Wilky.....
Welcome to the forum with a real nice coyote, right off the bat....good goin'.
Perri.....
Sorry to hear that you lost out. If you had blood for the full 400yds, and then it disappeared, for that distance, you more than likely hit it good. Hell, Dennis made that quartering shot two years back, using a .243. It was textbook perfect, and that coyote ran (with it's guts hanging out the offside) for 150yds. before it collapsed.
Friendly advise......head back to the spot where you lost the sign and stake it with something visible. Then start walking circles. Depending on the terrain and brush, I'll use that deer tracking technique for fox and coyotes and it works 90% of the time.
Was there enough snow to discern tracks, or was it spotty ?
Chances are, the bleeding stopped for a short bit, then started up again. Guaranteed that he's dead though. 400yds. of bleeding inidicates a pretty good hit.
Just sorry to see you hunt soooo hard, connect, then miss out. That sucks.
If you're interested, I also got a load for that .222 that'll maybe give her a better edge.
Shoot, I feel like driving down and giving you a hand tracking that dog. Not that you couldn't do it yourself, just hate to see you loose out, that's all.
Dennis had a "red" sneak in on him yesterday morning on his off side, and couldn't move cause' the fox had his number. Getting "had" by them sucks when you have to remain still till they start to move off. There were "no shows" for the rest of the morning, but he said that he did spot one in a lone field, but there was some "nature lover" woman there with binoculars watching the fox. He said that he made a lap around the block, and when he got back, she was gone and so was the fox.
Sitting there, after a few minutes, he watched the fox come out onto the shoulder of the road, sit down, scratch, then continue on across the road.
He bailed out of the truck and tried to call it back down the slope, but it wasn't havin' any.
Together, we headed back up there around 3:30 to sit the afternoon, and although there was plenty of sign, nothing showed. Scouting the area, and heading down into the nearby village, I decided to go look for sign in an old forgotten area I used to patrol when I was a Deputy.
It was a dead end "seasonal road" that use to cross an old creek bottom, but had been totally abandoned shortly before I retired back in the late 90's.
I'll tell you that in all the years I've hunted fox, and the several that I hunted coyotes. I've never ever seen an area that was so filthy with sign in my life. Dennis was astounded. There were areas that were so packed down with tracks that the snow was actually hard from it. The tracks were fresh, and literally all over the place. It almost looked like the amount of tracks you'd see if they were penned in a single area, if you get my point. Holy Cow !
Three or four sets of coyote tracks out of the total we saw were huge. I have a lab/Sheppard mix that is probably 80-90lbs. in weight, and this coyote track was darn close in size.
Not meaning that the coyote weighed that, but it had to be huge never the less.
Problem is the land's all posted, but I think I know the owners. And their are several I do know that own sections down along that area, so it shouldn't be a problem. Swamp land borders the creek from years of the banks flooding over, so the going can be tough in there. It's frozen enough for the fox & coyotes to traverse it, but could be iffy for the normal size guy. Swamp willows lace the banks of the creek and are real easy to get up into for a little elevation, which is nice.
Gotta get in there....period.
Good goin' guys,
Bob
