The New Huntmastersbbs!: God hates me (long)

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Topic: God hates me (long)

Cdog911
"There are some ideas so absurd only an intellectual could believe them."--George Orwell.
Member # 7

posted January 01, 2007 02:28 PM

Have you ever had one of those days which, if things had gone your way just once, would have deserved a red letter but, instead, just gets a big red raspberry? Well, January 1, 2007, was that kind of day for me. At least, so far.

Things have been slow around here. Any slower and we'd be putting coyotes back together and turning them loose kinda slow if you know what I mean. But, alas, yesterday it snowed. Not a lot, but we ended up with about 4-6 inches of fluff on the ground.

I opted to stay in yesterday morning and let the storm burn itself out when the weather man said that winds were to be blowing at 25-35 mph. Not a bad decision. That is, until Matt calls me and says that he's out checking traps and it "ain't bad at all". It wasn't, until we got out and the real snow hit. Visibility of less than a hundred yards. Blowing and drifting snow. We managed to bump a pair of coyotes and one was unlucky enough to get confused in the white out and stopped long enough for Matt to deflate her. The dry spell is broken. Lord, was it ever.

This morning, I rise bright and early to go hunting. I heralded the new year by kissing the old one good bye by nine last night. Had no use for it anymore as it sucked shit the whole time it was here. May '07 be better. If today is any indication,..... not.

I'm John Wayne-ing it since Matt stayed up late with his honey and friends (priorities?) so off to the country I go. I'm headed to one spot but pass another I'd forgotten about and pull in the drive. Walk in about 300 yards and set up looking north across a whole lotta snow to a distant creek (crick?). After a bunch of howling and squealing, a young whitetail buck erupts from the fencerow about a hundred yards to my left and I found that to be "curious". Moments later, I steal a look to my backside and see a coyote trekking to get across behind me and downwind. One problem: absotively, posolutely NO HUNTING on that ground. Damn! Just my luck. I roll a little further to my left to get a better look and come eyeball to eyeball with another coyote. And another. And yet another. All about thirty yards away thru a tangle of hedge branches and green briar. Four coyotes and I can't take or get a decent shot at any of them. [Mad]

Disgusted, I decide to move on to whiter pastures and head to a farm where I can park the truck and use the ATV to get into country that is inaccessible because of snow. Two miles from his place, the road looks a bit rough so I decide to cross onto a frozen wheatfield through a low area where the ditch is shallow. Wrong, and wrong. The ditch was about three feet deep, full of snow and water, and the wheatfield was pure soup. Mental note: 6 inches of snow after two days of rain means the ground beneath the snow will not freeze in one night no matter how cold it gets. Oops.

Thank God, even if he is pissed at me, for cell phones as I call another buddy who plows his way to me in his tractor and literally lifts my quad out of the drink. As he said, "Gotta hand it to you. First time I've ever had to do this." That cost me a good hour of waiting time. [Mad]

Next place I go to is a dandy. A real go-to type honey hole. I hang my Bandit from a locust tree and get comfy in a deer blind overlooking the low basin full of knee-deep powder. I hit the "go" button and my cell phone starts vibrating. Within two minutes, a nice yellow coyote comes bounding out of the creek bottom and I ignore the call because it's probably Matt just bugging me. I line up through the gun port on the blind and bang. Flop. Coyote gets back up and I whack him again. He anchors quite well. God likes me. Right.

I quickly grab two more shells out of my pocket and begin to refill the Howa when a see a bobcat bolt out of the creek and toward the caller. And my phone begins to vibrate again. Now, understand that my wife knows to call me when hunting only in an emergency. This is twice inside 5 minutes. Something must be wrong. I dig in my pocket to check the caller ID and my rifle barrel shifts and bumps the steel siding on the blind. Cat turns and goes back to creek never to be seen again. [Mad]

The call? Matt. So, I call him, ask him what the hell he wants, tell him he just cost me a cat and hang up on him. Took about that long. Wasn't in a nice-nice mood. Probably oughtta apologize for that. Heat of the moment, ya know.

Wade thru the snow to retrieve my coyote and find him to have mange on both front legs and a small spot on the left hip. Other than that, a beautiful specimen. Then, I notice a huge puss filled abssess about the size of an orange on the inside of the right front leg at the elbow. And I notice that the hair between his toes is about an inch long beneath the pads. That coyotes wasn't bounding through the snow. Poor bastard was cripple. What looked like a good thing was either a mercy killing or just plain harassing the handicap. You decide. What a day, but wait.

The guy that pulled me out had told me he's been seeing the same two coyotes behind his corrals every day the past week, so I head over there. I set up overlooking the area where he'd been seeing them and let the Bandit do all the work. Nothing. Thank God things are back to normal.

As I'm walking out along the backside of the corrals, I see something on the horizon a long damned way away and raise my binoculars. About a half-mile out, there's a coyote, skylined, pacing back and forth. I hug the corral close, and wait him out. He turns and disappears beneath the horizon and I do the Q thing - hustle about 250 yards to a drainage between us and set up to bring him in. Dropping the Bandit on a brush pile, I get between it and where I last saw that coyote and hit the puppy howls. About ten minutes into things, a coyote trots right up to about twenty feet off my right shoulder and turns to look straight at me. Straight at me. For five minutes, that damned coyote had me pinned down. All I could do was sit there breathing shallowly with my eyes squinted shut. About the same time I decided to make a hail Mary swing, point and shoot, he decided he didn't like that lump all that much and launched himself into a nearby ditch and out of sight. [Mad]

But it gets worse. I tried to call him back for about a minute and turned to my left and I'll be damned if there wasn't another coyote standing about thirty feet off my shoulder looking at the caller. Now I was pissed. I swung my rifle around, found him in the scope, as well as a BUNCH of brush I'd be shooting thru. Damn. Moving the crosshairs around to find an opening, all I could do was watch that coyote stand there quartering away from me with his head tilted as he watched that Bandit. Finally, out of just plain being pissed, I shot, the bullet fragged and the coyote departed unscathed. Screw it. He was mangey anyway.

