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Author
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Topic: Confusing hunting day, good results
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Possumal
HONORARY CALLS FORUM MODERATOR edit: AND TOKEN LIBERAL
Member # 823
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posted December 21, 2010 03:18 PM
Late yesterday marks the most confusing but rewarding day I have ever experienced coyote hunting. Due to illness in the family (Wife's mother who lives with us), I got away from the house about two hours later than planned. I was supposed to meet a landowner between 1:30 and 2:00 to look over a new 380 acre farm to hunt, but ended up meeting him at 3:45. After the grand tour in his 4wd pickup, it was too late to hunt a farm I wasn't familiar with, so I drove like superpossum to another farm about 5 miles from there and drove back in and parked. I only had about an hour left until total darkness, so I made a quick survey of the wind direction and other factors and threw a loop about 1/4 of a mile to allow me to approach my area of choice correctly. Dropped off the Firestorm in a brushpile in a bottom and quickly made my nest about 75 yds up the hill and gave it a few minutes of silence. Started out with a howl on my Cronk Killer Call, and then the Female Invitational Howl on the Firestorm. Immediately I had two howling directly behind me about 100 to 200 yds back. I quickly figured they would come to the bottom from my right side, so I shifted around that way with my shooting sticks and got ready. I was pretty surprised when a big female came in from directly behind me and I didn't know it until I caught a glimpse of her out of the left eye's peripheral, and she stopped on the edge of the farm road to try to see the coyote who did that howling and was now eating one of her rabbits. She couldn't see what wasn't there, but she couldn't be sure either so she started trotting to her right on the farm road looking down where she heard that sound from. I was just starting to push my Sceery squeaker to stop her at 30 yds when she hit my scent where I crossed that road. She didn't head for Dodge exactly, but she was trucking along pretty good halfway glancing back up towards me. At about 75 yds I got in cadence with her and lit the fire in my 243, hitting her just right and flipping her end over end. Foxbang immediately sounded off the Coyote Death Cry, and I let it go for about 30 seconds hoping it would bring her mate in. This time I was ready and turned back towards where she came behind me, and switched back to the Coyote eating a rabbit. Sure as shootin, here the big rascal comes about 35 yds further out than she came, with me following him in my scope. When he was about 50 yds out, I hit my Sceery squeaker, and he stopped dead in his tracks with my crosshairs settled dead center on his chest. I can't explain why but something just didn't appear exactly right, so I didn't pull the trigger, but waited untl he turned his head left to look back where he last heard the ecaller. I came up off the scope good enough to take a peep, and I sure am glad I did, because her big mate turned out to be somebody's big German Shepherd, about 90 lbs.. I made a hand move and he left in a hurry with me taking a deep breath and thanking God for guiding me to make the right decision.
I waited a few minutes and hit the female howl again, and a big howl came back from behind me but further to my right. It was getting so dark, I couldn't see nearly as well down to my right, so I decided to get up on one knee to help me see the area about 130 yds down the farm road. Sure as could be, he stepped out into a semi cleared area, and I squeezed one off and heard that resounding smack and saw him jump straight up about 3 feet, run a few yards and jumped again, appeared to flip over and then out of my sight around the curve in the road. When I shot, naturally the Foxbang engaged again and the Coyote Death Cry started screaming. So I sat back down and went back to the coyote killing a rabbit and watching what I could still see. Gave it about ten minutes and by then, it was so dark it was time to close shop.
I gathered up my gear and headed down the road and found the pretty female DRT, and hurriedly walked on down to hopefully find him lying there dead. Instead I found where he was standing when I shot him with a big bunch of blood, and about ten more feet and another big pool of blood, and about 20 more feet another pool of blood and then tracks into the underbrush. Went back to the truck to get a better light but couldn't go into the thick running briars and the like expecially in the dark and me back in the middle of nowhere with nobody but God and me knowing where I was. So I am confident he is dead and I am far too tired to go back out there today, so the pictures of the blood piles is about the best I can do for you. Besides I have to go someplace else this afternoon to see if I can get another one or two.
