Had a Great Day on the Prairie!--Looong

Silverfox

New member
Well, my calling partner from Bismarck finally got up here so we could go calling. We headed south of the Missouri River to avoid all the deep, crunchy snow that is all over up north of Williston. We called in 6 places before lunch and didn't see one coyote /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif

There wasn't much snow, but we did wear our white coveralls and tan masks and blended in pretty good. We ate lunch and headed over to a spot where I have called a couple of times, but never called in a coyote. It was my turn to call, so I posted my partner to the north of me (ENE wind) so he could see over a little rise to the north and east and I covered the south and east. I took out my Tally Ho and started the dying rabbit blues for about 1 1/2 minutes. Then I waited for about 1 minute and started again. At about the 4 minute mark, I mixed in some high pitched squeals and stopped. I looked out to the east and could see a coyote coming and it was about 400 yards away. I alerted my partner via the hand-held radio (he has ear buds and little push button lapel mics that work really good) and told him "Coyote to the east!" The coyote stopped, I gave a couple of low volume rabbit squeals and he started in again. My partner buzzed me and said there's two coyotes, but one is way behind the front one, so wait till the back one gets closer." I told him, "I'll wait as long as I can before shooting so we can maybe get a double." Finally, the back coyote started coming in. My coyote was about 100 yards away, but the back coyote was still 300 yards out. I cranked my scope down to 6x and put the cross hairs on the coyotes chest as it moved straight toward me. She was now about 50 yards away and the other coyote had moved to about 200 yards. I thought I'd better try to stop my coyote so I lip squeaked a couple of times and that didn't work!!! Now she's about 30 yards away so I barked and she turned sideways--perfect, standing still shot! My partner shot before I could pull the trigger and I could hear that he WHUMPED his coyote. My coyote started running away, but I got the crosshairs on her and put her down. We did the wounded coyote yelp for a few minutes, but nothing else showed up. I looked at my watch and we were only 8 minutes into the calling stand!!! Pretty quick action. We hauled the coyotes back to the pickup and I was so excited I forgot to take pictures!!!

We drove in on an old lease road that leads way back into some rough country. We got off on a little prairie trail and started heading south. The wind was still out of the east and that isn't a real good direction for the road we were on, but we continued and found a likely looking spot. My partner set up to call and I guarded the down wind side on this stand. About 8 minutes into the set I spotted a coyote coming from my partner's left hand side (I'm on his right so I can't shoot). He finally spotted the coyote and lip squeaked to get him stopped at about 100 yards away and shot him. Here's a photo of that coyote and the two hunters. I'm the good looking one on the left /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Dan_LeRoy-3rd-yote-small.jpg


We then drove back out of there and headed farther SE to some areas where we could call into the ENE wind. The wind kept switching all day. We stopped and walked in to the east side of the lease road and I set up on the down wind side and my partner called. This would be the last stand of the day as it was starting to get to the point where it was difficult to see. He started with the Tally Ho and after 9 minutes nothing had shown up so he did some howling and mixed in the Tally Ho too. Soon there was a coyote serenade resounding from the hills to the ENE of us. It sounded like maybe 3 coyotes and another coyote was howling softly to the east of us. I moved my gun over so I could scope the hills to ENE. At the 14 minute mark my partner shot his rifle!!! Surprised the heck out of me :eek: I looked out in front of him and I could see a coyote flopping on the ground. It was really tough to see with the salt and pepper look on the prairie. He hadn't seen it come across the 300 yard open flat in front of him until it was about 100 yards away! That was it for the day.

I guess we could have just as well slept in this morning and gone out in the afternoon. The last coyote we got was rubbed, but the others were in good shape.

Here's a photo of the four coyotes. The second one in is a 35 pound coyote. I didn't weigh the others, but they are all smaller than that second one.

4-yotes-12-26-2003-small.jpg
 
Silverfox,Im glad Im not the only one that misses coyotes coming in across wide open spaces.Its happend a couple'a times.Great story and it looks like a great day.Happy New Year.
 
Silverfox

Great story.

I can relate to the suprise shot. That's the value of having two sets of eyes. A pleasant suprise at that when the result is fur on the ground. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Again, well done.

Brad
 
Good job silverfox 4 coyotes in an afternoon is very very good for this country, /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
Hey Silverfox, great story and pics. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif I just got your email.

Going to take your advice on the howling and I believe I will also get a Cronk Cow holwer and his instructional tape. Have you tried his call /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif

Paul in NM
 
Good-looking coyotes and a great story as well. Thanks for taking the time to write it up!! I always enjoy a good read.

Good luck and good hunting.

Q,
 
I swear Scotty or somebody beams those coyotes right down in front of me sometimes. Thats the only expanation I can come up with for some of them. They just appear out of thin air. It makes you wonder how many you miss competely. Great job Silverfox.
 
Nice pics and story Silverfox! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif Those are some good looking coyotes. That Tally Ho is a good call ain't it?

Take care, Curt
 
Thanks for sharing the story and pics with us, Silverfox! Let me know if you ever want to do some hunting up in the Scobey, MT, area - I have all kinds of permission and I would relish the experience and knowledge gained from a seasoned hunter like you.
Peace.
 
Thanks for the kind words gentlemen.

deaddog--I am one of the unfortunate ones who doesn't own a Cronk Howler. However, one of these days I'll bust loose with the money and see if I can get Rich to make one for me.

You know what Reeper, you may very well have come up with the way those coyotes are able to appear out of thin air! One minute they are nowhere around and the next time you look--there they are :eek: In our case on Friday, though, the time of day (way late in the afternoon) and the lack of snow made it real hard to see coyotes, especially if they weren't moving.

Curt--you bet the Tally Ho is a great call. That is my go-to call. I sometimes experiment with quite a few other calls, but when the going gets tough, I pull out the Tally Ho and it seems to come through for me more often than not.
 
Great story and nice pictures Silverfox. Bout time you started postin your stories again. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Good looking yotes, beautiful fur on all of them.
 
Back
Top