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Author
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Topic: Nighttime fun
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Cdog911
"There are some ideas so absurd only an intellectual could believe them."--George Orwell.
Member # 7
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posted December 23, 2007 03:52 PM
Since it appears that no one here ever gets a chance to hunt anymore - at least, you wouldn't know it from the sharing of adventure stories - I thought I'd take a few moments to share a couple kills this weekend.
This past Monday, I wrapped up a nuisance issue with two of my landowners one of whom was seeing this large coyote strafing his farrowing enclosures several nights a week, and the other, having lost most all of his farm cats to a coyote that had made his outbuildings its home. A week before our ice storm, I engaged this coyote one morning, with it and me going back and forth for most of forty-five minutes with nary a clear shot being offered. After all was said and done, I had one long shot, miscalculated the hold over and chumped it big time.
This past Monday, my kid had a Christmas program at school and As I walked in, I noted that the moon and wind were nearly sufficient for some lunar night calling. As soon as the program was over, I was out the door. My hopes were that I could call her from the pasture where it holds up in and coax her to my downwind with howls. It worked. Five minutes in, or so, she circled me to the west going to the north and I dropped her at about 110-120 yards as she stood atop a terrace. This is her - exit wound from a 55-grn VMax, 22-250.
Yesterday, we had good flurries all day long and by the time sunset arrived, the sun was shining in the western sky. By 6:30, the nearly full moon had cleared the quickly receding clouds and things lit up beautifully. I called a guy that said he'd been wanting to go hunting with me and off we went. First two stands drew blanks. On the third, I set the Bandit at the west end of a long strip field between a creek channel on the north and 160 acres of CRP on the south to exploit a west wind and hopefully keep the coyote east of the caller while we set up to the north side. About five minutes in, I see a stump of a lump about 100 yards east of me in a low crossing where I frequently see coyotes respond from. I watched it for most of a minute and it turned and went out of sight to the left. I raised my rifle on the sticks and hope it would approach along the edge of the channel. Instead, it appeared in the same place, pacing back and forth. The more I observed, the more its body language told me it was hesitant to close and might bolt, so, despite my hopes of getting Ron a shot, I took up the slack and fired. Right at about 130 yards, right in the middle of the chest.
This morning, despite a full moon all night long, Matt and I headed out in hopes of maybe seeing a 'cat. Daytime coyote responses have tanked the past two weeks, thus the reason I was hunting them at night, so I was somewhat surprised to see one appear. The problem was that I was on the north side of the river and it was on the south. In front of me was a notch where the summer floods we experienced washed out the levee.
I was sitting at the base of that 3-trunked tree in the middle of the photo. The coyote appeared quartering up the bank on the other side of the river visible through that notch. As soon as she came into sight, she looked right at me and froze. I repositioned the rifle, mentally confirmed that we had permission over there as well, took aim, and slipped the Vmax through a veil of grasses with a 6-inch hole right over her chest. Even I was surprised when she dropped. The shot was maybe 130-150 yards, total. This picture is one we took from her vantage point two hours later when we were finally able to make our way around to her on the ATV.
 . Same notch in the background.
She was a big old female with a lot of tooth wear, and a danged nice pelt on her, too.
One evening and a day, called 11 stands, saw 4 coyotes and killed two. And just in case anyone is curious, since it was a point of contention a short time back, we have managed to kill half of the coyotes we've seen this year. Not half that we shot at - half of what we've seen. 29 of 58, since that "half" seems to be the magic number above which you're "the shit", and beneath which you should just hang up your calls and take up a new hobby. LOL ![[Wink]](wink.gif) COuold have done better, had we made a few shots we missed, or taken a couple that we passed on because the situation was "iffy", but considering that we're the only ones taking any numbers around here that aren't chasing them in trucks, we're happy with those figures.
Now, has anyone else been hunting this year? Tell us about it.
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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
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Locohead
World Famous Smoke Dancer
Member # 15
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posted December 23, 2007 04:35 PM
Lance,
What a great idea to take a picture of the coyote where she lay. It is a VERY great picture! Her pelt is indeed gorgeous!
Fun reading stories too. I'll post a picture of some dead critter's teeth also. I was wondering much the same thing. It was a male with monster sized paws and really worn teeth!
