JTPinTX
Custom Call Maker
This is at the request of Infidel 762, who says it has been too long since I have written any stories…
Even though it has been rainy, windy, and wet an awful lot here lately, I have managed to make it out a few times and get a few coyotes killed. It started one day last week when I had some time one evening after work. I called up a newbie I know who has really been wanting to go calling with me, and we rolled out for a couple of quick stands just to get his feet wet.
The first stand we pulled up to was a horse pasture that has been called very little, and where I knew we had really good odds of getting something up. Driving in there was water standing everywhere. I didn’t fully realize the implications of that at the time, but it was to become VERY evident within short notice. We parked the truck and creeped over into the pasture to a spot I had picked out several months ago. The horses were in the mesquite brush around us and didn’t like that a bit, stomping and blowing at us. They did move off before we got to the stand though and we got set up. I was overlooking the large open area downwind since I had my Swift, and I put the newbie covering the brush on our backside with his AR. We had barely gotten to sit down before the mosquitoes went to work on us, and they were vicious! I was much better prepared since I was wearing my bug suit and head net, but poor little newbie nearly needed a transfusion before we finally got back out of there.
I cranked up the machine with a sound I was hoping was new music to the local coyote population, juvenile red fox distress. After a couple series I started alternating that with coyote pup screams. All of a sudden I catch movement out of the corner of my right eye, coming from the direction the newbie is supposed to be covering. It was a big old male, and he was close, too close for swinging that heavy old Swift on him. He was already on to us, I think had busted newbie swatting at mosquitoes. I tried to swing on him but he popped over a little ridge before I could get him. I tried calling him back, but to no avail. I did see the female that was with him over on the next ridge, but we couldn’t get a shot at her either. We decided to go ahead and leave. I asked newbie what happened, and he said, “I just wasn’t prepared for it to be that close and that fast, it just happened too fast!” Coyote lesson #1 newbie, always expect the unexpected with coyotes!
We packed up and drove to the next place about 8 miles away. We parked in a low spot on the country road, walked down the road, crawled under the gate, and crept a quarter-mile out in the pasture. The sun was going down behind us to the west, and we were calling to an awesome valley back to the east. Skeeters were already gnawing on us again, but we endeavored to persevere. I was actually facing north, and him south, just in case (see rule #1 above). The last time I had called this spot a coyote had back-doored me from across the plowed field back west of us. I killed that one, but it was kind of iffy there for a bit. Anyways, I fired up the machine, same sounds as the stand before. Lo and behold, right about the 9 minute mark here comes a scroungy male blowing through the fence, coming from the west, same as last time! Where the heck they are coming from over there I do not know, and at the moment I didn’t care. He was about 90 yards out, and I growled and barked trying to get him to stop, but he was having none of it. I was on him though and decided to just shoot him anyways. I accidentally stopped my swing right as I pulled the trigger, and busted his pelvis instead of his lungs. He went down, and not wanting him to be all butt-hurt over the deal I popped a second round through his noggin. I have pics, but since they slightly violate the "graphic picture" rules I won’t post them.
Now we fast forward to this last Saturday, about 3-4 days later. I got some things done around the house and it was nearly noon. However, it was overcast and the wind not too bad, so I called up the newbie again and told him to get his “stuff” together I would be there in a minute to pick him up. The first stand I decided to go to Happy Valley. I call it that because it is always a target rich environment due to the excellent habitat. It is a long wide valley, with lots of gyp caves the coyotes use for cover and denning. Kill the coyotes out and there are new ones there in a few weeks. The pictures I am posting of my calling area were taken a couple days later in the bright sunshine. It was not bright and sunny when we were calling, at all. But that comes later in the story.
This is the gate:
And this is what some of the caves look like. There are many more like this:
We walked waaaay back in because the country is pretty open. This is the top, or “skinny” end of Happy Valley. You can see a cliff in this picture, there are more caves down below that cliff:
We got set up and started running the same sounds again. Here pretty quick newbie makes a motion that he has one coming in. It goes down in a draw and he never sees it again, but I see it running parallel back across a ridge 300-400 yards downwind. I thought it would circle in, but it never did. About 10 minutes later I see another coyote way over across the valley, crosswind. I keep trying to coax it across but it would never come. Finally I lose sight of it, and decide it is time to end the stand. I look back at newbie and he has his rifle up, drawing a bead on something out of my sight. I hear him bang at it, and then shift, and bang again. He missed it with his first shot, and then tried a Hail Mary as it ran off. After a minute or so I see it round the hill running flat out, and bail off into the caves in the second picture. Oh well, that is coyote hunting, and at least newbie has his first miss under his belt and can get on with things now.
