This year Sean(Yellowhammer) could not go with me on the PM hunt so Seth Skinner(Skinnerworldchamp) and his wife Robin were supposed to make the trip with me. As happens he had work issues so Billy Leal(M-M-Miss) was gonna go instead but then he had to stay and close on his house.
So Wednesday morning I headed out by my lonesome for Las Cruces and I made it to the New Mexico state-line about 4pm. I turned south off the interstate and headed toward the border which is only about 10 or so miles. I found a two track and within minutes met a Border Patrol officer. I stopped and told him I was going to hunt in the area and he gave me the local office number. I assume that way if I got shot I could call and let them know where to find my body. Actually he said I should have no issues at all but if I saw anything out of the ordinary please call and report it. I saw nothing.... Oh except two coyotes and I kilt one and m-m-missed the other one. The second one was peeking around a Yucca and I tried to shoot thru it with no luck.



I got to the hotel just in time to miss orientation so I signed in and hit the sack.
I drove west well before daylight the next morning and arrived at my destination just after daylight. If you are familiar with the area you will recognize "three sisters"



My first set a hard charger at 50yds DRT. I was happy with the start. Stands two and three no takers. Stand four at the 17 minute mark a good sized male runs in and will not stop so I took the running shot and got that spectacular nose dive skid. Sweet.
Set number 5 was blank but some hunters drove by and I think they were hunting javelina because I heard a shot in the direction I was headed. Set 6 I see a coyote coming from 300yds out and he stops to look at 85 yds and DRT.

Here was view from stand

When I drag him to the road I see blood dripped all in the road from the truck earlier I guess. I decide to keep going the way they shot from because now I know they have left.
Set 7 I have to walk 853 yards(ranged) and I can still see my vehicle but I am hoping that it will be mistaken for a cow which are around my vehicle. I setup next to a Yucca and place the foxpro on the only other Yucca about 40yds away to get it off the ground because the wind is now blowing pretty good.
After about 15 minutes nada but since it was a decent hike I decided to hang around for another 5 to 10 minutes. At the 18 minute mark here come 3 running hard from my left and my barks are ignored so I roll the second in line and the other two split up and I empty my gun 5 more shots with nothing to show for it except empty brass. I tell myself that I did not want to drag two coyotes that far anyway....... No, I did not believe that story either.
Here is a picture of that stand. I was sitting by the Yucca on the left and the foxpro was on the shorter one to the right of center.

Anyhow by now the wind is howling and I only called one more the remainder of the day and did not take the shot.
Here is my group photo which did not turn out to good I guess due to the twilight and the flash washing it out.


Day two the wind kept switching and somehow always managed to have me looking into the sun unless I wanted to watch downwind which I did on a few sets. Set two I got one on top of me before I see it and he spots me moving and I miss a running shot.
Next set I am looking downwind and I see a coyote cautiously circling and I pop him at about 200yds. The bullet exited way back due to the angle.

Well, that was it until 4pm and I kilt a hard charger.



My next stand I get another one circling and I bark him to a stop...right behind a Yucca well he keeps circling so I bark again he stops again ...behind a mesquite but I think I can squeeze thru. Nope!


The area that I hunted this day had been hunted by a team in the Worlds I was told later (they killed nothing)and I also bumped into two other PM members at a water hole who were from northern NM and they had one coyote and were taking pictures when I drove up.
The next day was the great egg massacre so I did not get to hunt as I was range officer/cheerleader.

That's a good weekend!

I'm sorry I didn't get to make it this year. Sounds like you did pretty well.

Maybe we can make it again next year.

Sounds like you had a blast!! Great read and pics.

Thanks for taking the time to share.

Sweet, nice job!!

Looks like you had a great trip. Good hunting as usual, you always seem to put the fur on the ground! Were you hunting by yourself or did you hook up with some of the other members?

I was by myself. I wish I had hooked up with Bearmanrick as he got stood up but I had already left before I knew that.

I am going to guess you probably had some of the better luck down there. Complete guess though. Ya there is a bunch of land to hunt down there but I cant imagine there is much of that area that hasn't been called heavily at this point in the year. Great job man.

