I left Williston at 0-dark-30 this morning. There was just a tiny sliver of the moon shining, but you could see the entire outline of the moonâ€â€that was kind of pretty.
Did I ever tell you that there is an oil boom going on around NW North Dakota and Williston seems to be kind of in the center of the activity? There was a continuous stream of vehicles leaving Williston and another continuous stream of vehicles coming into Williston this morning. The traffic was so thick that the vehicle’s lights looked like a continuous beam of light coming in and going out of town!!! The economy is booming around here, but I kind of long for the “old†Williston with not quite so much traffic and activity. Anyway, I got out of town without getting run over and headed out to a farmer’s place that has a coyote that has been bothering his son’s two dogs. I had managed to call that coyote in early in the summer, but because of the tall crops and weeds along the pasture fence to the north of my calling spot the coyote was able to follow the tall weeds outside the fence and get around behind me before I ever knew he was there. I decided to hold off trying to call there again until the crops were harvested so my ability to see the coyote coming in wouldn’t be blocked next time. The crops have been harvested and I was going to try to get this coyote to come in again.
The wind was fairly calm, but definitely coming from the west southwest. The temperature was 24 degrees and the sky was clear. The first place I called from was only about 500 yards off a paved road that runs north and south. Did I mention there’s a lot of oil activity and commensurate traffic out here? There was a steady parade of vehicles on the highway east of where I had set up to call. I normally don’t have much luck getting coyotes to come towards a busy road and usually there isn’t much traffic on this road, but since the oil boom hit, there’s LOTS of traffic!!! After staying on stand for 30 minutes I called it quits.
I drove around to the northeast side of this farmer’s place and parked on an approach. I got my gear together and walked in about three fourths of a mile to the SSW through several tree rows. When I crept through the last row of trees, I found about 50 head of cattle in my field of view. I hiked back up north about a half mile and a little bit to the west and set up my FOXPRO on my homemade tripod and backed off about 75 yards to the east northeast of the call. I was lying in a harvested lentil field and there were tree rows and a pasture to the south of me. As I mentioned before, there were cattle in the pasture to the south of me and that’s also the direction the farmer’s home and buildings were as well, so I had to be careful and not shoot in that direction if anything came in from that way. The pasture has a nice stock dam in it and still had some green grass for the cattle to graze on. I stayed on stand here for about 35 minutes. I noticed there were a number of owls flying around the area. I imagine they are cleaning up on the mice and a few gophers. Here’s a photo taken from behind where I was laying in the lentil field and the rifle is pointed to the SW. The cattle and farm buildings are south of the first trees you see in the upper left-hand corner of the photo. The yellow arrow is pointing to the white dot in the field and that’s my FOXPRO covered in a white ski mask and sitting on my homemade tripod.
The rifle in the photo above was built on a Remington 700 BDL action with a 26 inch Remington varmint contour Lilja SS, 1 in 9 twist, 4 groove barrel chambered in .17 Tactical. The stock is an old H-S Precision Tactical thumbhole stock and the scope is a Nikon Monarch 6-24x50mm side focus scope with a duplex reticle. I’m using Dakota .20 Tactical Lapua brass formed to .17 Tactical and I’m trying the 30 gr. Kinlder Gold BTHP bullets for coyotes this year. I hope they work as advertised by many other coyote hunters who use them.
I had called in a nice big male coyote from this pasture area back on January 16, 2003. He hung up at about 150 yards, but stood broadside to me and I managed to make a nice shot on him and he piled up like a wet rag. Today, I had no such luck. I didn’t get any answering howls and no coyotes came, but I did call in a magpie!!! By the way, the temperature was about 25 below zero back in 2003 when this photo below was taken. BRRRR!!!! It was 75 degrees warmer there today!!! The rifle in the picture below has the same Remington 700 BDL action as the rifle in the photo above, but at that time it had a #5 contour Lilja SS 1 in 9 twist 4 groove barrel chambered in .17 Remington. The stock is the same old H-S Precision Tactical thumbhole stock on the rifle above, but the scope is a Burris Signature 6-24x44mm AO job. I was shooting 30 gr. FBHP Starke bullets that exited the muzzle at 3,900 fps using a stiff load of N-540.
I hoofed it back out and drove to the farmer’s home and chatted with him. I told him I hadn’t seen the coyote this time and that since deer gun season is starting Friday, November 5 at noon, I wouldn’t be back out after the coyote until deer gun season is over.
I drove a ways north and west of that area and called in three more places and had the same results as in the first two spots. Oh well, it was a beautiful day, with the temperature up around 50 degrees and the SW wind varying from completely calm to 6 mphâ€â€a rare, nearly windless day in North DaColder. I’ll be taking about 17 days off from coyote calling because our deer gun season starts at noon today and gets over at sunset on Sunday, November 21. If the weather stays nice, I might try to get out and do another prairie dog hunt, but I’ll be wearing both a head cover and an outer garment above the waistline totaling at least 400 square inches of solid daylight fluorescent orange as required for deer hunters while I’m out pottin’ prairie poodles.
how do you find the foxpro callers. i have wanted to buy one here in the uk but there very dear