Dan set up to the downwind side of me about 200 yards to the east of where I would be calling from. I placed my FOXPRO Fusion caller out about 70 yards to the SW of my hiding spot. I started the caller out at low volume with a distress sound. After 3 minutes I played my coyote group howl sound on medium volume and muted the call. Four minutes into the stand I hear Dan’s rifle blast and hear a muted “THUMP” of the bullet hitting its target. I switched to the wounded coyote sounds and let that play for about 5 minutes. I gave Dan the “do you see more coyotes?” signal and he signaled back that he hadn’t seen any other coyotes so we ended the session and Dan walked out to pick up the coyote.
Here’s a look at where Dan was set up and where the coyote was when he shot. He said when he spotted the coyote it was walking from west to east away from where I was calling from, but just over the rise from me and out of my line of sight. He said it wasn’t running away, just walking. He wanted to stop it so he “woofed” at it, the coyote stopped broadside and he nailed it right through the heart lung area on the left side.
The bullet did exit. I think he is still shooting 52 gr. Sierra BTHP bullets out of his .22-250. Those bullets sometimes make a real mess out of the hides and it left a huge exit hole this time.
This was a female coyote, maybe in the 4- to 5-year old range with some noticeable wear on her canines. In the photo below you are looking at the exit side on the coyote. We were happy we had bagged a coyote on our first stand of the day and ready to hang the coyote up in the back of Dan’s topper. We usually spray the coyotes down with lots of flea killer spray and try to stretch them out so they look long and large to the fur buyers.
We headed out of that area and looked for another spot to set up for our second stand of the day. The internet weather forecasts called for SW winds all day on Friday and blowing at 4 to 7 mph. They got the wind speed right, but they messed up on the wind direction which was EXTREMELY variable. One time we’d check and it would be out of the southeast, next time it was blowing out of the west. We had to check the wind constantly all day.
We found another spot to call from and this time I set the FUSION on the top of my backpack off to the NW of my hiding spot about 50 yards. Dan was set up about 200 yards to the ESE of my position. I was lying in a harvested pea field with a fence line about 150 yards north of me where there was a pasture with my rifle barrel pointing to the NW. About 3 minutes into the stand I spotted a coyote across the fence line and to the NW of me about 500 yards away. It was heading ESE towards me. I tried to lower the volume and that didn’t work. I looked out to the Fusion and it had fallen off my backpack and rolled about two feet down the hill and the bottom of the caller was towards me with the handle away from me. I raised the remote up above my head and finally got the volume on the distressed prey sound lowered. The coyote was out of sight behind the rise to the north of me so I moved my rifle barrel so it was pointing more to the north where I thought the coyote would cross under the fence. I spotted the coyote again straight north of me about 15 yards north of the fence. I moved the power ring on my VX-III Leupold scope from 6.5x up to 8x and waited. Finally, the coyote was at the fence line standing still and appeared to be looking at the FOXPRO Fusion. I muted the call. The coyote crossed under the fence and started angling a little bit to the east like she was going to circle around to the downwind side of the caller. I had the crosshairs on her as she moved forward and waited for her to stop. She finally stopped but she wasn’t broadside. She had her right front shoulder towards me. I didn’t want to try a shot in the throat, so I held the crosshairs just behind her right front shoulder bone and touched off the shot. She began to spin and was yelping and finally she hobbled over the rise to the NE with her right front leg dangling. She fell over and lay still.
I looked down at my remote control and wondered why the FOXBANG hadn’t started the Fusion playing the wounded coyote sound? I dialed in that sound and started it playing and let that run for about 4 minutes, but no more coyotes showed up. I walked down to retrieve the Fusion and Dan walked back to get the pickup. I walked over to where I thought the coyote would be lying and she wasn’t there, she had evidently made it a few more yards to the NE and expired. This was a female and appeared to be a year or two old. There was a lot of blood around the entrance wound, but it didn’t rip up the hide too much. There was no exit wound.
I was shooting my Remington 700 in .17 Remington. This is the rifle I rebarreled a little over a year ago and had the BLACKNITRIDE™ treatment done on the barrel. I had the barrel finished at 24" and it is threaded for my suppressor. I’m using the 30 gr. FBHP Nagel bullets coated with hBN. These are the bullets that Chan was making when he was still using the J-4 Berger jackets. The muzzle velocity on this load is 3,855 fps. I didn’t even take the time to do a “Hero” photo or any pictures at all?!?!? Here is a photo of the two coyotes I shot.
I have them hanging up in my back yard, hoping they will freeze a bit so I can get some of the blood cleaned off the wound areas and then get them into my freezer in the patio. I like to clean them up a bit so they look better before I try to sell them to the fur buyer. The one on the left is the third coyote we shot that day and it took a bullet right in the middle of the chest as he was looking at me. The one on the right is the one shot at the stand mentioned above and it got hit just behind the right front shoulder blade. I think the bullet might have nicked the shoulder blade, but it didn’t tear up the hide much. It just bled a lot from the wound and got the fur all matted down.
