The weatherman was predicting only a 20% chance of light snow showers and southerly winds of 5 to 10 mph for Sunday, February 5, 2006. When will I learn that I SHOULD NOT believe what those weathermen predict?!?!?!?!
My calling partner from Bismarck, ND was up here on Sunday, so we decided to get out and see if we could reduce the coyote population in and around the area we had heard bunches of coyotes howling on our last outing on January 14. I had to drive about 45 miles to get to where he was staying, so I got on the road pretty early for me. We got him all loaded into my pickup and started driving toward our planned calling area. We spotted one coyote that crossed the road in front of us as we were driving in the early morning dark to get to our first calling spot. I stopped, shut off the pickup, and my partner took a shot at it, but he missed. He said the wind was rocking the pickup quite a bit and that probably threw his aim off!! Yah, RIGHT!!!
We had a SW wind early in the morning on Sunday that was blowing from 10 to 15 mph with snow coming down sideways for the better part of the day. Really tough conditions to call in, but we did our best. I did the calling on the first stand of the day and only managed to call in a curious hawk. My partner did the calling on the second stand and he was set up on the SW edge of a nice hill and I was up at the north side of the hill watching to the SE, east and NE. My partner was using the Tally Ho and at about the 9 minute mark we both spotted one coyote coming in from the SSE and another one coming in from the east. They were not coming straight in to where my partner was calling from, but seemed to be circling out wide to the south of us. They were only about 150 yards from where my partner was lying and calling, but he thought they would come on in and didn’t try to stop them for a shot. By the time he decided they weren’t coming any closer, they were over the hill to the SW and out of sight. I thought they were going to circle around to the west and then try to get to the north and east of us to get our scent. There was a little line of hills just to the west of where we were set up that they could sneak behind and hills to the north of us that they would be out of sight behind also. We waited.
The next time we saw them they were up on a hillside to the WSW of us and over 500 yards away!! Both my partner and I took out our howlers and began to try to coax them back. I also used some dying rabbit sounds. Lo and behold, the lead coyote got up and started to trot back in the general direction of our location. The other coyote got up and followed. They went down behind the hills to the west of us and we waited and waited. My partner had seen them heading to the NE apparently trying to get to the down wind side of us. In a few more minutes one coyote appeared and then both were visible. They came out from behind a little rise to the WNW of us and they were heading back out away from our location in a southwesterly direction. Fortunately for us, they didn’t leave on the same path they had come in behind the hills out of our sight. They were almost completely hidden as they came in to catch out scent, but left in such a way that they crossed out onto a flat where they were visible and only about 125 yards away. I didn’t have my rifle pointed in that direction, but my partner had seen them come out from behind the hill and had his rifle ready. We both barked with our voices at about the same time and the back coyote stopped to look. That is when my partner put a 52 gr. Speer bullet from his 22-250 into the heart/lung area of that coyote. That coyote did a couple of spins and keeled over. The other one had not stopped at all and had disappeared over the hill by now. The next time I saw the coyote it was about 500 yards away and making Mach IV speed heading over the hill to the SW.
Ordinarily I would have taken lots of photos of our setup, done my arrow and text insertion thing and given you a well-illustrated report. However, with the snow coming down sideways, I didn’t even bother to take my camera out to snap any photos. Sorry about that!!! I took photos of the coyotes hanging in my back yard on Monday. I know that is a poor substitute for actual in-the-field photos, but that's my story and I'm stickin' to it!!!
The coyote my partner shot was a small dark brown colored male, but in good shape. We carried him back to the pickup and loaded him up and headed for our next calling spot.
Here’s a photo of the belly on this coyote.
Here’s a photo of the back on this little male coyote.
We called in three more spots after that, but there were no takers. My partner promised his wife he would come back to his brother-in-law's place to help celebrate the nephew’s 5th birthday. Before we went to the little birthday gathering I drove up to the farm of one of the land owners in the area we were hunting. He had given me permission to call coyotes and I thought it would be nice if I stopped in and introduced myself. I told him we had called in two coyotes and shot one of them about 2 1/2 miles NW of his place. He thanked me for getting the coyote and told me to come back whenever I wanted to. I thanked him and told him we would be back up to the SW of his place in the afternoon and then we headed over to the birthday party and had lunch. After lunch we headed back out in the driving snow to do some more calling.
The first place we stopped to call in after lunch was a nice spot. There were lots of little brushy finger draws to the east and south of us and a nice big slough right down below us that ran out to the south and southwest of our location. My partner set himself up on a hill to the SW of me about 100 yards and I set up the NE of him to cover the down wind side. We both had to use our shooting sticks because of the terrain.
