He was going to head back to the truck and get the 4-wheeler to haul out his deer while I waited out the last remaining light of the day. About 5-6 minutes after we talked, a coyote came trotting along the fence line from his direction in the neighboring pasture. I stood up easy and stepped up behind a tree in front of me and watched the coyote cross the fence and walk into the end of the field across from me. I got ready for the coyote to walk into an opening and gave a lip squeak. The coyote stopped broad side and looked my way at about 50 yards. I touched off a 20 ga. deer slug and the coyote started spinning and yelping, then lined out for the creek crossing just to my left and ran full speed through it into the CRP field behind me. I waited a few minutes and then eased over to the crossing to check for blood.
Found this in the crossing.
I followed the blood trail and found the coyote about 30 yards into the CRP.
Since then I haven’t had any luck calling in a coyote. I had two of them mousing in a hay field one morning about 350 yards out and could not get their interest using distress, howls or even female whimpers. They would just look my way and go back to mousing. I’ve seen other coyotes while out but they just wouldn’t come to the call. Finally on 3/10/12 that changed.
On the morning of the 10th, I went out mainly to listen for and to watch turkeys for our upcoming turkey season to start forming an opening morning strategy and I’d made up my mind I wasn’t going to shoot a coyote unless one just happen to show up. I got out to the bottom just as the first hint of light was showing in the clear, 36 degree eastern sky.
As it was getting lighter, I heard turkeys start talking where I thought they would be roosting and then start flying down. I had been watching them for about 25-30 minutes when I had a doe come out of some CRP ground to the south of me and watched her work her way up along the creek. The breeze was hitting me in the back and it was interesting to watch the reaction of the doe when she hit my scent stream. She didn’t take long to decide to take off across the field to a safer place.
I sat for another 30-40 minutes and was thinking about leaving when two coyotes came out from behind the CRP field and were working their way across the field. I got lined up on the first one and gave a howl with my voice and saw the coyote stop broadside and look my way through the scope. I touched off a 39 SBK at 269 yards and heard the “whack” of the bullet and watched the coyote take off running straight for some brush it had been headed toward. I could tell the coyote was hit by the way it was wringing it’s tail and struggling to run, but still managed to run the 55 yards to the brush to collapsed on a an old tree stump.
From where I was sitting when I shot the coyote.
Here's a view from where the coyote was back to where I was sitting.
Here's a closer look.
Here is how I found the coyote.
The bullet hit both lungs and made an exit wound a dime would cover. The exit side looks worse than it really was due to all of the blood loss.
Now it's time to think turkey hunting and to start preparing for our planned praire dog trip to Wyoming.