So, after a month of not so much as even seeing a coyote, I managed to make six stands today, called seven coyotes and a bobcat, and only managed to drag home one mangey cripple that very well may have had a suicide wish anyway. [Confused]

Still had fun though. If the warm up doesn't melt all the snow, we'll be out tonight under the moon.

[ January 02, 2007, 05:03 AM: Message edited by: Cdog911 ]

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I am only one. But still, I am one. I cannot do everything, but still, I can do something; and, because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.

Posts: 5440 | From: The gun-lovin', gun-friendly wild, wild west | Registered: Jan 2003 | IP: Logged

Andy L
HI, I'M THE NEW MODERATOR OF THE CENTRAL MISSOURI FORUM, PULL MY FINGER!
Member # 642

posted January 01, 2007 02:54 PM

Lance, if it hadnt all happened to me at one time or another, I wouldnt be laughin so much. [Big Grin]

I got one for you. Talk about weird shit pulled out of the mud. I came home from fishing a tournament one evening and noticed some heavy equipment in the driveway. As I drove along toward the house, I didnt notice the white stripe of fresh gravel. The guys had dug a line across the road. My truck went over it just fine, just dug in a little. However, I slowed down for the bumps as I went thru it and had stopped just as the smaller wheels on my boat trailer were over the ditch. Down she went. Now, this may not seem like much, but a 20' bass boat with 60 gal of fuel and a 225HP OptiMax motor hangin off it isnt light by any means. It went past the axels. I locked it in 4x4 and gave her hell. Wouldnt budge. So, I called the number on the side of the dumptruck hooked to the lowboy where the backhoe was sittin and he came right over. We couldnt figger out how to lift that thing out of there without damaging the fiberglass boat. Finally, we got two straps and wrapped them all the way around the boat and trailer and he lifted straight up with the hoe and inched forward as I drove.

What an operation. [Big Grin]

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Andy

Posts: 2645 | From: Central Missouri | Registered: Apr 2005 | IP: Logged

BigO
Knows what it's all about
Member # 1062

posted January 01, 2007 05:54 PM

I got about a halh an inch of snow from the same storm that gave you four inches. I went out today, drove about 100 miles in this county made four stands and never saw a thing.

P.S. I believe "crick" is proper English.

Posts: 64 | From: reno co. ks. | Registered: Dec 2006 | IP: Logged

Cdog911
"There are some ideas so absurd only an intellectual could believe them."--George Orwell.
Member # 7

posted January 01, 2007 08:56 PM

Well guys, I redeemed myself and I think I'm back in the Lord's good graces again. WE hunted under the moon tonight. Took a buddy of mine that is just learning this game. Ended up calling seven more and killing one.

The first two came in together from behind Jeff. One hung up way back while the other circled trying to get downwind of me calling. Unfortunately, the snow was kind of sparse, the grass was kind of tall and Jeff had a less than optimal sight window for the shot. (We can't use as artificial light. Nuttin' but moonlight.) SO, that made us 2 coyotes for 2 stands and no kills.

We hit another blank spot and fog was setting in along the riverbottoms pretty bad, so we headed north to the area I called this morning. Then I got an idea. Remember how many times you've been told you can't call the same place twice in one day and do any good. Bull!

We went back to the spot where I got backdoored by the four this morning. After a litany of howls and distress, we were standing up to leave when Jeff spotted little grey dots on the move way out there. In fact, I would guess that they were well over 500 yards out. I saw four but Jeff said he saw all five at one time.

We hi the deck, crawled to the crest of a terrace in the snow and I tried to squeak them in. They circled wide. When the last one hit the west end of the hedgerow we'd been calling from, we both got up and beat feet back to the trees and set up looking thru to the other side. After what seemed like forever, a single came trotting out about 200 yards away on the crest of the hill. Once in perfect line with a distant house, he sat down, where he stayed for most of a half hour. I saw one other to his right moving southeast, and another west of us along the hedgerow, but neither of them offered a shot. Lying in the snow with my bipod down, I zero'd in on the coyote and told Jeff if he would stand up and face left or right, I would take him, but I hated a straight on, sitting pose. Finally, while I looked to see what Jeff was doing (he'd redeployed to the north side of the hedgerow in case the others came down that way, I checked back on my coyote and he was standing up. Crosshairs at center mass, no light, one shot. Bang. Whop. Best guess, about 160 yards. I feel much better now.

Fourteen is about the most I've ever called in a single day around here and I wish I had more to skin than two, but it was still a memorable day.

[ January 02, 2007, 05:04 AM: Message edited by: Cdog911 ]

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I am only one. But still, I am one. I cannot do everything, but still, I can do something; and, because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.

Posts: 5440 | From: The gun-lovin', gun-friendly wild, wild west | Registered: Jan 2003 | IP: Logged

The Outdoor Tripp
Knows what it's all about
Member # 619

posted January 02, 2007 07:52 AM

1) Lance attains the highly coveted PAKMAN status.

2) Hell freezes over.

3) God hates Lance.

4) God forgives Lance.

What's next?

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The Outdoor Tripp
www.theoutdoortripp.com
"All great truths begin as blasphemies."

Posts: 805 | From: Texas | Registered: Mar 2005 | IP: Logged

Rich Higgins
unknown comic

posted January 02, 2007 11:22 AM