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Author
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Topic: The truth about how some days go
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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 06, 2014 05:02 PM
C'mon guys, let's not let any lurkers or new guys think that every coyote we call here dies. Tuesday was a prime example for me.
Two days of gale force winds prior, Tuesday dawned nice and calm. Expecting the break in the wind to be good for me. I figured the first two stand would be killer so I picked two great places, and nada. Same for the next two. On four, I called with the Ult-1 for about 20 minutes and could hear a jay raising hell in the drainage below me but never saw anything. That's when a low flying Blackhawk helo from Fort Riley lit things up and I decided to call it. Of course, about a hundred steps from my hide, I had that feeling I was being looked at, so I turned around and there stood a coyote right where those jays had been. Damn! He watched me for all of two seconds and left back into the cover.
Two miles away, I went to a sheep farm where the owner had not had time to mow and bale the tall grass (6 feet tall) that the coyotes use for cover. He'd been lambing in his pens and his Aussie shephard, Susie, had been going nose to nose with a pack of coyotes every night. (Used to run Susie back to the farm when she'd try to go out back with us. Anymore, the coyotes watch her and that's cost more than a couple of them their lives.) I walked in past the tall grass to a lone piss elm on a fence line and set up to call. Two minutes in, a lone coyote crests a hill 125 yards out and stops right on the horizon. Too many houses downrange to take that shot safely so I wait to see if he'll come off the ridge for me. He looks to my left, turns and bugs out. At this time, a single coyote comes racing from my left and stops 25 feet in front of me when I woof. The AR plants him and just as I shoot, two more come through the fence about 100 yards behind the one on the ground and the shot sends them immediately right back into the grass. ![[Frown]](frown.gif) At least I got one.
Next place is a bean stubble field a couple miles north where, two weeks ago, I brought one in from my gunner's 6 and it ran right up and stopped 5 feet off his left shoulder where they both just eyeballed one another. About 100 yards from where we sit on that one, there's a gap in the trees that they use to move between fields and I was thinking about how we never see anything through that gap.
I'd been calling about ten minutes and starting getting all ADD'd up and was messing with the charging handle on my rifle when I looked up and about 50 yards on the other side of that gap, there's a big old coyote just spotting me as he goes into a low creeping stalk. He looks to his left and suddenly bolts toward me as a second coyote appears next to him and the race is on. I line up the first of the two in the scope as they cross through the gap and am waiting for the second to clear the gap so that when he busts away from the shot, he's on my side. Well, something spooked the first one big time and he turned inside out and ran out his own asshole with number two following his lead. I didn't get a good shot at either of them.
Go two miles east and a mile north to where two mile square pastures butt up against none another. Walk in about a quarter-mile and set up just over a hill top with my back against a barbed wire fence with sand plum thickets behind me. Got the "f'ing anchor" (my .22-250) with me rather than the AR. About five in, I'm set up with the rifle aimed SSW and a coyote pops through the fence 20 yards to my right at my 3 (W)and looks right at me. I froze, squinted my eyes shut, and he turns and bolts down a cow path going straight away from me down the fence line. I roll the rifle to the right and woof just as he starts up the side of the next hill, shoot and blow his pelvis all to hell at about 150 yards. He's dragging himself away so I put a second round into him to anchor him. That's when I see a second coyote just cresting the hill in front of me, who in turn sees me and lights them up getting outta Dodge. Damn!
Pick things up and head to a small pasture we call "the hill" where I don't see anything. I'm sore and a problem foot condition (torn ligament in my foot) is starting to slow me down so I load up to go home. As I'm pulling out, I see a bump in a waterway bisecting a large field of uncut milo. Now, normally I don't shoot at coyotes bedded down because I would rather call them, but the owner here expects them to be killed on sight. Demands it, in fact. I stop the truck and this coyote stands up. 120-130 yards. Mangy as hell. Slick and shiny kind of mangy. I grab the anchor and drop the pods, using the hood of the truck for a bench. Take aim as he stands there and BANG - WHOP. Down he goes. Then he gets up and starts walking, yes walking, toward the milo. No hurry, man. BANG - WHOP. Down he goes again. And again, he stands up, turns the other way and starts walking toward the other milo. Third shot, BANG - WHOP. Down he goes again. All three center mass hits. And again, he gets up and manages to drag himself into the milo. Tough sumbitch. I jump into the pickup and drive through the ditch and down the waterway to where I last saw him. Blood everywhere. I jump out with the AR shouldered and sweeping left and right as I move through shoulder high milo. I can see the stalks moving less than ten feet from me and catch glimpses of him moving ahead of me through the leaves. Leaving a helluva blood trail and, to be honest, I'm very wary of how this coyote was acting both before the first shot and after each shot that followed. I really don't wanna find myself stepping on him, or worse yet, tripping and falling on him while he can still fight me, so I sweep around him to try and cut him off, the whole time with my AR shouldered and my finger on the safety. Things were pretty intense, I tell you. Hand to hand in the thick of it. Ended up losing him but with all the blood he had to be right there somewhere and circling the drain, if not dead already. Wishing I had a recovery dog, just to be sure.
