Thanksgiving Coyote Hunt in SC

[Bluesman]

Another board member put me on this land and generously allowed me to hunt his honey hole while he was out if town.  My father in law and I arrived at a hot location right at daylight in the day after TG.  We set up about 60 yds apart on a fence line over looking a frosty pasture.  On the opposite side of the field was a long thicket of pines and alders that is nearly impossible to navigate for anything but critters.  This location has been a producer for my friend and the wind was perfect out of the northeast.  This gave us a perfect crosswind between our guns and the thicket which is about 250 yards from our set up locations.

I started the set with two soft howls on my Keekee howler.  In less than 30 seconds a chain of barks came from deep in the thicket.  This coyote was really waking up the farm.  After listening to several more agitated challenge barks and howls I hit the latex-cow horn one more time.  In less than a minute I saw a yellow dog appear at the edge of the thicket, looking for an intruder.  I had the Foxpro remote in my hand and touched off the gray fox distress at pretty low volume.  The coyote fired out of the thicket and bounced the first 30 yards across the pasture straight in the direction of the caller which I'd hung on the barbed wire fence we had our backs to...about 30 yards from either of us.

The yellow dog continued in a straight line to the caller before stopping at about 115 or so yards.  Id already had my rifle set in that direction from the first time the coyote howled at us.  My rest was a very solid Harris bi-pod so I made a good shot.  I heard two reports; one from my gun, the other from the Hrndy 25 grain HP hit the target. The sound was comparable to slamming the hood of a car with a baseball bat.  The coyote started the usual "spin" and went down hard.  I reached down for the remote and started the pup distress sounds.  When I looked back up the coyote was making it up his feet and getting outta Dodge.  I didn't shoot again because I assumed the dog would go back down after just a few steps.  My FnL sent a round at the dog as it started to trot.  He missed and the coyote did some low running and scooted under the fence into the thicket.  We both decided the coyote was dead based on how well he was hit and his last strides going into the bucket.  We made a quick pass and decide that the morning was too perfect so we headed on to make another stand.  We made several more sets with no luck.  The next morning I returned to the thicket and found the coyote only 12 to 15 yards in.  Here's a couple of pics:




Thanks again to my generous buddy for letting us hunt one of his best farms.

JB in NC

[riverboss]

That's a fine coyote and a great story! Sounds like you've got a really good friend.

[Carolina Coyote]

Way to go JB, Good story and good shooting . cc

[HaMeR]

That's a nice looking blonde coyote!! Congratulations.

[possumal]

Nice coyote, nice picture.  Kudos to you on a job well done.

[centerfire_223]

I'm glad you could get you one from there, they are in that thicket almost every time I go there. Good shooting, now let's go to Virginia and get some more.

[coyote101]

Way to go  Congratulations on a great hunt. 

Pat

[Frogman]

Nice!  I liked the detailed story and pictures!

Jim