Half day with a friend.

[alleyyooper]

Dean and I had a appointment to hunt coyotes yesterday morning. We met at my house where I fed him breakfast . Started with a couple butter scotch chip pancakes my favorite and finished up with a serving of hominy bacon scramble. As we were putting my gear in his truck he kept muttering OH MY BELLY he was so full LOL.


We hit the place down the road first since we had not been there since just before fire arm deer season. Sort of though we would not see or call anything in as I haven’t heard any around my place about a mile away. But we set up just the same and stayed about 45 minutes with out seeing any thing.


Next place we hit was about 10 miles north of my home it had been hunted just a month ago by other group members who had got two and had 2 run off.

We start out with the squealing piglet going in one caller and a Angry dog ready to go at the 15 minute mark. Didn’t take but about 5 minuses and a coyote comes seeking out of the bush trying to circle the sounds. At about 120 yards I fired and he played there. Fur showed some signs of rubbing and didn’t think was going to be salable but took it just the same and let Tom make the call we decided. Found lots of deer hair clumps on the way out so they are shedding.


Another 5 mile drive and we come to a sheep farm that hasn’t been hunted in like 3 months and mister Brewster likes us to stay on top of the coyotes in the area now that it is just about lambing time.

Walk back down the lane till we get to a fence tree line above a creek and small wood lot. Get set up and start the cat sounds going. Wait about 10 minuses and increase the volume a bit another couple minuses I see Dean make a slight finger move and look to see a pair of coyotes sneaking along the creek. No way I can get a shot with out turning so it is totally up to Dean.

I hear bang & bang and both coyotes are down that 742 Remington strikes again his 3d double in 2018.


We have time to hit one more place before Dean has to leave. So we make a half circle and hit up a Dairy farm about 15 miles east of me. The Hubbles who own this farm always call and report when they see a coyote on their farm. They haven’t called in several months but we decided to stop just the same.

Walking back down a lane I smell that favorite farmer perfume OD of Fresh Manure. They were wasting no time covering fields that would be come silage corn in a couple months time.

One thing with that perfume filling the air I am not worried at all about watching out for scent control. We get set up and stay 45 minuses and saw nothing. I am sure any sane coyote is laying on a south east hill side absorbing The suns heat. Get back to the truck and head for my house and the tempered out says 54F. We did set a new record high for the day at 63F.

Al

[Singing Bridge]

Dean and I had a appointment to hunt coyotes yesterday morning. We met at my house where I fed him breakfast . Started with a couple butter scotch chip pancakes my favorite and finished up with a serving of hominy bacon scramble. As we were putting my gear in his truck he kept muttering OH MY BELLY he was so full LOL.


We hit the place down the road first since we had not been there since just before fire arm deer season. Sort of though we would not see or call anything in as I haven’t heard any around my place about a mile away. But we set up just the same and stayed about 45 minutes with out seeing any thing.


Next place we hit was about 10 miles north of my home it had been hunted just a month ago by other group members who had got two and had 2 run off.

We start out with the squealing piglet going in one caller and a Angry dog ready to go at the 15 minute mark. Didn’t take but about 5 minuses and a coyote comes seeking out of the bush trying to circle the sounds. At about 120 yards I fired and he played there. Fur showed some signs of rubbing and didn’t think was going to be salable but took it just the same and let Tom make the call we decided. Found lots of deer hair clumps on the way out so they are shedding.


Another 5 mile drive and we come to a sheep farm that hasn’t been hunted in like 3 months and mister Brewster likes us to stay on top of the coyotes in the area now that it is just about lambing time.

Walk back down the lane till we get to a fence tree line above a creek and small wood lot. Get set up and start the cat sounds going. Wait about 10 minuses and increase the volume a bit another couple minuses I see Dean make a slight finger move and look to see a pair of coyotes sneaking along the creek. No way I can get a shot with out turning so it is totally up to Dean.

