204 AR
Well-known member
Sunday late morning I headed to a cousins place that he's invited me out to for a few years now but I never made the time. He was going to hunt with me but was busy for a bit and pointed me in the right direction for the first stand. I walked 1/2 to 3/4 mile across a flat alfalfa field and set up against a stack of hay bales, with some brush 200 yards to the front and hillside with brushy cuts beyond that. I forgot my phone or I'd have taken a pic. Let out a few howls, no answer, and started some rat distress. No takers yet so switched it up to pup distress, within a couple minutes a pair was busting down the hillside. One crossed the fence and stopped at 150 and got dumped, the other started trotting off but a fight sound stopped him at 350 where he died. Was pretty stoked to get the double. Walked back and got the rzr and phone for a quick pic.
At that point he showed me around the rest of the place and made a couple stands with no takers.
Took today off, picked up my old partner Larry and headed to our usual place. Really cloudy and a bit foggy even was going to make spotting coyotes difficult.
Stand one produces a lot of the time, and we saw a lot of fresh tracks in the snow. Opening howl was not answered and I went into cottontail distress with nothing showing, but after a few minutes of pup distress a group started howling back from deep in the hills. At that point it's hard to give up so I group howled back and they talked back but didn't seem like they were budging. More fight sounds didn't seem to work and I had all but given up when I spotted one out in front, 369 yards sitting down and not budging. Never saw him come in but he came from the general direction of the group we heard according the tracks in the snow. Got the range in the Eliminator, held 8" for wind and let one fly and got a reassuring "thump" and down he went.
Nice male coyote. I should take pics of some of the stands, we really have some neat country out here.
We had a few blanks, then got back into some action about 12:30 when a couple of groups howled back, a long way off. They were on Larry's side, and I scooted around so I could see what's going on over there. You see, Larry's vision isn't good at all anymore, and especially in this gloomy weather it's unlikely he'd spot one unless it's really close and moving. He doesn't probably have too many years of hunting left, and I'll take him out until he says he doesn't want to go anymore. Good guy and have learned a lot from him. I didn't think anything would come in that far, but after I'd shut the call off after 15 or 20 minutes I finally spotted one about 300, like a ghost in some thick grass and coming our way. It disappeared behind a ridge never to be seen again. And a couple minutes later, the rancher busted through our set and came up to us on a side by side. So that's probably what happened there lol.
Spotted another heading to new, unmolested pastures but there was no approach that wasn't straight upwind from it so we moved on. We got in deep in a remote pasture with steep choppy hills and set up where we could see quite a ways. I had one challenge back to pup distress so talked to it for awhile but never spotted it. It was a long ways off. I had spotted one watching us from another direction on a hilltop maybe 3/4 mile way, it was there nearly the whole time. Decided what the heck and backed down the hill and tried to get closer. Set up and started calling, and gave up about 15-20 minutes and just sat for a few and sure enough, over my right shoulder one was walking down the fence line at 20 yards, he turned off to leave but stopped on his own at 40 or 50 yards and I made a terrible shot and made a big mess.
I was pretty disgusted as he was a really nice dog. Crazy thing was this guy had to have walked within feet of the rzr, no way he didn't see where we were parked with the way he came in. I told Larry that God finally gave me a dumb one lol.
We called it a day at that point. Sorry for the long read lol.
At that point he showed me around the rest of the place and made a couple stands with no takers.
Took today off, picked up my old partner Larry and headed to our usual place. Really cloudy and a bit foggy even was going to make spotting coyotes difficult.
Stand one produces a lot of the time, and we saw a lot of fresh tracks in the snow. Opening howl was not answered and I went into cottontail distress with nothing showing, but after a few minutes of pup distress a group started howling back from deep in the hills. At that point it's hard to give up so I group howled back and they talked back but didn't seem like they were budging. More fight sounds didn't seem to work and I had all but given up when I spotted one out in front, 369 yards sitting down and not budging. Never saw him come in but he came from the general direction of the group we heard according the tracks in the snow. Got the range in the Eliminator, held 8" for wind and let one fly and got a reassuring "thump" and down he went.
Nice male coyote. I should take pics of some of the stands, we really have some neat country out here.
We had a few blanks, then got back into some action about 12:30 when a couple of groups howled back, a long way off. They were on Larry's side, and I scooted around so I could see what's going on over there. You see, Larry's vision isn't good at all anymore, and especially in this gloomy weather it's unlikely he'd spot one unless it's really close and moving. He doesn't probably have too many years of hunting left, and I'll take him out until he says he doesn't want to go anymore. Good guy and have learned a lot from him. I didn't think anything would come in that far, but after I'd shut the call off after 15 or 20 minutes I finally spotted one about 300, like a ghost in some thick grass and coming our way. It disappeared behind a ridge never to be seen again. And a couple minutes later, the rancher busted through our set and came up to us on a side by side. So that's probably what happened there lol.
Spotted another heading to new, unmolested pastures but there was no approach that wasn't straight upwind from it so we moved on. We got in deep in a remote pasture with steep choppy hills and set up where we could see quite a ways. I had one challenge back to pup distress so talked to it for awhile but never spotted it. It was a long ways off. I had spotted one watching us from another direction on a hilltop maybe 3/4 mile way, it was there nearly the whole time. Decided what the heck and backed down the hill and tried to get closer. Set up and started calling, and gave up about 15-20 minutes and just sat for a few and sure enough, over my right shoulder one was walking down the fence line at 20 yards, he turned off to leave but stopped on his own at 40 or 50 yards and I made a terrible shot and made a big mess.
I was pretty disgusted as he was a really nice dog. Crazy thing was this guy had to have walked within feet of the rzr, no way he didn't see where we were parked with the way he came in. I told Larry that God finally gave me a dumb one lol.
We called it a day at that point. Sorry for the long read lol.
