Soft White Underbelly.......

Kino M

Kino M

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Been a minute since I've posted a picture or story so I thought I'd share a recent hunt with a buddy of mine from Tennessee.

He drove 6 hours to my house and as soon as he got here the badgering started immediately (like always). Last month I took him out one night and we shot 10, every coyote he shot had to be shot again so I dubbed him the "Tennessee Crippler"....... Me being a huge fan of negative reinforcement I've rode him non-stop so he was anxious to redeem his shot placement!!

We ate supper and was discussing a game plan, I informed him that I understand why he was so terrible and it was out of his control, it was genetics. Way back in my buddies DNA from the mountains of Appalachia he's related to the Whittaker family in West Virginia that became the YouTube sensation called "Soft White Underbelly". It's a documentary about the most inbred family in America and it was his kin, being totally out of his ability and I promised to stop the hazing.....temporarily...... until he crippled one then it was game on!!

As we watched YouTube ( hed never seen the documentary) and ate supper I helped narration and pointed the similarities to motivate my friend, needless to say, the methods I learned at Ft Benning Georgia as a private in the Infantry was a great tool to help motivation with others and I made sure to pass the art of negative reinforcement along to my good friend!

Once it got dark we drove to our first stand and killed a pair right out of the gate that started a pace to what would be an awesome night. Singles, doubles, triples, quads, we killed it all, and all on video. This was just one of those nights that the coyotes came in on a string, all night long.

When the smoke finally cleared, we killed 14 coyotes, lost 2 in tall weeds (fell dead on video) and one fell dead in a deep creek that we couldn't recover. We had multiple missed opportunities also where we should have shot but was trying to get others to stop and lost out but should have killed around 3 or 4 more. The night ended at daylight, the Tennessee Crippler was redeemed and we had an amazing night that neither of us will ever forget, tired, sore from dragging coyotes and waiting to do it all over again!!

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Great pic, and sounds like an awesome hunt with a good friend. Doesn't get much better.
I've had people comment about the price of my thermal gear. My reply: Yes it's expensive but the fun I have with them is priceless.
 
Nice! Thanks for sharing.
Only trouble with negative reinforcement is that what goes around comes around. 🤣
Sure miss those many hunting trips and banter between my partner and I when either one missed a shot.
 
I've watched those whittaker videos.. they are a very, uhmm... interesting... Family. Sad to hear drugs have ruined the good that was happening to them in the last couple years

Soft white underbelly is the youtube channel name, thats not what the whittakers are called. He has thousands of documentaries of people of all types.
 
Kind of reminds me of some crow shooting with a buddy many years ago. First day we got 7 crows - he got 4 and I got 3, which was unusual since normally he couldn’t hit the sky, even with a shotgun. I always out-performed him. He ribbed me and bragged all evening over it. I never did him. However, the game changed the following day. We shot 16 crows. I got 15. I didn’t have to say anything, just looked over at him and smiled. That’ll learn him.

True story. No brag, just fact.
 
One of my favorite memories involves my lifelong friend, with whom I shot HP rifle competition, and hunting/ fishing parter for 70 years. He was very competitive (guess I was too:unsure:) in all endeavors, had a great sense of humor and was quite accomplished in all the above.

It had been a while since we had been able to get out for an afternoon of calling and we were both a bit rusty. We set up in a favorite corner of the ranch which produces regularly. As usual, he was sitting in the corner where he could cover the E-W fence and the pipeline which terminates at that corner; I was a couple of yards up the N-S fence covering that fence but where I could see the pipeline.

Don whispered, "coyote" and I spotted it coming hard down the pipeline at about 800 yards. I got the rangefinder on him when he was about 500 yards out, Don got on the rifle and I kept him apprised of the range as he approached. When he had closed to about 300 yards he paused, quarter to, Don asked, "range"? Told him to wait, he's still coming; he started up again and around 250, Don asked for range again. I could tell he was getting anxious, but the coyote was still engrossed by the call; I wanted to let him get as close as possible, but around 225, he stopped and Don shot......and missed. He was kicking himself hard enought, so I didn't rag him like I would have normally.