Good hunting Lance! Keep up the good work and the stories coming. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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I love my critters and chick!!!! :)
Posts: 2219 | From: CO | Registered: Jan 2003
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Rich Higgins
unknown comic
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posted December 23, 2007 05:08 PM
Beautiful coyotes, Lance.
Tyler and I hunted down by Willcox Saturday with Craig G. from APC.
Talked to a few on the howler, called a few in, all very skittish, and Tyler and Craig shot a couple. One had advanced mange. The ones that were shot and shot at were picked off by the shooter that was positioned behind a ridge or thicket on the downwind side. None made a dirct approach.
Water was iced over down there and the coyotes were well furred up.
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Cdog911
"There are some ideas so absurd only an intellectual could believe them."--George Orwell.
Member # 7
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posted December 23, 2007 06:48 PM
Funny you should mention setting up with a gunner downwind. If I've learned one thing with howling, it has to be its value in compelling most coyotes to go downwind, thus allowing me to position Matt a hundred or so downrange in such a way as to get a good view of the most likely route any above average coyote will take in trying to get the wind of the source of the howls. Well, that held true until this afternoon.
I've often told of a pack of coyotes we "correspond" with throuhout the summer and early fall. We call them the WIndmill Pack because of a squeaky old windmill sitting alongside this worn out old farm pond down in the bowels of this thickly overgrown pasture. Until this season, we have never been allowed to hunt inside this pasture, and the coyotes rarely venture beyond its boundaries in the light of day. Today, we made our first foray into their territory.
I set Matt about 150 yards south of me, wind from the northwest. I sat alongside a north-south fenceline looking east with the windmill and pond NE of me. The tree I used for backing had taken a beating from the ice storm and I had to rearrange a few fallen branches to make a hidey hole. I set up looking east with an option to swing SE if I had to, and I fully expected to have to do that because I began the stand with three pairs of lone howls. I really, really wanted to do what I could to give Matt every chance at a sniper shot.
Well, walking in, I flushed a covey of quail three times, each time they would rise, then settle back down 20-30 yards in front of me. About ten minutes into the stand, the covey flushes thirty yards to my left (N/ upwind). I turn, knowing what's coming next, and repositioned my rifle for an offhand shot at whatever is coming down that fenceline, unseen because of several small piles of brush in the first twenty yards. Before I know it, a coyote is twenty feet to my left and I can't thread my rifle through the overhanging branches. I'm trying to decide if I should just clamp down, sit stone still and see if he'll just run right by me when he gets that "Oh shit!!!' look on his face and busts to my right and onto the grass.
When I moved my rifle to port, I grabbed my Sniper Styx and pulled them back toward me to keep them from falling forward and alerting the coyote to my presence. At this point, the bottoms of the sticks are entangled in grass and small branches that I'm sitting on. The top end swings back and gets caught up in my binocular straps, Then when I try to move, they slap me up side the head and knock my cap off, my glasses all a-kilter and keep me from being able to fully extend my right arm to support the rifle.
The coyote is running off, and the more I fight those sticks, the more they fight back. I can't get myself free of them and I'm sitting there cussing like Q after a missed chip shot. I took two hail Mary's and one actually steady shot after the coyote chcekced up at 300 yards in grass a bit taller than he was. That last shot was more just venting my total frsutration at just how quickly things went to hell on me. Now, a couple hours later, it would definitely have been funnier than hell to watch, and I'm glad no one was there to see it. But ya know what? They don't always go downwind when you howl. LOL
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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
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Rich Higgins
unknown comic
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posted December 23, 2007 07:18 PM
quote:
They don't always go downwind when you howl. LOL
LOL Hard to argue with that one after your Buster Keaton routine with the shooting sticks.
All of the 13 coyotes that we saw yesterday were as close to downwind as they could get or on their way there when we stopped them. One not only used the cover of the backside of the ridge that we set up on but it crossed the valley and moved along the other ridge side 400 yards from us.
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Jrbhunter
PAYS ATTENsION TO deTAIL
Member # 459
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posted December 23, 2007 08:04 PM
It's amazing how a sheet of ice seems to open up a whole new world. When(if) our lakes and streams freeze over it really increases our success on coyotes.
Posts: 615 | From: Indiana | Registered: Dec 2004
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