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Author
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Topic: Fighting the wind
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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 November 11, 2010 06:31 PM
Took the week off to do a little calling and the wind has been a beeawtch. And, every single day, too. Anywhere from 15 on the good days to 40+ for gusts. But, that said, I still managed to get a few coyotes put down.
Sunday, Kevin and I took my nephew Ryan who I have posted about before, and his sister, Rhea, to see if we could get them a coyote. At one of the very last places we called before the wind got to be just too much, we were looking out over a 40-acre patch full of nothing but six-feet tall sunflowers, cockleburrs, russian thistle, and just crap. You couldn't see much from ground level as was illustrated while I was getting Rhea in place and Kevin and Ryan were watching a coyote take a dump not 50 yards from us. We didn't see a thing. Those two were sitting forty feet above us on the side of an abandoned railroad grade. We were so intent on getting Rhea a shot that those guys watched seven different coyotes running around in front of us and they didn't take a shot until after I'd called the stand, unaware that anything was going on. LOL This picture shows Rhea (L), me and Ryan with the coyote Ryan got using my .25-06. Those Barnes 110-grain Triple Shock loads are more than enough to anchor a coyote. LOL (All I had and what the gun is zeroed on.)
Here's a pair I got on Tuesday. The first one came while calling a small winter wheat field surrounded by heavy timber and tall rangeland. The wind was blowing straight from the south and the caller was SE of where I sat against a bale. The coyote slipped out 20 yards to my left and very cautiously approached the caller until he got far enough out that I dumped him. The second one came to me courtesy of one of my landowners who stopped me to let me know they'd lost a cow and that the coyotes had already begun feeding on it. I set up with the caller near the carcass and opened with several different howls. A yearling male appeared about 300 yards away and below me from where I sat 60 feet above a cut bean field on a hillside. He was very cautious about approaching until I switched over to cottontail duet, which then prompted him to come on in. At least, until he saw something south of us he didn't like. He stopped 3 or 4 times to look the same direction and my guess was that there was another coyote in play, but danged if I could see it. So, when this one turned and began quartering away from the carcass and back toward the creek, I took the 180 yard shot and put him down.
Yesterday was harsh as the winds were near 35 mph all day. I tried several different strategies involving rifles but came up empty handed every time. So, I traded out the rifle for ol' Mossy and went in after them. Found a notch in the side of a hill where the cattle had been crossing down a ravine edge and tucked myself back close with the 12 gauge across my lap. Tall cedars inches away on my left and visibility of maybe 20 yards. The caller was ten feet in front of me and about three minutes into things, this guy came trotting up to me at my 9 o'clock and twenty feet out. I knew he was nearby because as I approached, I flushed a covey of quail out of the cedars. Grandpa always told me that pheasants and quail on power lines or in trees usually means a coyote is nearby. So far, grandpa was right.
Anyway, I punched him at about 30 feet with a load of #4 buckshot and put him down. About fifteen seconds alter, a second coyote appeared thru a clearing at about 90 yards tracking to my downwind side. Uh-oh. At about 50 yards, the coyote went into the ditch to make the last leg to the caller and before I knew it, he'd done a 180 and was going back the way he came. Oops. I put him to the ground hard with the first load of buckshot at 60 yards, and rolled him again at 75, but he didn't want to stick around. You can't hit 'em if you don't shoot at them.
Finally, today. What a day.
I left the house early and it was 32-degrees with zero wind. I was so excited to have good weather that I plum forgot the dentist appointment I'd told booger about in that other post. But, my missus called me as I walked into the first stand to tell me to get home. LOL I made the stand anyway and had a young female come in and die for the cause. She was mangy.
On the way to the dentists going down I-70, we passed a friend's place and the biggest brown coyote you'd ever seen was walking slowly down his driveway right alongside the Interstate. My daughter laughed as I screamed and wheezed at that coyote's arrogance and I told her that when she was done today, I was going to hunt that coyote down and kill it. On the way home, I spotted the same coyote a half mile east curled up on a wheatfield watching cars go by. I hurriedly got my girl to school and hit the Interstate going back and found him standing in the same spot watching traffic.
The closest point from which I could begin a stalk was 700 yards west across nothing but open wheat field (green and three inches tall) in all directions, with the highway 100 yards south of him and wheat every place else. He picked that spot because he thought it was safe. My brother told me a week ago that he'd been seeing him laying out there about twice a week.
