That Sat. morning, I walked the ¾ mile to the back side and set up on the hill side by the hay field in the edge of the brush well before first light with my back to the east. The clear sky was beautiful with all the stars out and not one artificial light to be seen anywhere and a slight breeze in my face. I was overlooking a picked corn field that had been shredded and in the dim moon light I thought I would be able to see if anything came into the field.
When the first hint of light started to show, I saw a deer come out into the field but couldn’t make out if it was a doe or buck even at about 100 yards. It started feeding and as it started getting lighter, saw it was a nice 8 point that would have been a shooter. It worked its way over to the edge of the field and made a scrape and rub, then crossed over into the neighbor’s woods. Shortly after it disappeared, I heard coyotes howling toward the north end of the big bottom that I had sat on the other times I was out here. Isn’t that the way it usually works?
I stayed for about another hour and worked my way back up on top of the hay field and was checking out where I wanted to set up my deer blind in case Lucas and I came out to do a little deer hunting and videoing. I worked my way across the hay field and as I started down into the big bottom, I spotted a light colored spot down by the creek in the shade about 300 yards away that looked out of placed so I froze in place. I was in the bright sun light with it shining in my eyes and had to dip my head to shade my eyes for a better look. It looked like a coyote sitting there facing me and if it was, I was hoping it hadn’t seen me.
I kept watching the spot and caught movement off to the right of it and saw a coyote. I slowly sat down and pulled up my rifle to get a closer look. The spot was a coyote and it was looking up the bottom, not my way. I sat and watched for a few minutes when it got up and both of them disappeared behind some trees between them and me. The trees were around a spring on the side of the hayfield and I took advantage of them and ducked and ran up to them. I dropped my back pack and eased up on the shaded side of the trees to peer down into the bottom to see where the coyotes were but didn’t see them. I figured I’d better watch the hayfield to the south of me and there they were, just getting to the hay field. I was on my knees and had to fold my shooting sticks up into a mono pod to get enough height to shoot over the crest of the hill in front of me.
Two times I got lined up on the back coyote when it would start walking again so I would ease forward on my knees and stretch up to see over the crest. Finally I was able to take a shot at about 140 yards but with the adrenalin flowing I missed the shot, flat out missed a shot I should have made and hit right over the top of it. I jacked another round in when the low draw in front of me erupted with 4 coyotes running up out of it but they didn’t know where the shot came from and stopped. I cross haired one of them and shot it at 122 yards. With that shot, it looked like natives running in front of a stampede of elephants. The other four were headed for the brush lickity split.
The coyote was a young one and healthy looking. I was shooting my CZ American in .204 loaded with 39 gr. SBK’s. The bullet double lunged the coyote with an exit wound the size of a lead pencil.
Here's a picture from where I was to the coyote when I shot it.
Here's one from where the coyote was to where I was when I shot it.
