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This one has been a while coming as I have not been able to hunt for a while.
I heard my alarm clock make that soft click as it does when it goes by the Alarm time of 0630 and the alarm is not set. Sounded to me like you hit the bedside table with a 9 pound hammer. Saturday...and I don't have to go to work and the dang clock woke me up anyway.
I dressed warmly and stepped outside in the darkness; we don't have any snow but it sure was cold this morning. Two cars came down the road and I waited for them to pass before I left my yard; I did not want a Coyote to see me outlined in the headlights. I checked all around and was a couple hundred yards out in the field when 2 more vehicles came by. Wal-Mart must have a sale on Ladies purses or something; I kneeled down again. Made it all the way to the corner fence; just able to see objects outlined on the frosty white grass. My cows were resting calmly in the field across the highway but I heard a telltale Yip-Yip-Yip a quarter mile to my left front.
"Well,Well, the boys are out this morning," I thought. Just then I saw a shadowy grey black form walking across the edge of the next field and into the woodline 300 yds in front of me. Coyote.. Just then as I was going around the corner of the fence 3 or 4 Doves exploded out of a cedar tree next to me....Sounded like 50 doves. Coyote is Looking..Looking Right at Me. I don't move, I probably didn't even breathe. 5 seconds...10 seconds.... He disappears slowly into the woods. Yeah!!!! He didn't see me.
I headed to my blind which was only about another hundred yards away. I went flying up the ladder into the loft of an old barn and I was out of breath and breathing hard by now. I get set up and start scanning the woodline. Man, Its is Dark. I look through my scope and can see movement back in the woods; he's there but its so dark I can't get my crosshairs on him. He is moving around sniffing the ground; when he stops I can't make him out well enough to fire. Just then I see him dart to his right and disappear over the edge of the cliffline. I wait. 10 minutes passes and it is getting more daylight now.... Its about 0710. Will he come back?? YES>>>Up he pops from the clifline, and guess what... I can SEE you now.
I line up the cross hairs of the Bushnell 4200 on my 40X .22 BR..Squeezzzzze the trigger... BOOM... and the whole barn lights up, roosting birds explode from everywhere above me. I have NO idea if I hit him (182 yards) and my curiosity gets the best of me after a minute and I go check. Still pretty dark but I find him 20 yards away DOA with a mouthfull of grass and dirt in his teeth. The 50g VMax did the job. He was about a 30 pound Male coyote, probably a 2006 model and had an old bullet wound in his back rear section. I don't know, but I remember I rolled a young one last summer with a shotgun (buckshot) and he ran off never to be found. Now this is Coyote Number 9 this season and 8 have been Males..Only 1 female. Last year the numbers were about 50- 50. I don't know...
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I heard my alarm clock make that soft click as it does when it goes by the Alarm time of 0630 and the alarm is not set. Sounded to me like you hit the bedside table with a 9 pound hammer. Saturday...and I don't have to go to work and the dang clock woke me up anyway.
I dressed warmly and stepped outside in the darkness; we don't have any snow but it sure was cold this morning. Two cars came down the road and I waited for them to pass before I left my yard; I did not want a Coyote to see me outlined in the headlights. I checked all around and was a couple hundred yards out in the field when 2 more vehicles came by. Wal-Mart must have a sale on Ladies purses or something; I kneeled down again. Made it all the way to the corner fence; just able to see objects outlined on the frosty white grass. My cows were resting calmly in the field across the highway but I heard a telltale Yip-Yip-Yip a quarter mile to my left front.
"Well,Well, the boys are out this morning," I thought. Just then I saw a shadowy grey black form walking across the edge of the next field and into the woodline 300 yds in front of me. Coyote.. Just then as I was going around the corner of the fence 3 or 4 Doves exploded out of a cedar tree next to me....Sounded like 50 doves. Coyote is Looking..Looking Right at Me. I don't move, I probably didn't even breathe. 5 seconds...10 seconds.... He disappears slowly into the woods. Yeah!!!! He didn't see me.
I headed to my blind which was only about another hundred yards away. I went flying up the ladder into the loft of an old barn and I was out of breath and breathing hard by now. I get set up and start scanning the woodline. Man, Its is Dark. I look through my scope and can see movement back in the woods; he's there but its so dark I can't get my crosshairs on him. He is moving around sniffing the ground; when he stops I can't make him out well enough to fire. Just then I see him dart to his right and disappear over the edge of the cliffline. I wait. 10 minutes passes and it is getting more daylight now.... Its about 0710. Will he come back?? YES>>>Up he pops from the clifline, and guess what... I can SEE you now.
I line up the cross hairs of the Bushnell 4200 on my 40X .22 BR..Squeezzzzze the trigger... BOOM... and the whole barn lights up, roosting birds explode from everywhere above me. I have NO idea if I hit him (182 yards) and my curiosity gets the best of me after a minute and I go check. Still pretty dark but I find him 20 yards away DOA with a mouthfull of grass and dirt in his teeth. The 50g VMax did the job. He was about a 30 pound Male coyote, probably a 2006 model and had an old bullet wound in his back rear section. I don't know, but I remember I rolled a young one last summer with a shotgun (buckshot) and he ran off never to be found. Now this is Coyote Number 9 this season and 8 have been Males..Only 1 female. Last year the numbers were about 50- 50. I don't know...