We got the coyote sprayed down with flea killer and got it hung up inside the pickup topper and headed to our next calling stand. This is a place we have called together maybe three times and have not called a coyote there. It looks like a good place, but hasn’t produced for Dan and I when we are together. Dan did kill one at that spot a few years ago. So, we headed further north and kept checking the wind. Dan mentioned a spot he had called at a couple years ago and said it would be good for the wind we had. It was after 1:00 p.m. so when we got to where we wanted to park the pickup, we took out our lunch and ate.
I happened to look up at a corner post on the fence to the south of us and noticed an odd looking “bump” on the top of the post. I got my binoculars our and I’ll be darned if there wasn’t a Snowy Owl sitting on that post!!! My best guess is that we were 400+ yards from the owl. I got out my camera and zoomed it up to 80x and snapped a few photos, then 100x, and finally I snapped a couple photos at 120x. The slightest movement at any of those upper magnification levels really ruins the photo, but here is one at 120x that turned out fairly decent.
I put the camera away, got out my backpack, rifle and shooting sticks and we marched up the hill toward that corner post which is where we would set up for the stand. The owl left the country as we approached.
The wind was now coming out of the southeast so I set the Fusion out to the SE of where we were going to hide. There were a couple HUGE rocks at this spot. Dan hid behind one and was looking off to the west and southwest while I hid behind the other big rock to the SE of Dan and was covering the northeast, east, and south. I played some fox distress sounds for about 8 minutes. Nothing had showed up yet. Then I played a group coyote howl sound muted it. I was scanning the area to the southwest and south and as my head came around to look to the east, there was a coyote sitting on the nearest horizon, maybe 300 to 400 yards away and we were about 12 minutes into the stand. I started to play my Goldfinch in Distress sound on very low volume. Evidently Dan couldn’t hear the Fusion playing the Goldfinch sound and whispered to me to start squeaking. He still couldn’t hear the Goldfinch sound so he started lip squeaking. One of those sounds must have been music to the coyote’s ears because it started coming in towards us. It disappeared behind the brush in the fence line to the east of where we were sitting. My rifle barrel had been pointed pretty much to the SSE so when the coyote disappeared behind the brush in the fence line, I moved my rifle barrel so it was pointing east down the fence line. The next time I saw the coyote, it was north of the fence line and it had stopped as it came up out of a slough bottom and into the stubble you can see over my right shoulder in the photo below. It surveyed the area. Dan did a couple more lip squeaks and the coyote started a slow trot towards us again. When it was about 75 yards away, Dan started to bark at the coyote to get it to stop. I had the scope on it and was waiting for it to stop, but it kept coming, and coming, and coming!!! I figured I had better take the shot pretty soon or all I would see in the scope was fur since I had turned up the power setting to 12x anticipating a shot of 100+ yards. Finally, when the coyote was less than 50 yards away, Dan, who was kneeling on his knees, told me that when his barks wouldn’t stop the coyote he decided to raise one of his feet to get the coyote’s attention. The coyote caught the movement and stopped. Fortunately, I had the crosshair on his throat and he got a 30 gr. FBHP Nagel T-000 bullet as a late Christmas present. He went down like a ton of bricks.
I expected the Foxbang to kick in the wounded coyote sound, but it didn’t happen. I hit the wounded coyote sound and let that play for about 3 minutes and then muted the call. We had been on the stand for about 18 minutes when I pulled the trigger. This one was a nicely furred male coyote, not a pale northern, but still a nice coyote. There was a tiny spec of blood on the fur where the bullet had entered his neck. No fur damage on this one!!! You can see the brush filled fence line in the upper right-hand corner of the photo above. So far we had called in four places and bagged three coyotes. That 75% success rate sure put a spring in our step and we were eager to get the coyote loaded up and on to the next calling stand.
We had our next calling spot selected, but when we drove west down the trail on the way there, we stopped, got out and checked the wind. The wind was from the wrong direction for this spot so we drove all the way around to the northwest to enable us to call to the southwest, south and southeast. There was a lot of snow in the stubble and in the prairie grass and we could not avoid making way more noise than we wanted to. We decided on where each of us was going to set up and I started to walk out to the southwest to set up the Fusion when Dan signaled me that there was a coyote off to the SE. Sure enough, we had probably rousted it as we were walking in and it had our number. We debated whether we should call from this spot or go back to the spot to the SE of where the coyote was—the place we had originally wanted to call from. I reasoned that where there is one coyote, there may well be a second or third coyote so we stayed right there and drew a blank on that stand.
Here is a photo of the three coyotes hanging in my back yard. The closest two are the ones I shot and the one in the back is the one Dan shot.
We had time for one more stand and got set up and did our best to bring in a coyote to no avail. It had been a GREAT DAY!!! Hunting with an old buddy is hard to beat, plus we had bagged three coyotes in the six stands we made and had seen one other coyote!!! It doesn’t get much better than that!!!!!
I am puzzled as to why the Foxbang feature on my Fusion isn't working. I know I have set it off accidentally by bumping it on the rifle and also set it off one time when the remote hit a branch on a small tree as I was walking through the trees. Would the suppressor be the culprit? I know I can clap my hands and it activates.
