12/15/10 coyote

[Melvin Eades]

Yesterday I realized I had 4.5 hours of vacation time that weren’t scheduled and I had to take them today or lose them, so I took them this morning and went coyote hunting. I went to one of my places I couldn’t hunt until the owner had gotten his deer and made two stands without any luck. We have a front moving in tonight with freezing rain and I thought I might have some luck calling a coyote wanting to get a belly full before it hit but that didn't seem to be the case. I was walking back across a big open hay field when I looked off to my right at a pastured draw that goes down into a big field in the bottom and saw a dark spot on the hill side that didn’t look right. I cranked up the power on the scope and took a look to see a coyote curled up asleep.

It was about 320-340 yards away so I eased back into a low spot in the field and made a circle to my right so I could use some trees in the draw to hide me as I walked up to the fence. Just as I got to the fence, the coyote got up, stretched and walked around a bit. I hunkered down by a fence post and watched to see what the coyote was going to do. It stretched again and started down into the draw. As soon as it was out of sight, I moved over to the next post to my left which would give me a better view of the draw than where I had been. I waited and in a few seconds, the coyote crossed the bottom of the ditch and started walking up the opposite hill. I had to wait for it to clear some brush and as soon as it did, it stopped. I took the shot at about 120 yards and put it in a spin which caused it to fall down and slide into the ditch and died.

I think I may have prevented this coyote from having a long, cold winter. It had lost a lot of hair to mange and was fairly thin. I was shooting my CZ 527 American with 39 grain Sierra Blitz Kings.

[Clint E]

Nice shooting melvin and way to spot it.
Come on now tell them the truth you got a little carryed away with the brush on its fur . We all know you like them to pose pretty for ya .

[Dennis81082]

Another good deed done in the Holiday spirit. You saved that coyote from having to endure the cold wearing a fur coat with holes rubbed in it.

Good shootin'.

[Song Dog]

Snipage on one who REALLY needed it. Darn thing had to be miserable if not, cloose to it. WTG!

[Gube]

Way to go Melvin. Keep on "weeding out" the weak and the sick.

[Silverfox]

I have to agree that you did that coyote a favor. Miserable looking creature

[steve]

Nice shooting melvin!