dustinyotes
New member
My 16 year old son and I started a Thanksgiving tradition last year going coyote hunting on Thanksgiving morning. Last year he shot his first coyote, so to keep the tradition alive this year we got up early Thanksgiving morning and headed to one of our favorite spots for coyotes. At first light we were set up on a rocky ridge overlooking a brushy draw. After a few howls I started to play jackrabbit distress on the Foxpro and we had two coyotes headed our way. My son spotted them first and before I could bark to stop them he shot and dropped the closest coyote to us. I quickly got my crosshairs on the second coyote and took a shot as it was running away but missed. I looked back over at my son expecting him to be very excited and he looks at me and says "sorry Dad, you probably wanted to wait until it was closer". At this point I realized that he did not see the second coyote and thought that he had missed and the coyote had got away. I said to him "don't be sorry, you killed the first coyote it was a second one that got away". He looked at me with a supersized look and said "I hit one?" I told him to walk down the hill and get his coyote and soon he was dragging it back up the hill with a huge smile on his face.
He was shooting my .17 Remington and the coyote had very minimal hide damage so he wanted to take the coyote home to skin it. I told him that the coyote he shot last Thanksgiving was the only coyote I will skin for him and that he would have to skin this one on his own and he said he was fine with that. After about 2 hours of gagging and dry heaving he got the coyote skinned and really did a good job.
After Thanksgiving we turned our attention back to Elk hunting (my wife and 3 teenagers have cow tags) and headed for the mountains. We had no problems locating elk but they were all bulls and no cows. This was a bull that we drove to within about 50 yards. My wife and kids were really wishing they had bull tags.
As we were headed from one canyon to another my wife spotted something white up on the mountain side and when I got my binoculars up it was a big white wolf about 500 yards up the mountain. I have a wolf tag so I start thinking of how I can convince my wife and kids to turn this day into a wolf hunt instead of an elk hunt. They were all for it!! I watched the wolf until it went into a small grove of trees about a mile or so up the mountain side. We drove back to the next ridge over and me, my wife and 14 year old son climbed up the ridge out of sight from where we last saw the wolf. It was a long steep climb but we reached the top to within about 300 yards of where the wolf went into the trees. I did not have my calls or Foxpro with me so we found the only cover we could (2 rocks about the size of a shoe box) and sat down. I let out my best wolf howl (it sounded awful) and we waited. About 10 minutes later I let out a second howl (it sounded even worse) and my son whispered that he saw something white up the ridge from us. I looked through my binoculars and spotted a very white coyote. This is when my elk hunt turned wolf hunt turned into a coyote hunt. This coyote was straight down wind of us and looking right at us. I slowly laid down on my belly (didn't have shooting sticks) and got my crosshairs on the coyote. At the shot of my 220 swift I saw the impact but the coyote fell behind a rock, we quickly covered the 250 yards to the spot and found my coyote and I was very excited to see how pale in color he was.
Just last week I was talking to my wife about having a full body coyote mount done but wanted a really pale coyote. When my wife saw this coyote she said to me "you have to have a mount done of this coyote" (yes she is that awesome) and she even told me she would carry the coyote the mile down the mountain by herself if she had to. We took a few more photos and headed back to the truck.
On the way home I called a taxidermist buddy and he came over skinned the coyote. Now I am trying to decide on a pose for the mount, any suggestions you have are welcome.
This post is nominated for Hunter of the Month. Sorry, the nifty little .gif isn't rotating, so all you see is "Nominated" for now.
He was shooting my .17 Remington and the coyote had very minimal hide damage so he wanted to take the coyote home to skin it. I told him that the coyote he shot last Thanksgiving was the only coyote I will skin for him and that he would have to skin this one on his own and he said he was fine with that. After about 2 hours of gagging and dry heaving he got the coyote skinned and really did a good job.
After Thanksgiving we turned our attention back to Elk hunting (my wife and 3 teenagers have cow tags) and headed for the mountains. We had no problems locating elk but they were all bulls and no cows. This was a bull that we drove to within about 50 yards. My wife and kids were really wishing they had bull tags.
As we were headed from one canyon to another my wife spotted something white up on the mountain side and when I got my binoculars up it was a big white wolf about 500 yards up the mountain. I have a wolf tag so I start thinking of how I can convince my wife and kids to turn this day into a wolf hunt instead of an elk hunt. They were all for it!! I watched the wolf until it went into a small grove of trees about a mile or so up the mountain side. We drove back to the next ridge over and me, my wife and 14 year old son climbed up the ridge out of sight from where we last saw the wolf. It was a long steep climb but we reached the top to within about 300 yards of where the wolf went into the trees. I did not have my calls or Foxpro with me so we found the only cover we could (2 rocks about the size of a shoe box) and sat down. I let out my best wolf howl (it sounded awful) and we waited. About 10 minutes later I let out a second howl (it sounded even worse) and my son whispered that he saw something white up the ridge from us. I looked through my binoculars and spotted a very white coyote. This is when my elk hunt turned wolf hunt turned into a coyote hunt. This coyote was straight down wind of us and looking right at us. I slowly laid down on my belly (didn't have shooting sticks) and got my crosshairs on the coyote. At the shot of my 220 swift I saw the impact but the coyote fell behind a rock, we quickly covered the 250 yards to the spot and found my coyote and I was very excited to see how pale in color he was.
Just last week I was talking to my wife about having a full body coyote mount done but wanted a really pale coyote. When my wife saw this coyote she said to me "you have to have a mount done of this coyote" (yes she is that awesome) and she even told me she would carry the coyote the mile down the mountain by herself if she had to. We took a few more photos and headed back to the truck.
On the way home I called a taxidermist buddy and he came over skinned the coyote. Now I am trying to decide on a pose for the mount, any suggestions you have are welcome.
This post is nominated for Hunter of the Month. Sorry, the nifty little .gif isn't rotating, so all you see is "Nominated" for now.
