I know some of you guys got some heavy snow earlier this week. I got about 1 1/2 - 2" of ice here. The coyotes will be hungry, but it makes for some tough walking. I strapped on my ice cleats and went down in the bottom to the south pasture this morning. There were quite a few tracks but I didn't see any coyotes. I called one up down there about a week ago but he came up a ditch and popped out right on top of me before I saw him. That would have been a good time to have the shotgun, but do to the long walk in there I decided to not take it that morning.
I went back this afternoon and got in my hunting shack at the north edge of the pasture. It has sliding windows at the shooting ports but they had so much ice in the tracks that they were hard and noisy to move so I opened them and taped a couple pieces of clear plastic over them to help keep out the wind.
I knew I would make a little noise lifting the plastic out of the way but not nearly as much as if I had to slide the window. I also was expecting the coyotes to come in from the other side of the pasture which would give me plenty of time to pull the tape loose or lift the plastic.
As most of you know, when it comes to coyote hunting things often do not go as planned. At 4:30 I looked out my west shooting window just about the same time a large male coyote walked out of the timber into the pasture. He was about 40 yards away. There was not way I could lift the plastic without him hearing me so I sat quietly and let him continue on out into the pasture. He made it out to about 60 or 70 yards and stopped to sniff at something.
I raised the plastic up and got my rifle out the window without spooking him but then he walked on farther and stopped a couple more times but wouldn't stop long enough for me to get a good shot at him. He ended up going at such an angle that I could no longer shoot out that window and had to switch.
I was just about to get a bead on him out the other window when something spooked him a little and he turned and started to trot the other direction. I have learned that it is best to not bark at them when they are that close to try and get them to stop, so I went ahead and shot him before he hit second gear. It hit him just a little far back but dropped him and I quickly finished him with a second shot. The 50 grain V-max out of my 22-250 makes a mess out of them when they are that close so I converted the picture to black and white to make it more presentable. Sorry for the picture quality. It is just a cell phone photo.
I had about an hour of shooting light left so I hiked on back up the hill and went about 3/4 of a mile to one of my bait sites. I sat there until dark and nothing showed up but I heard one barking off to the east and another howling down in the bottom. I want to try and be back at the pasture before daylight in the morning. I have pretty good luck just hunting along their travel routes in that bottom ground.
