Sprinkman
Well-known member
Has been a struggle on one hand and fun on the other.
I’ve been out a handful of times and managed to call in five coyotes. The first one I called in using handcalls, and than proceeded to miss him at a hundred yards. This was September 17.
I just plain got excited and missed the shot. It’s par for the course though, I seem to miss the first coyote every year.
Moving forward, so far in the past week I’ve called in more coyotes than I saw all of last year. I’ve called in four this week and only saw three all of last year. Thursday last week I got out and on the first stand I called a nice female in and put her down, DRT.
I used tiny bunny, than barbwire bunny and finished with pasture poodle 1. About 30 seconds into pasture poodle she showed up and shot her about 8 yards from the call.
After this I made two more blank stands. On the fourth stand I called in another coyote, but as fate would have it, it came in from my backdoor. It came up behind me and I didn’t see it until I heard it hit the breaks and cut hard left. It was about five or six yards from me when it saw me or picked up my scent, but by the time I swung left the coyote was already cutting back into the sagebrush. It had come in on the same path that I had walked into the stand, crazy. Oh well, not much a guy can do about getting backdoor’d.
At least I got to see some nice scenery and have a good fire.
Two days later I made another stand and called in yet another coyote. Again, I’m in heavy sagebrush, set the call out about 25 yards and went to sit down when I realized I couldn’t see the call. So, I moved about seven feet. That was my first mistake. Started playing the call and at about the five minute mark I thought I saw movement 20 or so yards in front of me. I looked and waited for a while and decided to play redheadeded woodpecker from Varmint Al figuring I’d seen a bird or cobweb floating in the air.
Remember that move I made? It put a clump of sagebrush between me and the coyote so that what I saw move was just the very top edge of its back. The coyote didn’t like the new sound at all and turned around and disappeared back into the sage. No chance for a shot.
If I had stayed in the original spot seven feet away I would have seen the coyote and had a shot.
Choices have consequences.
Than, last night I got out and once again on the first stand called in a coyote. Choices have consequences, and I made another bad choice. Hunting in sage once again, I set up with a cross wind going left to right figuring that the coyote had read the book on how they’re supposed to respond.
Welp, he hadn’t. Instead of coming in circling downwind it came in from my left and because of how I setup there was no view from my left until it popped out in front of me with the call about 5 yards from it. It came in saw the call and spun around and beelined it out of there. I tried to stop it but barking just made him run faster, so I stood up and took a running shot and missed. Again…
Its been the best of times, its been the worst of times, its been the age of wisdom, its been the age of foolishness. I just have to stop making all the rookie mistakes and I’ll get back on track. The best part is that I’m seeing coyotes again
. The last couple of years have been really slow.
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