It was the three day muzzle loader deer season and I was sitting in a stand over looking a new wheat field when I saw a pair of coyotes come through the field entrance and walk down the field road. They did this three mornings in a row just as it was getting light. I had the following day off so I took my Ruger M77 in .220 Swift and set up well before first light in a brush pile about 50 yards from the field entrance.
Just as it was starting to get light enough to see, the coyotes walked down the main road and turned into the field entrance. They looked right at me and started running. I lead the first coyote and took a shot at about 80 yards to see the coyote go rolling. The other coyote took off in the direction of a house so I let it go. I looked back at the first coyote and it lay dead, I thought. I looked back in the direction from where they came from to see if any more were coming and when I looked back at the dead coyote, it was gone.
I walked over to where the coyote had laid and found where blood had soaked the ground. I measured 21 feet from where the coyote laid to where it's knee had hit the ground when I shot it.
I tracked the coyote about 100 yards to a CRP field and found very little blood. The blood I did find was on the weed stems and I had to look hard to find that because the sun was now up and the frost on the weeds was melting. I lost the trail and went home. I was telling my son Lucas about the hunt and said let's go back out there and I'll show you where it took place.
We were looking the area over when Lucas said "look dad" and was holding up the front part of the coyote's bottom jaw.
Seeing that, I told Lucas we were going to track down this coyote and put him out of his misery. We went back home and I got my 12 ga. loaded with #4 buck and Lucas got his .243. We went back and I had Lucas go to the lower end on the draw that the coyote had been heading and I was going to see if I could pick up the blood trail now that the weeds had dried off.
I gave Lucas time to get in position and started tracking where I left off earlier. I found very little blood and it took about a half hour to go about 100 yards. I slowly worked my way up to where I could see into the draw when I caught some movement about 40 yards away. It was the coyote laying in the grass and his head was swaying side to side. I shot and finished him off. I felt sorry for the coyote when I saw the jaw shot off and his tounge hanging out of his throat about six inches. I dragged it back to show Lucas and then took a few pictures. I had hit the coyote at the hinge of it's jaw, the picture shows the exit side.
The time stamp on the pictures is not correct.
