on the road.
Now based on our history with this particular ranch, we knew that our chances of calling in multiple coyotes was pretty good. The Foxbang kicked in started playing some pup distress. I let the call play for 5 or 6 minutes and shut it off. We waited probably 10 minutes in silence and didn't see anything coming in. I started glassing around and looking for any lurkers. I slowly turned around to the left, to look towards the our downwind side, and caught a glimpse of something moving in the sagebrush. Apparently the coyote saw me moving as well, and started to leave. She made a fatal mistake of stopping for one last look as I settled my crosshairs on her, and I put her down for the count. Coyote #2 sleeping in the snow!
She came in on the first little knob just above the trail in the center of the pic. Shot was probably 70 yards.
I figure we were at about the 25 minute mark of this stand. We decided that since we only had about 2 stands left in this particular draw, we would wait a while longer and continue to call. I alternated between pup distress and jackrabbit distress for about 20 more minutes, when my buddy spotted a coyote way up on the hill above where the first one came in. This coyote was much more cautious. I switched the call to Nutty Nuthatch. She decided that she like the new sound and slowly and cautiously started our way. It took her almost 5 minutes to make her way down the hill and followed the road towards the decoy. She stopped 40 yards from the first coyote, still laying in the road, and started sniffing the air. My buddy decide it was time to shoot, and anchored her. This was now the 3rd coyote on this stand, and tied for the amount of coyotes we had taken out of this draw in one day.
3rd coyote came from the top of the lower hill and followed the road in to her final resting place.
This put us at almost an hour on stand and had produced 3 coyotes. We gathered up the coyotes and made plans for the next stand. Our next stand was a blank. The wind had changed and stared to blow down the draw in the direction that we had planned on hunting. We decided that it was time to hike over the hill and try to make a stand in a draw that we had previously called 3 coyotes in to the sound of my baby boy crying.
As we started setting up the call and the decoy, my buddy spotted a coyote running across the hill side. This coyote was looking behind it at something other than us. I sat down and started glassing. I saw a German Shepard and what looked like a Pit/Lab mix, running across the hill. This is the second time we have had house dogs chasing coyotes on this ranch. I continued to glass and saw a second coyote behind the dogs. This one took off and started towards us. The house dogs didn't seem to notice this one. I told my buddy to get ready to shoot because it looked like this coyote would be coming up the hill within range. Sure enough, she came racing up the hill. I barked at her and managed to stop her as my buddy put her to sleep. This coyote ended up being a pretty young pup.
All said and done, this made 4 coyotes and our best day at the ranch so far! All of this in about a 1 square mile area. We have previously had 2 days here where we called and killed 3 coyotes and saw more than that.
My pack mule!!! Lol.
Final results of the day! The coyote on the far left ended up bringing 40 bucks after skinning. The others had the begginings of mange I guess, (and a large hole in one... oops!) and I managed to eek out 5 dollars for one because the guy felt sorry for me skinning it and it not really being worth anything. I guess if coyotes are gonna be worth something this year, it's time to learn to put up the the fur myself!!!
Sorry for the long write up, but thanks for reading if you made it this far! Good luck on your future outings!
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