This morning I set up along a field road before day light hoping to catch a coyote crossing an open field between two timbers. After about an hour and half and seeing nothing, I worked my way down onto a hill side in a CRP patch that over looked a small creek bottom. I was slowly working my way around the hill when I spotted a coyote working its way toward me as it was mousing in the weeds. I sat down and shot him at about 80 yards with my Ruger M77 in .220 swift.
The yellow dot is where the coyote was when I shot it.
Looking back from the coyote to where I was when I shot the coyote.
2/2/14
I went back to the same place as last weekend and sat on the same hill only there was snow on the ground this time. It started to get light and I heard some turkeys not far away from me. As it got lighter, I started seeing the turkeys about 100 yards across the bottom from me in the tops of some cottonwood trees. I decided I wasn’t going to do any calling so I could watch the turkeys undisturbed and see if they would land in the little bottom below me. I had been watching them for a while when I saw a coyote coming my way on a mowed path in the weeds to the south. I was watching it through the scope waiting for it to get closer when the wind gusted and it looked like someone had slapped him in the face and he turned and started running away. The wind had swirled and he caught my scent. I lead him and rolled him with a 55 gr. Nosler out of my .220 Swift.
The dot is where the coyote was when I shot it. Notice in the middle of the picture in the top of the trees are the turkeys and they stayed there for about 10-12 minutes after I had shot the coyote. I counted 14 when they flew down.
Here’s the view from the coyote back to where I was on the hill side.
I called Clint and asked him if he wanted the coyote and he said he did so he came up and got it. We then made plans to go to one of my spots later in the afternoon to see if we could get another coyote. We got out there a little later than we had planned but it still worked out. We hadn’t been there 10 minutes when a coyote came out on Clint’s side in the CRP grass across the creek and he shot it. See his post “Sunday hunt”.
2/8/14
Clint and I went to one of his spots to do some calling this morning. There was more snow on the ground now and the temperature was 13*F and a breeze out of the north making it feel more like 0*. He did some howling with the FoxPro and didn’t get any takers so we sat for a while when I saw a pair working their way along the far side of the creek bottom. I threw a couple howls at them and they stopped and looked and then started to walk again. I then got on the tip of the howler and started giving female whimpers. They stopped again and as I was watching them I caught movement to my right. A coyote had popped out of the timber about 50 yards from me and was coming straight at me. I tried to slowly swing on him and he saw me, started to run and I shot him at around 40 yards with an 85 gr. Sierra H.P out of my .243.
The first two were right over the tip of the barrel and the dead one is to the right in the picture.
As we were walking out, another coyote was going along the far side of the hill and I took a long shot and missed it. We watched it go on south and cut back across the creek so Clint and I waited till it was well out of site and then went back to our trucks. We then drove south to the next timber in hopes of getting ahead of the coyote and parked in a low spot. We started to load our guns when we heard someone about half a mile south of us calling so we set up a little way from the truck and started calling. Clint had a coyote come in from the timber we had seen the one go into and lined up on him and just as he shot, his Stony Point shooting sticks broke and he didn’t get a good hit on the coyote. We checked out where the coyote was when he shot it and found blood and hair sprayed across the snow. We tracked it for over a quarter of a mile to another property and it was still going. One of the plastic ears on the sticks broke off in the 13* weather.
That same afternoon, Clint and I went to one of my spots and set up along a timber line looking south with an open field in front of us, a timber to our left and several acres of CRP ground to our right. Clint fired up the FoxPro with a few howls and then we sat for a while. Nothing, so he set off the group howl and we had a group respond to our southeast, a group to our southwest and a group back to the northwest. I was keeping a close eye to our left in case one tried coming in along the timber line when I heard Clint shoot. I looked around and he had dropped a coyote at 154 yards that had come up out of the CRP ground. Then I saw another one out in front of me and took the shot but didn’t drop it. It acted like I hit it and wasn’t running right when it hit the tree line. We looked later and didn’t see any blood. It was almost dark by now and only got one picture.
2/15/14
This morning Lucas was able to join us as we headed out to one of Clint’s spots. The thermometer in the truck was showing -4*F and it felt like it. We set up and watched the creek bottom out in front of us as it slowly got lighter and then Clint tried a few calls on the FoxPro. Some timed passed when I spotted a coyote across the bottom walking with a limp so Lucas went to line up on it and his set of Stony Point shooting sticks broke in half. I guess the plastic can’t take the cold. Lucas then tried the shot without them but didn’t connect. I don’t think that coyote thought his cripple leg was in as bad a shape as he thought it was the way he took off running back the direction it had come from. We decided to call it a morning since all of us had some things to do back home.
2/16/14
Clint and I headed out to the back side of a farm I hunt well before daylight and on the way down the field road; I got stuck in a snow drift.
We couldn’t dig ourselves out because someone (me) had taken the shovel out of the truck earlier in the week so I had to call home at 5:15 a.m. and wake up my son Ethan to have him bring Clint’s truck out to pull me out. After this, I told Clint that maybe we should go to plan “B” and come in from the front side. Well, we made our way down into the creek bottom and set up along the creek just as it was starting to get light. We had a corn field out in front of us with hay fields on the hills to the southwest and northwest of us and a bean field and patch of timber across from us. We tried doing some howling and some distress (sparingly) with no luck. We had sat for a while when I spotted a coyote in the hay field to the S.W. of us up behind a patch of trees on the side of the hill. I threw some howls at it and it looked my way but showed no interest. Clint tried a few howls with the FoxPro and it still wasn’t interested. I had turned my scope up to 18X and was watching the coyote which was around 375-400 yards away while Clint called. The coyote lay down on the hillside and then another coyote showed up out of a low spot on the hill and walked up by this one. Clint then played the group howl and the coyotes stood up and started howling back at us. It amazes me how two coyotes can make it sound like there are 4 or 5 of them howling. Shortly after they quit howling, one of them looked back into the bottom to the east of them for a bit and then both of them started running along the side of the hill like their tails were on fire headed our way. They made it to another patch of trees and then started angling down into the corn field heading toward us. I let the first one go past and was going to shoot the second one and let Clint have the first one. They were still running full out about 75-80 yards out in front of us and we both started barking at them with our voice at the same time and did it several times before they stopped. The first one stopped first and Clint shot it and mine went into a turn around. In all of the excitement, I hadn’t turned down the power on my scope enough and couldn’t get on the coyote quick enough and missed it. I jacked in another round and lead the coyote and just as I was pulling the trigger, it sounded like ba-boom. Clint and I both shot at almost the same time but he was a split second ahead of me. I saw the coyote react from his shot as mine was going off. The coyote rolled but wasn’t dead so I put him down with another shot. Clint had just shot his self a double. I looked back down the bottom and saw what these two coyotes were running from, there were three other coyotes running up across the hay field that had come from the east.
Spotted coyotes here.
Coyotes came from left to right. Shot them right of the arrow.
We were sitting here.
Clint and his double.
Those three coyotes running away, they may be another story another day.
