Old coyote story

[trailtwister]

Dang coyote.

Early March 2014 I got a call from my friend who said we had been invited to hunt a farm where the owner had coyotes coming into his feed lot and wanted them dead by the time his calves started coming. Early the next morning I met him (John), his brother Dale, and brother in law Brett at his home. We piled all the gear into Johns pick up and headed out.  When we got the farm the owner told us where he had seen the coyotes go and come from a swale with grass tall enough it poked thru the 18 inches of snow on the ground at that time. We gathered up our gear and walked back down the lane to the hill overlooking the swale.  Once there we paired up with John and I making the walk around to the one end where there was a drainage ditch that went to another swale with grass and brush. Once we got set we called Brett on the talk about and told him to start the call. He was in to it about 10 minutes when I see a coyote peak over the lip of the drainage ditch then climb out on the bank at 280 yards by my range finder. He stood there and I thought was going to continue to the call direction when all of a sudden he stopped and started looking in my direction. I squeezed the trigger of the Ruger 77 220 swift and sent the hand loaded 55gr. Amax at him. I had aimed right between his eyes he swiveled and went over the bank, Figured a dead coyote is what I would find when we were ready to leave.
Wasn’t long and got the call we would collect the carcasses and leave. When I got to where my coyote stood there was some hair but no blood. Couldn’t track it cause the snow was so had even we men could walk on top of it in most spots.  As were driving home we discussed the coyote figured it had caught a bit of reflection off my scope and spooked just as I squeezed the round off.
The guys decided to hunt there again that evening as they didn’t think we had disturbed the coyotes to awful much that morning. I could not go that evening. John called me later that night and told me they had heard something wheezing down in the brush on the far end of the swale and he would go with me in the morning if I wanted to go look. Said I could do that. We got there and the farmer said he was going back to get a load of fire wood so we could ride back there. He had a big old rangy farm dog a pure breed MUTT just a huge dog.  We get back to the area where they had heard the wheezing and found a deer figured hit by a car maybe.  Looking around following the drainage ditch when all of a sudden that dog took off, pretty soon it reappeared dragging something and it was a coyote.  It’s lower jaw was hanging by a bit of hide a crease down along its neck and a entry hold just in front of the left shoulder. Since everyone thought it was scope flash that spooked it I decided a sun shade was in order. I priced a little shot 4 inch one and said I may be crazy but not nutty crazy and built my own.






  Al

[FinsnFur]

Interesting. That would explain the lack of a blood trail. You did that one a favor