Usually once the weather warms up and fur starts to decline I give the coyotes a break and leave them for "seed" so that I have good batches of new coyotes to hunt next fall.
This year though we have had a surge in coyote activity in the calving pastures. My co workers have lost 4 calves and I have lost one with another badly chewed on.
Having noticed coyotes leaving the pasture towards the same area multiple times I began to devise a plan.
The west corner of the pasture overlooks a wide open hilly crop field with 2 large deep coulees (ravines) that can't be farmed leaving steep banks and thick bush perfect for den sites. This was the area I suspected the coyotes to be living in.
With no proper way to see all avenues of approach without either skylining myself or sitting in the wide open a "blind" was erected.
Now I use the term blind quite loosely as it was just a pile of sticks on a side hill designed to break up my outline while prone.
PXL_20240424_002927455.MP by
brad harder, on Flickr
2 days after the blinds construction the wind was finally right.
With this spot being so close to the yard where I often field test my hand calls I knew it would be best to implement the FoxPro on this one so the x2s was placed 50 yards in front of me. Figuring it to be an open ground setup and not wanting to pack 2 guns on the quad the shotgun was left in the truck.
PXL_20240424_002935662.MP by
brad harder, on Flickr
After some invitation howls to start the stand I moved on to some simple growls which were ramped up slowly in volume.
After a minute or so I spied 2 grey dots on a hill to my right about 800 yards out. The volume was cranked up just a little more and they slowly began loping my way.
They say you never stop learning when your coyote hunting and I sure learned a valuable lesson this time.
This last year I have focused very hard on calling em close to a shotgun and apparently I still had that mindset except this time there was no shotgun.
So thinking "Im going to get them nice and close" I waited for them to get to 500 yards before turning on den mayhem. Like they read the manual they stopped their slow circle downwind and turned on the afterburners headed right for the call. At 80 yards I realized my mistake as neither coyote showed any signs of stopping at my woofs and barks.
With my blind in the way of my rifle I began to get up and kneel as the lead female stuck her nose in the call and both began a hasty retreat.
To the benefit of my shooting skills I had just shot over 500 rounds of 22lr at ground squirrels in the last week so without even hesitating I confidently swung offhand on the retreating coyote and dropped her as she turned to round the hill.
Muting the call I racked another round and waited to see where the male would show back up. Finally hearing barks and yips I found the coyote off in the distance 700 yards away voicing his extreme displeasure at me. After some challenge howls, pup distress and den mayhem I was just settling in the scope to make a wild hail Mary shot when he began running back in! He barked and tipped his way all the way to 100 yards where the swift sat him back with a solid THUMP.
IMG_20240424_090931_938 by
brad harder, on Flickr
If you look in the background you can see 2 black cows checking out what's going on with my stick blind just to the left.
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