We pick up and drive a couple miles back north and west, and set up for another stand in some country I had not called before. It was a really good looking stand, I had high hopes for it. We were set up down in this valley, to the right of the center of the picture, by that second little dirt bank you see back there:
We set up overlapping fields of fire to cover each other’s backs, and I let rip with the same sound sequences that had been working so far. I mean if something is working this time of year, you don’t change! I ran it and ran it, and about decided we had been skunked. We were probably about 18-20 minutes into the series. About the time I was ready to leave, 250 yards downwind a coyote popped out from behind a ridge, and stood broadside. It was a nice big red male. I tried coaxing him in, but he was having none of it. I decided it was now or never so I just put the crosshairs of the Swift right on top of his back and let rip. I heard the 69 SMK slap, and he spun 3 times and flopped down dead. I ran down and snapped a pic real quick, and we bailed out of there.
The weather had gone from overcast to looking like we might really get wet, but I wanted to try one more stand. We dashed a couple miles back east and hopped a fence, then walked about 500 yards back into another canyon. By the time we got set up things were looking kind of sketchy, lightning popping back west, but I started the machine anyways. 10 minutes in to the stand I decided we really needed to get out of there because things were degenerating very quickly, so we started hoofing it back to the truck. When we got there my phone was ringing off the hook, and it was my wife. She was telling us we had to get out of there super-quick, there was a confirmed tornado on the ground about 8-10 miles right west of us and angling across our way!
Needless to say we shagged it out of there like there was no tomorrow! On the way back to town going down the highway we were watching the back side of the storm, and it looked nasty. There were storm spotters all over the highway, stopped and watching the storm too. The core of the storm probably passed within about 4 miles of the coyote I had just killed on the second stand. Pretty exciting day.
And the newbie is getting some experience too, I will turn him into a coyote hunter yet. He is learning you have to be committed to kill coyotes. Sissy-Mary's have no place in the way I hunt! Skeeters, tornadoes, half mile hikes, all are just in a days work the way I hunt.
Even though it has been rainy, windy, and wet an awful lot here lately, I have managed to make it out a few times and get a few coyotes killed. It started one day last week when I had some time one evening after work. I called up a newbie I know who has really been wanting to go calling with me, and we rolled out for a couple of quick stands just to get his feet wet.
The first stand we pulled up to was a horse pasture that has been called very little, and where I knew we had really good odds of getting something up. Driving in there was water standing everywhere. I didn’t fully realize the implications of that at the time, but it was to become VERY evident within short notice. We parked the truck and creeped over into the pasture to a spot I had picked out several months ago. The horses were in the mesquite brush around us and didn’t like that a bit, stomping and blowing at us. They did move off before we got to the stand though and we got set up. I was overlooking the large open area downwind since I had my Swift, and I put the newbie covering the brush on our backside with his AR. We had barely gotten to sit down before the mosquitoes went to work on us, and they were vicious! I was much better prepared since I was wearing my bug suit and head net, but poor little newbie nearly needed a transfusion before we finally got back out of there.
I cranked up the machine with a sound I was hoping was new music to the local coyote population, juvenile red fox distress. After a couple series I started alternating that with coyote pup screams. All of a sudden I catch movement out of the corner of my right eye, coming from the direction the newbie is supposed to be covering. It was a big old male, and he was close, too close for swinging that heavy old Swift on him. He was already on to us, I think had busted newbie swatting at mosquitoes. I tried to swing on him but he popped over a little ridge before I could get him. I tried calling him back, but to no avail. I did see the female that was with him over on the next ridge, but we couldn’t get a shot at her either. We decided to go ahead and leave. I asked newbie what happened, and he said, “I just wasn’t prepared for it to be that close and that fast, it just happened too fast!” Coyote lesson #1 newbie, always expect the unexpected with coyotes!