We killed 5 in one day last year in that same area and had some more we should have gotten.

Nice going Venatic!! Maybe, next year I will get to meet some of you guys when I don't have to have knee surgery on Valentines day.........

Looks like you had your share of fun killer.

Thanks for the recap.

Great job David and really cool pics Me and Robin sure hated missing this years hunt but with work and a funeral it wasn't in the cards. Looks like you had a blast and really put some fur down I'm not really surprised you always seem to have successful hunts. I'll call you this week! God bless Skinner

Awesome stuff, thanks for sharing !

Great write up!

David, It was nice to meet & visit with you at the waterhole... & at supper. Rob & I missed most of the action in the evening cuz we just couldn't quit hunting even though we didn't call many in. PETA took over a most of our stands ( Predators Evading The Ambush ).It was sure nice to call in the warm weather, we hit a snowstorm on our trip home and drove about 100 miles on ice & snow pack.

Mike, Glad we ran into each other as well. I am the same way every year I get caught up in the hunting and miss out on some of the night time activities (like dinner) but it was fun. I hit the bad weather in west Texas as well and it was slow going for a while. I drove for 60 miles on ice and snow and there were no other vehicles out there with me and no cell service so I was pretty nervous until I caught up with another vehicle. Glad to hear ya'll made it home safe.

Nicely done Venatic. Way to put a hurtin on the NM song dogs. Thanks again for a fun and safe day at the range. Well done!

Sweet weekend David!


Thanks for the story and great pictures:-)


Kevin

Good write up Venatic, I will be down around the Three Sisters/south of Deming this weekend, and hopefully will have some pictures to share on Monday...we'll see. There is going to be four of us calling...not sure if that is too many, but one thing is for sure there will definitely be some lead flying... Thanks for sharing, and glad you made it home safe.

I sure left some seed coyotes but they might be a tad skittish.
Good Luck post up some pictures.

Venatic,

Was that your Dtech .17 you were shooting?

It looks like you ended up in some of my favorite country. That area, especially west of the Hermanas mountains, is awesome calling territory. Congrats on tearin' em up.

Add some rolling hills, and that yellow grass/yucca stuff is my favorite for calling.

Pretty sure it was the 6x45

Sounds like a great solo hunt. Thanks for sharing it!

Yellowhammer is correct I took the 6X45mm on this trip for a couple of reasons. I had ordered a Nightforce 2.5-10X32 that has the LowVelocity reticle with this gun/caliber in mind shooting 70-75gr bullets. I had not gotten to check it at longer ranges because my range only goes to 200 yards.
I knew that the range we have the Egg shoot at has targets to 500 meters so I wanted to check and see how close it actually was.
I shot it after the egg shoot on paper and Byron South shot it a couple of times at 500 meters at steel targets as well and it was very close. Elevation was almost perfect at 300 and 400 meters but at 500 meters which is 542 yards I was about 5 inches high using the 550 yard hash mark. Some of that is due to the fact that I ran my numbers at 500 feet above sea level and we were quite a bit higher in elevation and we had a 15mph tailwind so it would be a flatter trajectory.
I do know now that I can hold on a coyote and hit him if I do my part out to 500 yards using the appropriate cross hair.

Great job and thanks for sharing.

Great write up and good hunting. My wife and I were at the hunt as well.
We hunted close to the border on Friday and got checked by the border patrol and had a nice chat. We did five stands, saw five missed two and killed one.
There's a lot of country out there and I'm sure it's heavily hunted but if somebody is willing to walk more than half a mile from the nearest road, you'll get into coyotes. Also I believe coyotes are moving in from the Mexican side to fill the void where there's thousands of acres of open land where nobody hunts.

Sounds awesome, I sure missed being there. I never had more fun in my life than hunting with you and Sean last year. Well, maybe the eggshoot topped it a little, but it was close. Hopefully I can make it back next year.

Kris look at the third picture down and that was the spot where you shot your first coyote. I called another one this year but from the left instead of the right.