He started calling with the Tally Ho and about 2 minutes into the stand I looked to the east of me and a large coyote was ambling to the SSE out in the stubble about 170 yards in front of me!!! I sure hadn’t seen it come in, so I figured he must have come from out of the tall slough grass out in front of me. He was only about 15 yards away from the edge of the slough when I first saw him. He was not heading toward my partner, so I was thinking this coyote had heard these dying rabbit blues before and was about ready to get out of the territory. The coyote stopped and was standing broadside to me, with his head turning toward where my partner was sitting and calling. I pushed the safety off, steadied my rifle on my shooting sticks, cranked the scope up to 20x, got the crosshairs centered right behind his right front shoulder and brought them down to a tad bit above his elbow because he was well below where I was sitting and squeezed off the shot. WHAP!!! He spun around several times and then began to stumble off to the east. He fell over after going about 25 yards and didn’t twitch after that. My partner took out his howler and started doing some wounded coyote yelps for about a minute or so and then went back to the Tally Ho. We had only been on stand for maybe a total of 3 minutes or so when I took the shot, so there was a possibility that there still might be another coyote that would answer the call. About 15 minutes later my partner gave up calling and we walked down to see the coyote. It was a large, dark gray colored male and the fur was in good shape. We hauled him up out of there and loaded him into the pickup and headed to the SE to make another stand.
Here’s a photo of the belly on the coyote I shot.
Here’s a look at his back. There were lots of burrs in the fur on his back that make his fur look kind of ratty.
The snow had let up now and the sun actually shined through the clouds once in a while. We called in two more spots and had some coyotes talking to us on the last stand, but didn’t get anything to come in. We called it a day. It had been fairly miserable calling weather, but we managed to see 4 coyotes, called 3 and were taking two of them home with us. We felt it had been a great day!
There’s a photo below here of the backs of the two coyotes we got. The coyote I shot is the one on the right. I think the little one on the left will weigh about 25 pounds. I brushed out the burrs and some of the dried blood out of the fur on both coyotes this afternoon,Tuesday, February 7). I took the bigger one on the right into the garage and he weighed 34 pounds. I had guessed he would only go 30 pounds. He has exceedingly long guard hairs down his back and I'm hoping he brings top dollar when the fur buyer comes to town on the 19th of this month.
My calling partner from Bismarck, ND was up here on Sunday, so we decided to get out and see if we could reduce the coyote population in and around the area we had heard bunches of coyotes howling on our last outing on January 14. I had to drive about 45 miles to get to where he was staying, so I got on the road pretty early for me. We got him all loaded into my pickup and started driving toward our planned calling area. We spotted one coyote that crossed the road in front of us as we were driving in the early morning dark to get to our first calling spot. I stopped, shut off the pickup, and my partner took a shot at it, but he missed. He said the wind was rocking the pickup quite a bit and that probably threw his aim off!! Yah, RIGHT!!!
We had a SW wind early in the morning on Sunday that was blowing from 10 to 15 mph with snow coming down sideways for the better part of the day. Really tough conditions to call in, but we did our best. I did the calling on the first stand of the day and only managed to call in a curious hawk. My partner did the calling on the second stand and he was set up on the SW edge of a nice hill and I was up at the north side of the hill watching to the SE, east and NE. My partner was using the Tally Ho and at about the 9 minute mark we both spotted one coyote coming in from the SSE and another one coming in from the east. They were not coming straight in to where my partner was calling from, but seemed to be circling out wide to the south of us. They were only about 150 yards from where my partner was lying and calling, but he thought they would come on in and didn’t try to stop them for a shot. By the time he decided they weren’t coming any closer, they were over the hill to the SW and out of sight. I thought they were going to circle around to the west and then try to get to the north and east of us to get our scent. There was a little line of hills just to the west of where we were set up that they could sneak behind and hills to the north of us that they would be out of sight behind also. We waited.
