Duhhh
Well-known member
Happy Thanksgiving everyone.
I made a deal with my wife that I’d go out hunting this morning if I made it home for our family dinner at 2pm. All the in-laws and family are in town so the kids have plenty of company. So naturally that’s the perfect excuse to go hunting.
It’s 14 degrees here in a North Dakota and about 10-15 mph wind out of the North West (my preferred wind direction). To top it all off we got a lite dusting of snow last night.
I’ve struck out on coyotes since our deer season has brought the orange army out the past three weeks. So I knew I would have to be walking in a ways. With all that, I had a honey hole in mind. It’s about 5-6 miles in before you get to the nearest road. This spots about 1 hour away from my house so I had to be back to the truck by noon.
First set I’m about 500 yards from the truck in the flats and sage. It’s barely shooting light and I’m playing some snow shoe distress. About 10 minutes in I have a coyote circling way down wind. I lost him in a cut and see him trotting away about 5 minutes later. I managed to stop him at 310 yards and put him down with the 22-250 and 53 gr vmax. It’s about 7:40 am so I go confirm he’s dead and mark his location.
I find his track over the hill any see he had come in with another coyote. I followed their tracks up a clay butte about 3/4 mile away. At the top of the butte it opened up into some rolling hills and cuts. Made my second set at the top of that butte with the now rising sun at my back. This was the perfect set.
Started that set with some lone howls but didn’t get a response. Switched to some cottontail distress and immediately had two hard chargers coming at me. This was my first time using the decoy on the fox pro and it worked but it worked too well. I could not get the first one to stop so I had to shoot him on the run and at the call. Couldn’t get the second one to stop for a shot.
After getting packed up and headed towards the third set, I spotted a coyote about 600 yards from where I just shot the second coyote. I was out in the open so I hunkered down and set up in the only shade I could find. This wasn’t the ideal set up and really close to where I had already called but I gave it a whirl. There was a small pond with cattails nearby so I played pheasant distress. About 5 min in, I had a double creep over the hill to my right. They had me completely pegged but I swung over on them and got a quick shot off. First shot missed (still scratching my head about that one) and they ran directly away from me. I racked a second and made a running Texas heart shot. He was still alive so I put a second into his head. This was a huge coyote and his teeth were pretty worn.
Onto the 4th and final set. I walked about a mile over the hills and came to a big valley. Jumped a big whitetail buck on the way in and still have an open tag for this area but coyotes are cooler than deer so he’ll live another year.
On this last stand I had a 180 view for a really long ways. So I turned up the volume and let the rabbit play. Almost immediately I had another double coming down a fence line around 900 yards. Not sure what happened to one of them but he hung back and let his partner come investigate. The one that did come in was super cautious and took about 10 minutes to close some distance. I must have been fairly visible because it stopped at 263yards and definitely didn’t like what it saw. I held a little wind and folded that one up. It ended up being the only female I shot on the day.
At that point the wind was howling, it was 10:40 ish, and decided I was keeping all 4 of these coyotes. A quick check of my location showed I was 3.2 miles from the truck. Hooked up the first coyote and got to walking back in my tracks. Picked up each coyote on the way back and was feeling the burn by the time I got the third one hooked up. Thank god I shot the 1st one close to the truck because dragging all 4 with my gear in the snow was a real leg burner.
Made it back to the truck right at 12:06 and may have sped a little bit to get back home in time to hang them, clean up, and eat some turkey. Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving.
I made a deal with my wife that I’d go out hunting this morning if I made it home for our family dinner at 2pm. All the in-laws and family are in town so the kids have plenty of company. So naturally that’s the perfect excuse to go hunting.
It’s 14 degrees here in a North Dakota and about 10-15 mph wind out of the North West (my preferred wind direction). To top it all off we got a lite dusting of snow last night.
I’ve struck out on coyotes since our deer season has brought the orange army out the past three weeks. So I knew I would have to be walking in a ways. With all that, I had a honey hole in mind. It’s about 5-6 miles in before you get to the nearest road. This spots about 1 hour away from my house so I had to be back to the truck by noon.
First set I’m about 500 yards from the truck in the flats and sage. It’s barely shooting light and I’m playing some snow shoe distress. About 10 minutes in I have a coyote circling way down wind. I lost him in a cut and see him trotting away about 5 minutes later. I managed to stop him at 310 yards and put him down with the 22-250 and 53 gr vmax. It’s about 7:40 am so I go confirm he’s dead and mark his location.
I find his track over the hill any see he had come in with another coyote. I followed their tracks up a clay butte about 3/4 mile away. At the top of the butte it opened up into some rolling hills and cuts. Made my second set at the top of that butte with the now rising sun at my back. This was the perfect set.
Started that set with some lone howls but didn’t get a response. Switched to some cottontail distress and immediately had two hard chargers coming at me. This was my first time using the decoy on the fox pro and it worked but it worked too well. I could not get the first one to stop so I had to shoot him on the run and at the call. Couldn’t get the second one to stop for a shot.
After getting packed up and headed towards the third set, I spotted a coyote about 600 yards from where I just shot the second coyote. I was out in the open so I hunkered down and set up in the only shade I could find. This wasn’t the ideal set up and really close to where I had already called but I gave it a whirl. There was a small pond with cattails nearby so I played pheasant distress. About 5 min in, I had a double creep over the hill to my right. They had me completely pegged but I swung over on them and got a quick shot off. First shot missed (still scratching my head about that one) and they ran directly away from me. I racked a second and made a running Texas heart shot. He was still alive so I put a second into his head. This was a huge coyote and his teeth were pretty worn.
Onto the 4th and final set. I walked about a mile over the hills and came to a big valley. Jumped a big whitetail buck on the way in and still have an open tag for this area but coyotes are cooler than deer so he’ll live another year.
On this last stand I had a 180 view for a really long ways. So I turned up the volume and let the rabbit play. Almost immediately I had another double coming down a fence line around 900 yards. Not sure what happened to one of them but he hung back and let his partner come investigate. The one that did come in was super cautious and took about 10 minutes to close some distance. I must have been fairly visible because it stopped at 263yards and definitely didn’t like what it saw. I held a little wind and folded that one up. It ended up being the only female I shot on the day.
At that point the wind was howling, it was 10:40 ish, and decided I was keeping all 4 of these coyotes. A quick check of my location showed I was 3.2 miles from the truck. Hooked up the first coyote and got to walking back in my tracks. Picked up each coyote on the way back and was feeling the burn by the time I got the third one hooked up. Thank god I shot the 1st one close to the truck because dragging all 4 with my gear in the snow was a real leg burner.
Made it back to the truck right at 12:06 and may have sped a little bit to get back home in time to hang them, clean up, and eat some turkey. Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving.
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