We packed up and drove to the next place about 8 miles away. We parked in a low spot on the country road, walked down the road, crawled under the gate, and crept a quarter-mile out in the pasture. The sun was going down behind us to the west, and we were calling to an awesome valley back to the east. Skeeters were already gnawing on us again, but we endeavored to persevere. I was actually facing north, and him south, just in case (see rule #1 above). The last time I had called this spot a coyote had back-doored me from across the plowed field back west of us. I killed that one, but it was kind of iffy there for a bit. Anyways, I fired up the machine, same sounds as the stand before. Lo and behold, right about the 9 minute mark here comes a scroungy male blowing through the fence, coming from the west, same as last time! Where the heck they are coming from over there I do not know, and at the moment I didn’t care. He was about 90 yards out, and I growled and barked trying to get him to stop, but he was having none of it. I was on him though and decided to just shoot him anyways. I accidentally stopped my swing right as I pulled the trigger, and busted his pelvis instead of his lungs. He went down, and not wanting him to be all butt-hurt over the deal I popped a second round through his noggin. I have pics, but since they slightly violate the "graphic picture" rules I won’t post them.
Now we fast forward to this last Saturday, about 3-4 days later. I got some things done around the house and it was nearly noon. However, it was overcast and the wind not too bad, so I called up the newbie again and told him to get his “stuff” together I would be there in a minute to pick him up. The first stand I decided to go to Happy Valley. I call it that because it is always a target rich environment due to the excellent habitat. It is a long wide valley, with lots of gyp caves the coyotes use for cover and denning. Kill the coyotes out and there are new ones there in a few weeks. The pictures I am posting of my calling area were taken a couple days later in the bright sunshine. It was not bright and sunny when we were calling, at all. But that comes later in the story.
This is the gate:
And this is what some of the caves look like. There are many more like this:
We walked waaaay back in because the country is pretty open. This is the top, or “skinny” end of Happy Valley. You can see a cliff in this picture, there are more caves down below that cliff:
We got set up and started running the same sounds again. Here pretty quick newbie makes a motion that he has one coming in. It goes down in a draw and he never sees it again, but I see it running parallel back across a ridge 300-400 yards downwind. I thought it would circle in, but it never did. About 10 minutes later I see another coyote way over across the valley, crosswind. I keep trying to coax it across but it would never come. Finally I lose sight of it, and decide it is time to end the stand. I look back at newbie and he has his rifle up, drawing a bead on something out of my sight. I hear him bang at it, and then shift, and bang again. He missed it with his first shot, and then tried a Hail Mary as it ran off. After a minute or so I see it round the hill running flat out, and bail off into the caves in the second picture. Oh well, that is coyote hunting, and at least newbie has his first miss under his belt and can get on with things now.
We pick up and drive a couple miles back north and west, and set up for another stand in some country I had not called before. It was a really good looking stand, I had high hopes for it. We were set up down in this valley, to the right of the center of the picture, by that second little dirt bank you see back there:
We set up overlapping fields of fire to cover each other’s backs, and I let rip with the same sound sequences that had been working so far. I mean if something is working this time of year, you don’t change! I ran it and ran it, and about decided we had been skunked. We were probably about 18-20 minutes into the series. About the time I was ready to leave, 250 yards downwind a coyote popped out from behind a ridge, and stood broadside. It was a nice big red male. I tried coaxing him in, but he was having none of it. I decided it was now or never so I just put the crosshairs of the Swift right on top of his back and let rip. I heard the 69 SMK slap, and he spun 3 times and flopped down dead. I ran down and snapped a pic real quick, and we bailed out of there.
The weather had gone from overcast to looking like we might really get wet, but I wanted to try one more stand. We dashed a couple miles back east and hopped a fence, then walked about 500 yards back into another canyon. By the time we got set up things were looking kind of sketchy, lightning popping back west, but I started the machine anyways. 10 minutes in to the stand I decided we really needed to get out of there because things were degenerating very quickly, so we started hoofing it back to the truck. When we got there my phone was ringing off the hook, and it was my wife. She was telling us we had to get out of there super-quick, there was a confirmed tornado on the ground about 8-10 miles right west of us and angling across our way!
Needless to say we shagged it out of there like there was no tomorrow! On the way back to town going down the highway we were watching the back side of the storm, and it looked nasty. There were storm spotters all over the highway, stopped and watching the storm too. The core of the storm probably passed within about 4 miles of the coyote I had just killed on the second stand. Pretty exciting day.
And the newbie is getting some experience too, I will turn him into a coyote hunter yet. He is learning you have to be committed to kill coyotes. Sissy-Mary's have no place in the way I hunt! Skeeters, tornadoes, half mile hikes, all are just in a days work the way I hunt.
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is that cerakote? Looks nice...