Here are the pictures of a real pretty female and the blood piles.
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Al Prather
Foxpro Field Staff
Posts: 781 | From: Nicholasville, Ky. | Registered: Mar 2006
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Possumal
HONORARY CALLS FORUM MODERATOR edit: AND TOKEN LIBERAL
Member # 823
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posted December 22, 2010 09:31 AM
Had time to run back out to the farm where I shot the pair, with about a half hour of daylight left to look for the one I couldn't find. In daylight, it was simple, as he had made one last jump and slid down an incline about 10 feet and was lodged up against a big old log with a patch of briars right next to him. Embarassing part is it wasn't over 30 feet from where the last pile of blood was when I shot him. Oh well, he had a bad case of rigor mortis, but here he is hanging in a tree with his late wife.
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Al Prather
Foxpro Field Staff
Posts: 781 | From: Nicholasville, Ky. | Registered: Mar 2006
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Paul Melching
Radical Operator Forum "You won't get past the front gate"
Member # 885
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posted December 22, 2010 09:36 AM
Good job Al, some days are just more interesting than others.
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Those who value security over liberty soon will have neither !
Posts: 4188 | From: The forest ! north of the dez. | Registered: Jul 2006
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TundraWookie
Knows what it's all about
Member # 1044
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posted December 22, 2010 10:25 AM
Nice work Al, amazing what a little bit of daylight can do. I probably could've found that four wheeler alot quicker that one night with some daylight too...lol... ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Posts: 857 | From: Alaska | Registered: Dec 2006
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Briguy
Unofficial AGENT PROVOCATEUR
Member # 3471
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posted December 22, 2010 11:24 PM
It's amazing how far they will go even after a pretty good hit. I shot one yesterday and had a huge blood splatter and some gut carnage laying there. Went to go find her, and found 4 different blood puddles and trails where she was walking around, then laying down, but couldn't find her. Was getting dark, so went and grabbed the truck and pulling back up, there she was in the middle of the road...had to be a good 100 yards from where I shot her and 75 from where I was looking. Never would have found her if she wasn't laying in the road.
Amazing to me she made it that far with her guts hanging out.
Posts: 94 | From: El Desierto | Registered: Aug 2009
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Leonard
HMFIC
Member # 2
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posted December 23, 2010 06:14 AM
I remember one that probably would have got away, except his guts were dragging about fifteen feet behind him and he snagged them on a bush. There he was tugging like he was tied up in a yard. I remember the bad hit was one of those things where they turn at the precise moment when the trigger is pressed resulting in almost the whole belly getting dumped. I can't imagine a human surviving as long as he did. If I had not seen the bush jerking around, I might not have found him?
Good hunting. LB
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EL BEE Knows It All and Done It All.
Don't piss me off!
Posts: 31473 | From: Upland, CA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Possumal
HONORARY CALLS FORUM MODERATOR edit: AND TOKEN LIBERAL
Member # 823
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posted December 24, 2010 06:46 AM
Yeah Leonard, that sudden turn to leave can cause problems for the shooter or for the coyote. Down in Washington County, Ky. about 10 years ago, my nephew, Danny Sipe, and I had been hunting on the very back of a big dairy farm. On the way out, I spotted a big male coyote skirting the edge of the woods where it met the hay field. We knew about where he would cross the ridge, and drove up there and waited a few minutes. He crossed about 150 yds from where we were, and then turned sideways at 190 yds.. I had it right on his left shoulder but as I squeezed off a shot, he turned right to head out of there and the bullet hit him right in the side of the head by his left ear, nearly beheading him. The result was the most muscular built coyote I had ever killed with a shot result too graphic to post.
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Al Prather
Foxpro Field Staff
Posts: 781 | From: Nicholasville, Ky. | Registered: Mar 2006
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