...thinking it was a Coyote. It was far enough away to make the size reference meaningless to me.
My friend and I were deer hunting deep in the woods outside of Shreveport. We were on a power line corridor in tree stands that had about 325 yards between us, figuring that whoever was closest to one between us gets the shot. The sun was on my chest and I had sort of dozed off when my buddy scared the crap out of me shooting at something. He had what looked like a Coyote standing across from him and maybe 25 yards farther away from me, his shot was perhaps 100 feet away from him.
So I'm sitting with my back to the tree and using my knees as a rest I'm looking at the next two shots which were hitting in front of and way under this "coyote" that looked like he was too stunned to react. I was using a Sako .243 that I shot at a 300 yard range so I was very comfortable with that shot. Third time my friend missed I dropped this thing. Took me awhile to get over to it, my friend was already there yelling at me that this was the biggest coyote he had ever seen. I had never shot at or even seen a coyote before so I had no idea how big they were supposed to be. I was 19 years old in the military at the time. We were estimating at least 80 pounds but it may have been bigger, we were pretty clueless.
It wasn't until thirty years later watching a television show on wolves that I realized that 1973 was the last reported sighting of a Brown Wolf in that exact area outside of Shreveport, they were considered extinct.
That has bothered me that I did this. For many years I have not shot anything just to be shooting it except for ground squirrels and coyotes. I have no reason at this time to shoot Bobcats, but Mountain Lions are toast if I see them, we have lost way too many goats to them. if I had any animals that the Bobcats would be trying to eat they would be on my endangered species list as well.
My friend and I were deer hunting deep in the woods outside of Shreveport. We were on a power line corridor in tree stands that had about 325 yards between us, figuring that whoever was closest to one between us gets the shot. The sun was on my chest and I had sort of dozed off when my buddy scared the crap out of me shooting at something. He had what looked like a Coyote standing across from him and maybe 25 yards farther away from me, his shot was perhaps 100 feet away from him.
So I'm sitting with my back to the tree and using my knees as a rest I'm looking at the next two shots which were hitting in front of and way under this "coyote" that looked like he was too stunned to react. I was using a Sako .243 that I shot at a 300 yard range so I was very comfortable with that shot. Third time my friend missed I dropped this thing. Took me awhile to get over to it, my friend was already there yelling at me that this was the biggest coyote he had ever seen. I had never shot at or even seen a coyote before so I had no idea how big they were supposed to be. I was 19 years old in the military at the time. We were estimating at least 80 pounds but it may have been bigger, we were pretty clueless.
It wasn't until thirty years later watching a television show on wolves that I realized that 1973 was the last reported sighting of a Brown Wolf in that exact area outside of Shreveport, they were considered extinct.
That has bothered me that I did this. For many years I have not shot anything just to be shooting it except for ground squirrels and coyotes. I have no reason at this time to shoot Bobcats, but Mountain Lions are toast if I see them, we have lost way too many goats to them. if I had any animals that the Bobcats would be trying to eat they would be on my endangered species list as well.