Ended up seeing one more coyote mousing in a waterway near Abilene on the way home. All told, 12 seen, only killed three. Could have and should have done better, but it is what it is. I've gotten so use to having Kevin, Mark, or both is position to handle multiples that hunting by myself almost handicaps me anymore. Feelin' kinda lonely out there. LOL
We have 23 killed so far since mid-October and I'm on vacation all next week with a growing list of people needing me to kill their coyotes. Gonna have fun.
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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: 5438 | From: The gun-lovin', gun-friendly wild, wild west | Registered: Jan 2003
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Leonard
HMFIC
Member # 2
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posted November 06, 2014 05:45 PM
Good story. I can't relate to the farm stuff but seems they hold a few.
Good hunting. El Bee
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EL BEE Knows It All and Done It All.
Don't piss me off!
Posts: 31465 | From: Upland, CA | Registered: Jan 2003
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KaBloomR
Knows what it's all about
Member # 4252
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posted November 07, 2014 04:03 PM
That was a good story. The mangy one may have been a zombie. It more than likely needed a head shot to totally disable it.....
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"It always gets a helluva lot worse before it gets any better"
Posts: 302 | From: Utah | Registered: Nov 2012
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Leonard
HMFIC
Member # 2
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posted November 07, 2014 06:26 PM
Did I ever mention the coyote I shot with a 270? Northern Nevada.
I went out to get him and he woke up and started humping. I ran after him and was gaining on him when he turned and came at me.
I shot him seven times with my 45 from about six feet. All chest shots, but all FMJ. Then finished him with a five pound rock. He was a tough dude!
Only had a wounded coyote come at me one other time.
Good hunting. El Bee
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EL BEE Knows It All and Done It All.
Don't piss me off!
Posts: 31465 | From: Upland, CA | Registered: Jan 2003
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TRnCO
FUTURE HALL OF FAMER
Member # 690
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posted November 10, 2014 07:50 AM
Well, now I don't feel so bad about having to shoot two different coyotes 3 times on Friday with my .17/204, to get them to die. Sometimes I swear the bastards don't need blood to keep breathing, or a heart for that matter.
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Is it hunting season yet? I hate summer!
Posts: 996 | From: Elizabeth, CO | Registered: Aug 2005
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booger
TOO BIG TO FAIL
Member # 3602
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posted November 10, 2014 08:45 AM
Way to go, Lance!!!
Sounds like the dreaded Zombie Coyote to me!
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If we ever forget we are one Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under--Ronald Reagan
Posts: 911 | From: Bob Dole Country | Registered: Apr 2010
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Fur_n_Dirt
So. Ariz. Zone Tech. Expert
Member # 4467
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posted November 10, 2014 02:03 PM
Last Friday, I shot one at 30 yards, and he dropped with all fours in the air... Yelling and doing the death scream..
Suddenly, he picked back up and even a second shot which nicked the head , he slipped away for a couple hundred yards!
Lb for lb , they are the toughest..
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--- It's all simple if you know what you are doing ---
Posts: 437 | From: Tucson | Registered: Sep 2013
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Kokopelli
SENIOR DISCOUNT & Dispenser of Sage Advice
Member # 633
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posted November 11, 2014 02:01 PM
Years ago, I shot a coyote thru the neck with a broadhead. Left a blood trail a foot & a half wide. I could tell you guys how far he ran but I was there and even I don't believe it.
Yeah, they can go hard sometimes.
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And lo, the Light of the Trump shown upon the Darkness and the Darkness could not comprehend it.
Posts: 7583 | From: Under a wandering star | Registered: Apr 2005
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