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R1 goes coyote hunting


Canazes9

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Took my son to the lease this weekend, he still didn't get the shot at the buck he was hoping for. Last evening hunt I decided I would break out the foxpro and try and shoot a coyote as we have really been seeing a bunch lately. I had a specific location that I wanted to try, but I wanted to wait till later in the evening so I set up 3 different stands in 3 places on the property w/ no luck.

 

Finally right at sun down I set up in the area where I had been seeing a lot of them. As I'm walking in I see a coyote about 100 yards across the meadow I wanted to hunt. The coyote was upwind of me, but busted me on movement and scampered out of there.

 

I had wanted to set up pretty much in the exact spot where the coyote was so I would have 100 yards (or so) of downrange field to shoot. I decided to set up quickly and only go midway across the field, in case I could lure that coyote back. I put my foxpro in a small mesquite about 3' off the ground and put the new mojo critter in the dirt about 3' away.

 

Walked downwind and crosswind about 70 yards and hit the cotton tail distress. Within 30 seconds the coyote that I had seen earlier was back looking directly at me, the mojo critter was half way between us and was cycled off. The mojo cycled on it's spin cycle and the coyote lurched violently sideways and locked in on it w/ it's eyes. The mojo cycled off - the 'yote is standing still as a statue, eyes fixed slightly quivering, like a lab that's waiting for you to release it to go fetch.

 

I hadn't shot to this point because the coyote is looking directly at me, about 70 yards behind the mojo downwind and crosswind. I knew there was no way this coyote was going to come in straight downwind to the mojo, it would circle around and when it did it would not be looking at me anymore and I would have an opportunity to get my rifle up without being seen.

 

The mojo cycled on again and the coyote burst into a full speed sprint right at it (and me!). It ran directly downwind, no sign of letting up - I realized that mojo was about to get hammered! Couldn't wait any longer, I threw my rifle up, swept the safety off in one motion. The coyote never noticed, despite looking directly at me - it's attention was squarely focused on the mojo. I began to squeeze the trigger trying to time that odd lumpy coyote run.

 

Crosshairs dead center in the jumping chest, the gun goes off and I hit her a little low. She breaks her sprint spins twice and disappears into some heavy brush to my right. My heart and head is racing so fast I didn't even try to get off another shot , just watched her run (way to go stupid...).

 

I'm still trying to process all of this in my head, and my cell phone vibrates in my pocket. A buddy hunting w/ his 10 yr old sends me a text, got a spike down, needs help. Text back "on my way..."

 

I silence the foxpro and stand up to walk over to where I hit the coyote to check for blood and to my right about 50 yards away I hear a warning bark. I look just in time to see two coyotes running full bore for the next county - dang, hate to educate 'yotes like that! Probably could have had a shot on them too if I had let the caller run for another 2 minutes....

 

Walk over to where I shot the coyote and there is a long ribbon of bright blood followed by thick splatters into the brush - solid evidence of a good lung shot. I don't have time to track this coyote w/ my buddy waiting on me (his son's first deer). W/ a solid hit like that it shouldn't have gone far. I tried following the path that I thought it should have taken but can't find it. I broke off and helped my buddy recover & clean his son's first deer.

 

This morning after the last hunt for this trip, I went back to where the coyote had been shot. It takes me about 15 minutes to find her in the heavy brush, once again, my eyes lied to me about where the animal ran - blood trail takes me in a different direction and I found her about 60 yards from where she was shot.

 

 

IMG_0473.jpg

 

David

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