hunt0168
Active member
A few nights back I called a fresh property and called in a pair. I shot the male (3-12-24 Male) and didn’t get a good crack at the female. I did get her to do a flyby that night with pup distress after the shot, but she hit the afterburners upon hitting my scent and she rocketed out of there!
I went back last night with a different wind direction coming out of the Southeast. This required a different approach and setup but would work if she came from where they did a few nights prior. I pushed much closer to where I suspected she was, set the caller out and upwind about 70 yards and I hugged the tree line on the edge of the field with the wind slightly quartering into the woods. I opened the set with a short set of lone howls. MFK sound but forget exactly which one? It’s like 4 howls and pretty calm. I then just sat quiet for about 5 minutes scanning. A group of about 15 deer that were pretty close to the caller trotted up to the top of the field about 250 yards out and just hung out up there. At the 5 minute mark I ran the same series 1 time and again went quiet. About 2 minutes later I picked up a heat signature with my scanner heading towards the downwind side of the field at the very top. I got on the gun and it was a single coyote. I watched as it hit the tree line I was standing on and was making its way along the edge towards me. As it got closer there was a small jog in the treeline that jutted out into the field and at that point the coyote went into the woods and didn’t immediately pop back out. I gave it a minute and had concerns that it would continue the approach inside the woods which would for sure favor the coyote. Thats where the wind was sending my scent. I hit the same sound on the X2s but only played the first howl and muted it. About 10 seconds later the coyote reemerged from the woods at about 170 yards and stared out into the field. It then again turned towards me and headed my way constantly scent checking, nose in the air, looking out into the field. At about 100 yards I decided I would take the first good shot I had when it turned broadside, if it turned broadside!.
I was on the gun and seriously hoping this coyote would start cutting towards the caller out in the field. My current position behind the gun had my footing an a precarious position. Right foot was up, left foot was down and I just wasn’t super stable judging by my floating crosshairs in my optic! Well, as coyotes typically do, it didn’t head towards the caller at all… it turned and headed towards the tree line. It was broadside, but also making me rotate further into an already uncomfortable position. She made one brief pause in her momentum and I think I yanked the trigger like I was shooting clays with a shotgun! Lol… As you can probably guess from the title of this post, the coyote won this one.
One thing that was pretty neat about this hunt was at the shot I jacked a round in the chamber and tracked that coyote screaming back towards where it had came, that group of deer were still hanging around. The coyote ran right through the middle of all of them. As I watched they just stood there acting kind of confused for a few seconds before in no big hurry trotted into the woods. Like the shot didn’t immediately spook them. The coyote running through the middle of them didn’t immediately spook them. I was pondering as to what they might be thinking if they could put human logic to what just happened? Perhaps “I try to bring my family out to a nice place for a quiet dinner and some clown with a noise maker has to get the place all riled up!… let’s get outta here!” Lol…
It was a good hunt. I feel I played it perfect and was totally winning right up to the moment of truth. Just thought it was worth sharing the story.
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