We moved to another favorite spot where there were multiple wide, partially overgrown senderos running N-S alternating between 50 yard wide strips of native brush. Backing off about 50 yards allowed the shooter to watch two parallel senderos. Placing the call near the close end of the sendero, we have called a number of coyotes from a large block of brush on the west side that would cross multiple senderos. We set up as usual, started the call and I spotted a coyote crossing one of my senderos; as he entered the strip of brush, I told Don to get his rifle on the opposite side of brush and be ready to shoot. Momentarily, the coyote appeared, I woofed and the coyote stopped broadside. Don........missed.....broadside @ 50 yards 😲. On the way back to the jeep, feeling bad for him instead of ragging him, I uncharacteristically asked if he wanted to drive back to the range at camp check his zero. He mumbled, "No."

We were on the way to the next stand and quite innocently, said, "I've got a coffee can in the back we could set up to do a quick zero check" (I was really trying to be helpful....it is so rare that he misses, especially a gimme shot). His reply was, "No, I don't want to put a hole in your can."

Honestly, I couldn't help myself, it just came out....."Not much danger of that". Really, the devil made me do it😈. He would have done the same for me; in fact he did on many occasions and we both had many a good laugh at each other's expense. I really miss those days!
 
hm1996 said:
One of my favorite memories involves my lifelong friend, with whom I shot HP rifle competition, and hunting/ fishing parter for 70 years. He was very competitive (guess I was too:unsure:) in all endeavors, had a great sense of humor and was quite accomplished in all the above.

It had been a while since we had been able to get out for an afternoon of calling and we were both a bit rusty. We set up in a favorite corner of the ranch which produces regularly. As usual, he was sitting in the corner where he could cover the E-W fence and the pipeline which terminates at that corner; I was a couple of yards up the N-S fence covering that fence but where I could see the pipeline.

Don whispered, "coyote" and I spotted it coming hard down the pipeline at about 800 yards. I got the rangefinder on him when he was about 500 yards out, Don got on the rifle and I kept him apprised of the range as he approached. When he had closed to about 300 yards he paused, quarter to, Don asked, "range"? Told him to wait, he's still coming; he started up again and around 250, Don asked for range again. I could tell he was getting anxious, but the coyote was still engrossed by the call; I wanted to let him get as close as possible, but around 225, he stopped and Don shot......and missed. He was kicking himself hard enought, so I didn't rag him like I would have normally.

We moved to another favorite spot where there were multiple wide, partially overgrown senderos running N-S alternating between 50 yard wide strips of native brush. Backing off about 50 yards allowed the shooter to watch two parallel senderos. Placing the call near the close end of the sendero, we have called a number of coyotes from a large block of brush on the west side that would cross multiple senderos. We set up as usual, started the call and I spotted a coyote crossing one of my senderos; as he entered the strip of brush, I told Don to get his rifle on the opposite side of brush and be ready to shoot. Momentarily, the coyote appeared, I woofed and the coyote stopped broadside. Don........missed.....broadside @ 50 yards 😲. On the way back to the jeep, feeling bad for him instead of ragging him, I uncharacteristically asked if he thought he wanted to drive back to the range at camp check his zero. He mumbled, "No."

We were on the way to the next stand and quite innocently, said, "I've got a coffee can in the back we could set up to do a quick zero check (I was really trying to be helpful....it is so rare that he misses, especially a gimme shot). His reply was, "No, I don't want to put a hole in your can."

Honestly, I couldn't help myself, it just came out....."Not much danger of that". Really, the devil made me do it😈. He would have done the same for me; in fact he did on many occasions and we both had many a good laugh at each other's expense. I really miss those days!
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Great story, thanks for sharing! I run with a rough group that all has thick skin, the shenanigans are endless and the humor is constant, we have fun regardless if coyotes are coming in!
 
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