The next time we saw them they were up on a hillside to the WSW of us and over 500 yards away!! Both my partner and I took out our howlers and began to try to coax them back. I also used some dying rabbit sounds. Lo and behold, the lead coyote got up and started to trot back in the general direction of our location. The other coyote got up and followed. They went down behind the hills to the west of us and we waited and waited. My partner had seen them heading to the NE apparently trying to get to the down wind side of us. In a few more minutes one coyote appeared and then both were visible. They came out from behind a little rise to the WNW of us and they were heading back out away from our location in a southwesterly direction. Fortunately for us, they didn’t leave on the same path they had come in behind the hills out of our sight. They were almost completely hidden as they came in to catch out scent, but left in such a way that they crossed out onto a flat where they were visible and only about 125 yards away. I didn’t have my rifle pointed in that direction, but my partner had seen them come out from behind the hill and had his rifle ready. We both barked with our voices at about the same time and the back coyote stopped to look. That is when my partner put a 52 gr. Speer bullet from his 22-250 into the heart/lung area of that coyote. That coyote did a couple of spins and keeled over. The other one had not stopped at all and had disappeared over the hill by now. The next time I saw the coyote it was about 500 yards away and making Mach IV speed heading over the hill to the SW.
Ordinarily I would have taken lots of photos of our setup, done my arrow and text insertion thing and given you a well-illustrated report. However, with the snow coming down sideways, I didn’t even bother to take my camera out to snap any photos. Sorry about that!!! I took photos of the coyotes hanging in my back yard on Monday. I know that is a poor substitute for actual in-the-field photos, but that's my story and I'm stickin' to it!!!
The coyote my partner shot was a small dark brown colored male, but in good shape. We carried him back to the pickup and loaded him up and headed for our next calling spot.
Here’s a photo of the belly on this coyote.
Here’s a photo of the back on this little male coyote.
We called in three more spots after that, but there were no takers. My partner promised his wife he would come back to his brother-in-law's place to help celebrate the nephew’s 5th birthday. Before we went to the little birthday gathering I drove up to the farm of one of the land owners in the area we were hunting. He had given me permission to call coyotes and I thought it would be nice if I stopped in and introduced myself. I told him we had called in two coyotes and shot one of them about 2 1/2 miles NW of his place. He thanked me for getting the coyote and told me to come back whenever I wanted to. I thanked him and told him we would be back up to the SW of his place in the afternoon and then we headed over to the birthday party and had lunch. After lunch we headed back out in the driving snow to do some more calling.
The first place we stopped to call in after lunch was a nice spot. There were lots of little brushy finger draws to the east and south of us and a nice big slough right down below us that ran out to the south and southwest of our location. My partner set himself up on a hill to the SW of me about 100 yards and I set up the NE of him to cover the down wind side. We both had to use our shooting sticks because of the terrain.
He started calling with the Tally Ho and about 2 minutes into the stand I looked to the east of me and a large coyote was ambling to the SSE out in the stubble about 170 yards in front of me!!! I sure hadn’t seen it come in, so I figured he must have come from out of the tall slough grass out in front of me. He was only about 15 yards away from the edge of the slough when I first saw him. He was not heading toward my partner, so I was thinking this coyote had heard these dying rabbit blues before and was about ready to get out of the territory. The coyote stopped and was standing broadside to me, with his head turning toward where my partner was sitting and calling. I pushed the safety off, steadied my rifle on my shooting sticks, cranked the scope up to 20x, got the crosshairs centered right behind his right front shoulder and brought them down to a tad bit above his elbow because he was well below where I was sitting and squeezed off the shot. WHAP!!! He spun around several times and then began to stumble off to the east. He fell over after going about 25 yards and didn’t twitch after that. My partner took out his howler and started doing some wounded coyote yelps for about a minute or so and then went back to the Tally Ho. We had only been on stand for maybe a total of 3 minutes or so when I took the shot, so there was a possibility that there still might be another coyote that would answer the call. About 15 minutes later my partner gave up calling and we walked down to see the coyote. It was a large, dark gray colored male and the fur was in good shape. We hauled him up out of there and loaded him into the pickup and headed to the SE to make another stand.
Here’s a photo of the belly on the coyote I shot.
Here’s a look at his back. There were lots of burrs in the fur on his back that make his fur look kind of ratty.
The snow had let up now and the sun actually shined through the clouds once in a while. We called in two more spots and had some coyotes talking to us on the last stand, but didn’t get anything to come in. We called it a day. It had been fairly miserable calling weather, but we managed to see 4 coyotes, called 3 and were taking two of them home with us. We felt it had been a great day!
There’s a photo below here of the backs of the two coyotes we got. The coyote I shot is the one on the right. I think the little one on the left will weigh about 25 pounds. I brushed out the burrs and some of the dried blood out of the fur on both coyotes this afternoon,Tuesday, February 7). I took the bigger one on the right into the garage and he weighed 34 pounds. I had guessed he would only go 30 pounds. He has exceedingly long guard hairs down his back and I'm hoping he brings top dollar when the fur buyer comes to town on the 19th of this month.
