Most recent dog hunt.

[Coyotes-R-Us]

First off I'm hard of hearing so I wright big...
My son ( 42) is my main hunting partner and best friend so we do about every thing together.
I drew a Elk damage hunt in central MT, river brakes, for two cows.
We did a two dayer between Christmas and new years.
It was -27 to -35 degrees most the time with 2 feet of snow, we tent camped.
Hunted up on to 50 bulls and never seen a cow, isn't that the way thing go?
Anyway
We did some coyote calling to. Very few tracks around but great looking country.
One set worked .
We where hearing call back at most of our sets, that was encouraging.
We kept at it till the wind was about as high as we like to call in .
A group of 3 coyotes came charging in to our challenge calls looking to kick some butt.
They came in on my side, so I knew the boy would not shoot till I did. At that point , no presser a unsuccessful hunt ,butt cold miles of walking and not a shot fired, right no presser on the old man.
They stopped about 200 yards and froze looking for a threatening coyote. It's now or never.

The safety on the 6mm slid down almost by it self the cross hairs dead center shoulder of the end coyote. Bang, flop! and The six seemingly moved to the fleeing coyotes like a laser tracking a MIG fighter. I heard the Foxpro switch to the fox bang and the wounded coyote yelp and the front runner hoped to a stop to look back.
Now closer to 350 yards . Again the coyote was dead center in the scope, bang, Flop!. The third disappeared someplace never to be seen again. My son jumped up to congratulate me on a specular funk braking Double. He was surprised to see me digging in the snow. He hollered what the heck are you doing ?

"I look up and said I'm looking for my brass", haha funny thing to be doing after that he said. But Hey there 6mm brass and as valuable as the coyotes to me. I only found one dang it.

IT FELT VERY GOOD to have two dead coyotes laying in the snow.
It was the last set we did the wind just came up to hard to continue , and we still had 3 hours home.
No Elk but we broke the fur funk and had 2 very nice coyotes , What a perfect way to spend time with the boy.
I did find the 80 gr Barnes TTS at 3600 fps I was using for the elk a little rough for shooting coyotes, Going to need a needle and thread to sell the furs but hey there dead.

NICE.

[Hawks Feather]

You are a better man than I am to be tent camping in those temperatures.  Sorry you didn't get an Elk, but congrats on the double.

Jerry

[Okanagan]

Yep, tent camping in -30 is tougher than I want.  Have done it, and that's why I'l pass nowadays if possible,  though a wall tent with a wood stove is nice as long as the fire is going strong.

Good read on the coyotes.  My all time favorite coyote rifle is a varmint barrelled custom Mauser in 6mm.  Love that cartridge.  My son and grandson now have it. 

There is something going on with elk bull/cow locations this time of year that I have never taken time to figure out.  I had a cow permit near Wenatchee, WA one time in January and wound up only hunting for two days.  Saw zero elk one day and saw five bulls the second day, any of which I could have killed.  An orchard owner who let me cross his place to get to national forest land told me that the bulls damage his trees way more than cows do and wished I could kill one of them.  He liked coyotes eating mice so I left them alone, though saw several.

Thanks for the story of your hunt.