Since I had hunted the rez the last 2 days, I had some ideas on where to go Friday. We rolled out early and were on our way to an area I was fairly confident in. I assured Billy I was done feeling sorry for him, and I was done missing to make him feel better. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />
Our first stand looked good, but nothing showed. But the second stand was a the one I was looking for. Just before we started the call on stand 2, a coyote started barking from the other side of the rode. We though we should be able to see him in the wide open “yellow grass” hills, but we couldn’t and in a minute or 2 it sounded like a whole pack. We decided to stay put and venatic started with a couple of howls on the foxpro and I started my watch to see how long it would take.
After 2 howls, venatic waited 5 minutes to start the “screaming jackrabbit” on the foxpro. Almost immediately we heard howling from 2 different directions beside the ones we had heard behind us.
David sitting to my right and leal was to his right. (look familiar derbyacresbob or dogboy?)
At the 11 minute mark (6 minutes of screaming jack) I see a coyote coming hard from over the hill. I get venatic’s attention and watch as he crosses the fence and heads for the call.
I spotted the coyote coming down hill and he crossed the fence down in the draw. I loose him in the grass momentarily, and then see him in time bark him to a stop and drop the hammer on him. Billy never even seen him.
After a few pictures, we moved on down the road feeling pretty good since we had heard so many coyotes. We look for another elevated calling spot, and when we thought we found one we walked in. But, after topping the hill, we discovered that we couldn’t see anything except tall grass. But since we had already walked almost a half mile from the turck, we decided to call anyway in a small opening. I didn’t expect much, but after a couple of minutes I spotted a coyote charging in straight behind the caller. I had to swing right free hand off the sticks and barked him to a stop at about 25 yards and rolled him up. Venatic said he was just squeezing the trigger on him when I fired.
the caller is in the cactus on the left and you can see the coyote laying 7 steps to the right
I told Billy I meant it when I said I was through missing! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
Stand #4 was produced nothing, so we moved on again. As we were driving into another spot an Indian rancher motioned us to a stop and told us where dead cow was not far away. We set up for stand #5 overlooking 2 tanks and a the draws leading into them. After about 10 minutes of distress, venatic hit the howls on his foxpro and I saw a coyote emerge from the draw above the farthest tank about 700 yards away. I got David’s attention and he went back to the distress, but the wind was so strong I’m not sure he could hear it. He crossed the pond dam and passed below the hill as he continued down the draw. We sat a full 30 minutes to see if anything else showed, but it didn’t. We had several other places we wanted to try, but the muddy conditions caused by the melted snow prevented us from getting far from the pavement in our 2 wheel drive.
As the afternoon progressed, we head for ground closer to Globe, and ran into cgmartin and CATDADDYCOLD. We talked to them for a minute and made a couple of more stands before it got dark.
We got back to the casino in time to take a quick shower and head back to the pavilion for something to eat and see what was going on.
Jay Nistetter was the “entertainment” for the night, and he did a pretty good job. He explained how predator hunters all have A-D-D and we all would find ourselves thinking about what he said as we sat our stands the next morning.
Uncle Jay
Jeff Mock, Doug (Jeff's son) RanUtah
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