Thanksgiving was nice and quiet for me and my lovely bride of 30 years. All of our kids and grandkids live in other states or countries. We thanked the Lord for our many blessings, ate a small meal and then I loaded up and headed back to the camper. But, this time I didn’t bring any dogs. I’d noticed the coyotes were real leery of Bubba and none would come any closer than 2-300 yards. Figured this was as good as a time as any to take a hunting trip without the dogs. Boy did they ever bawl when I left though. My wife called when I hadn’t gone 15 miles from the house saying the dogs just wouldn’t shut up and she was going to let them out of the kennel. That was code for “the dogs are coming in the house”. I never let them in but she’s a softy and will “accidently” let them push there way in when she opens the back door! Funny thing is, they never even try when I’m home! Go figure….
Anyway, I get back to the trailer a few hours later and the lock on the door is frozen. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get the key into the lock. After several minutes of doing the Jimmy Neutron thing “think, think”, I remembered having a Jet Boil under the back seat. In no time it was fired up and the lock was thawed. I’m a coffee fiend and regularly brew up a cup of coffee with the Jet Boil. Now I know it has more than one use.
The next morning was cold, overcast and a slight SE breeze. Unfortunately I was hunting towards the West. The very first stand has me calling from a nice looking hill and scanning the horizons with binoculars. A lesson I learned a long time ago is to regularly lift up your binoculars and take a quick scan close in. I did so and much to my surprise, a coyote had walked right across an open flat and was real close to catching my downwind scent. Unfortunately, I could not get this coyote to stop. He kept trotting, caught my scent, spun on a dime and took off. I suck at hitting moving coyotes and didn’t even try a shot. I would rather call them in another day than shoot at a running coyote. Now if I was a better shot that might be a different story. Of course I was upset and gave myself a thorough chewing walking back to the truck. Maybe I can get a few helpful tips on hitting a trotting/running coyote during the course of this thread.
I moved up the road another mile and commence to call into native prairie. In no time a coyote comes in slowly then stops at 250 yards. I try coaxing it in but to no avail. She lay down and just watched me. We play the quiet game for 5 minutes and I finally get impatient and decide to shoot her where she lay (this behavior is very typical of solitary female coyotes). I squeeze off the round, expecting to have the first kill of the day in the bag. Sadly, she jumps up and ran off.
I think I should mention at this point that while setting up for the stand, I accidently knocked the Swift over and it hit directly on the scope, hard! As always is my custom when I miss a coyote, out comes the target and I sight the gun in. The first shot kicks up snow 2 feet to the left. I immediately put the Swift in the truck and pulled out the Dtech AR-15 .204. One shot told me it was dead on and I’m back in the game. My rational for such a quick switch in guns was that two coyotes had come in on two successive stands. I wasn’t going to waste time sighting in a rifle when obviously this was going to be a good calling day!
My next stand has wheat stubble to my right and native prairie to the left. After 10 minutes of calling I spot this:
The photo is deceiving, I have a 300mm lens on the Nikon camera and the coyote is almost 400 yards away. I would have taken this shot with the Swift but have yet to hit a coyote at this distance with the .204. It comes no closer and that was that. About now I’m reevaluating leaving the dogs at home!
That’s 0 for 3 if anyone is counting. Also notice in the above picture that the light is flat. The coyotes were almost invisible. So much so that on the very next stand one almost runs over me before I even see it. Fortunately for me, it spun at ten feet and ran directly away. Even I can hit a coyote running directly away at 30 yards. Finally, after four coyotes coming to the calls, I get the first one of the day. There’s a dead coyote in the picture below, see how hard they were to see!
Remember the snow buntings? Here’s a flock I called in. For some reason they really liked coming to the dying rabbit call.
Right after I took the picture a coyote comes running over this very hill and I get it to stop at 100 yards. Sweet, I’m on a roll now, two dead coyotes and a coyote has come in on each stand of the day. Some days it’s like the switch has been turned on and you can do no wrong, all one has to do is hit them!! I don’t waste time on days like this. I skinned the coyote quickly and was off to the next stand. It’s past noon now and last shooting light is around 4:30. I make a couple of more stands without any luck then on the next to last stand of the day get another hard charger out of another wheat field. I see this one coming though and am able to get him to stop at 30 yards and coyote #3 for the day is in the bag. Sorry, but no pictures of the last two dogs, you’ll have to take my word for it.
All in all, a really good day of calling in spite of my inabilities. Here’s my view at sunset.
What lessons did I re-learn today? 1)Coyotes will circle downwind 98% of the time. Always setup so you can shoot downwind. 2)Coyotes can see you rather easily when walking up on one of these hills. Knee pads are a rather valuable commodity when one crawls over rocks and cactus. 3)Coyotes are difficult to call in, why waste an opportunity if you think you’ve knocked your sights out of zero.