Anyway, I began my stalk by approaching from due west, keeping a very low rise in the field between us. If I stood upright, he could see me, but if I stayed hunched over, we were out of sight to one another. At about 400 yards, my back hurt like hell and I ran out of hill so I had to go to my belly for the last 25 yards. By then, I was in plain view of him as he lay out there on his left side, his belly toward me, on his side like he'd died. I angle to the right to redirect my line of sight way from the highway and extended my bipod, finding the coyote's sleeping body in the crosswires. At one point, he lazily raised his head and look toward me but didn't register the problem about to happen.
I contemplated just what to do. All I could see of him was about a four inch thick layer of coyote hair. I thought about whistling or barking, but worried that if I did that, it would startle him and he'd be up and off like a shot. I finally decided to take the all or none shot at him as he lay, 275 yards, give or take at a 1-inch target since hitting low would scrap the bullet and hitting high would catch hair and fat at best, and better yet, be a shoot over and clean miss. I took a deep breath, exhaled about 3/4 of it and put the crosshairs just below the top line of his form.
BOOM!
WHOP!
Solid hit and he's up biting at his chest, with cars going by. Uh-oh. Frantically, I load another round, line up and
BOOM!
WHOP!
Round two catches him in the right shoulder, driving him to the ground. Again, he starts to get up on his front legs, biting at his shoulder. I reload, line up on his head and fire a third time.
BOOM!
WHOP!
Down for good. Nonchalantly, I approach, hog tie him and carry him out the 400+ yards to the truck. He weighed in right at 38 pounds. Missing his right eye where there was now just this nasty thick green pus-like drainage. He stunk to high hell and his sides were swollen. Our best guess is that someone found him in their yard and shot him with bird shot destroying his right eye and filling at least one side of him with bird shot that festered and abscessed beneath the hide because he smelled rotten.
Number three on the day came around 2 o'clock bounding through tall grass to the caller. he spotted me spotting him from about 65 yards out and froze in the waist-deep grass. I already had the crosshairs on him and shot him just beneath the chin leaving a three-inch hole out the back of his neck where his spine used to be.
In this pic, the mangy pup from first thing is on the left, the neck wound coyote (3) is in the middle and the sleeper is on the right. The next pic shows his then-defunct eye. Boy needed a good eye patch.
Between Kevin and me, we've killed twenty so far, 13 for me and 7 for him. Pheasant hunting starts day after tomorrow, so things will change a lot in the next week.
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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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nd coyote killer
HUNTMASTER PRO STAFF
Member # 40
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posted November 11, 2010 09:08 PM
Good work nice to see you adjusting to all aspects of getting them put down however you do look like you want to give me a kiss in the second to last pic ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
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"Sure are cocky for a starving pilgrim" - Bear Claw
Posts: 385 | From: On a hill | Registered: Jan 2003
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Leonard
HMFIC
Member # 2
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posted November 11, 2010 09:54 PM
He looks like Opie, in that photo, if you want my opinion? Other times, every time I see that guy in the Postal "flat rate" commercials, I think of Lance.
Good hunting. LB
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EL BEE Knows It All and Done It All.
Don't piss me off!
Posts: 32368 | From: Upland, CA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Patterson
19.6 miles down the Yellow Brick Road from THE EMERALD CITY
Member # 3304
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posted November 12, 2010 01:15 PM
Nice work Lance. Love the story about the interstate dog. There are always a ton of coyotes dead on the stretch from Chapman to Salina. That coyote was probly debating on whether to just end it or not! Nasty eye!
The wind this week has not been fun. I have only been able to get out for a stand or two a day and have been able to knock one down here and there this week. Supposed to be windy tomorrow as well but with ditch parrot season opening like you said it will change them up a bit and I dont feel bad about missing that fiasco. Luckily I will be in MO tomorrow so maybe I can get into a bobcat or coyote.
Posts: 236 | From: Kansas | Registered: Nov 2008
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4949shooter
SECOND PLACE HIGGINS (MAGNUM P.I.) LOOK A LIKE CONTEST
Member # 3530
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posted November 13, 2010 03:34 AM
Glad you put that one out of his misery Cdog.
Is that a holster for a long barreled sidearm on your right side?
Posts: 2274 | From: New Jersey | Registered: Dec 2009
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