17cal Fan
Silver $$ Contributor
My 2nd year night hunting for Coyotes. There is quite a learning curve but I'm getting there. Hunting mostly by myself makes it more of a challenge but finding someone to hunt with me that is as committed to it as I am has been just as challenging.
If the weather feels right, I go and have enough places to go that I can deal with the wind no matter the direction.
This past Tuesday was such a night so I left the house after sunset for a 30 minute drive to a property I have yet to score on.
I arrived at last light and hustled to an old barn I intended to watch from by standing in front of it. Looking out across more than 100 acres of corn stubble with over 200 degrees of visibility would be plenty of challenge.
The equipment in tow: Remington 788 in 222 topped with an ATN 2-4x thermal, an ATN 4-8 thermal monocular, Death Grip tri-pod, Primos Alpha Dog.
With the call placed slightly up wind and 50 yards out, tri-pod deployed and gun mounted, I pulled out the monocular and scanned the field. Clusters of cattle here and there and a lone calf that caught my eye. It was a yote, so I played a rabbit song for him and he started my direction. I really don't remember how many more I spotted before he got in range but I had gotten the call paused and stopped him with a kiss in time to catch the 50 grainer. He did a couple spins and dropped.
I regained some composure played a couple different sounds and watched to my amazement coyotes popping up here and there all over the field. Nothing in range, nothing really moving my direction I just made mental notes of where they were. Figured I should scan back hard left towards my truck parked down wind (which I could see with the thermal) and see what was going on over there. Oh, another yote, walking past my truck, nice. Scanned back to basically straight ahead of me and there's a yote downwind of my call trotting along getting closer by the minute. Another kiss and another 50 grainer departed. This yote bolted away so I cycled the action and scanned with the monocular. There it layed maybe 30 yards from where it had been standing.
1 dead would have thrilled me, 2 dead and I was elated. Figured enough noise for the night and knew that I was already going to be later getting home than what I told the wife. Reluctantly I started prepping to leave.
I honestly don't know how many coyotes I saw in that short period but more than I expected. The ground has enough dips and shallow roles that they could vanish from sight easily in their travels. I had a fantastic hunt.
Yotes were blamed for chewing up the ears on this calf in the same field. Maybe it was this pair, who knows.
If the weather feels right, I go and have enough places to go that I can deal with the wind no matter the direction.
This past Tuesday was such a night so I left the house after sunset for a 30 minute drive to a property I have yet to score on.
I arrived at last light and hustled to an old barn I intended to watch from by standing in front of it. Looking out across more than 100 acres of corn stubble with over 200 degrees of visibility would be plenty of challenge.
The equipment in tow: Remington 788 in 222 topped with an ATN 2-4x thermal, an ATN 4-8 thermal monocular, Death Grip tri-pod, Primos Alpha Dog.
With the call placed slightly up wind and 50 yards out, tri-pod deployed and gun mounted, I pulled out the monocular and scanned the field. Clusters of cattle here and there and a lone calf that caught my eye. It was a yote, so I played a rabbit song for him and he started my direction. I really don't remember how many more I spotted before he got in range but I had gotten the call paused and stopped him with a kiss in time to catch the 50 grainer. He did a couple spins and dropped.
I regained some composure played a couple different sounds and watched to my amazement coyotes popping up here and there all over the field. Nothing in range, nothing really moving my direction I just made mental notes of where they were. Figured I should scan back hard left towards my truck parked down wind (which I could see with the thermal) and see what was going on over there. Oh, another yote, walking past my truck, nice. Scanned back to basically straight ahead of me and there's a yote downwind of my call trotting along getting closer by the minute. Another kiss and another 50 grainer departed. This yote bolted away so I cycled the action and scanned with the monocular. There it layed maybe 30 yards from where it had been standing.
1 dead would have thrilled me, 2 dead and I was elated. Figured enough noise for the night and knew that I was already going to be later getting home than what I told the wife. Reluctantly I started prepping to leave.
I honestly don't know how many coyotes I saw in that short period but more than I expected. The ground has enough dips and shallow roles that they could vanish from sight easily in their travels. I had a fantastic hunt.
Yotes were blamed for chewing up the ears on this calf in the same field. Maybe it was this pair, who knows.