I hear bang & bang and both coyotes are down that 742 Remington strikes again his 3d double in 2018.


We have time to hit one more place before Dean has to leave. So we make a half circle and hit up a Dairy farm about 15 miles east of me. The Hubbles who own this farm always call and report when they see a coyote on their farm. They haven’t called in several months but we decided to stop just the same.

Walking back down a lane I smell that favorite farmer perfume OD of Fresh Manure. They were wasting no time covering fields that would be come silage corn in a couple months time.

One thing with that perfume filling the air I am not worried at all about watching out for scent control. We get set up and stay 45 minuses and saw nothing. I am sure any sane coyote is laying on a south east hill side absorbing The suns heat. Get back to the truck and head for my house and the tempered out says 54F. We did set a new record high for the day at 63F.

Al

Butter scotch pancakes, that's enough to make the day a success all by itself! Sounds like a great day afield for the both of you.

Bridge

[Jackson Marsh]

That is a good day

[Stanley]

[alleyyooper]

[b]A snowy afternoon[/b]

Met Dean Wednesday at a pizza grinder joint for lunch (since it was not at home where it is dinner.) before we started out to hunt afternoon and evening coyotes. I had not made Sundays group brunch gathering because I went shooting sporting clays with my BIL Chuck. I/we do not know how much longer he is going to be able to do any thing due to heart problems.

Dean with drew both his name and my name from the partner draw since we have not been able to get out together in the last two weeks. I don’t mind as I enjoy the groups members but Dean has a humorous wit so is always upbeat, well 99% of the time.

He filled me in on some of the talk at the meeting. Mike is sleeping in Johns sugar shack since sap is starting to boil now. John says he does a great job keeping the fire going and storing the sap. He has stopped using the walker, relieing on his cane all the time now. Still drives Johns auto trans truck to his therapy sessions 5 days a week for an hour and a half.
Dean said Mike has asked him to look for places to buy. Some acreage smaller home 2000 sq. ft. Or less.


We finished our grinders and got my gear loaded in Deans truck and headed out for our first farm. It had started snowing hard, already 4.5 inches of fresh as of 8:00 AM the radio weather guy said. We park put on our heavy clothes and head out for a stone pile above a big slough with high grass and some brush. We set out both decoys, clipped turkey feathers to the tails so they would look bigger in the falling snow.
We also decided to run both calls, mine with the cats and Deans with a Piglet in distress.
At the 12 minute mark I see a coyote working just inside the edge at 182 yards. It is snowing real hard so it is hard to see clear in the scope so I wait. It slowly makes it way in the direction of the decoys. At about 90 yards it stops and I think it is about to spook so I fire. It goes about 15 yards and lays there.


We wait for 45 minuses waiting to see if any more show up. None do so we go about gathering our gear and go to my coyote. A young medium size male with decent fur, wrap in in the plastic and head for the truck.

Next place we hit is along the river with a wood lot buffer. We set up in a fence line on a hill over looking the river. We have shot coyotes running on the ice before as a high way.
Once again the double decoys and callers same sounds. Isn’t long and I see Dean making pointy motions to my right. Two coyotes are sneaking thru the timber, Dean signs I should take the leader and he the trailer. I shift slowly so I can get set up comfortable, watch Deans finger for that fire sign. Both coyotes drop, yet we wait till 45 minuses to make sure there are no others. Only 6 deer work their way thru the trees.

Gather gear, go down to the coyotes two females one is older with well worn teeth, the other younger by a good bit.
Fur is still good on these too so wrap them in plastic and off to the truck. There is about an inch and a half of snow on the hood it is still coming down hard.

We decide the next place is going to be a sheep farm with high voltage lines running thru a wood lot that was timbered off a couple 3 years ago so is really brushy.
Wait 30 minutes and nothing showed.

Get to the next place and the farmer is going out top get started with evening chores. They hire milk maids who milk 3 times in a 24 hour period. But the farmer a nice guy checks on them and feeds the calves and bull that are kept in the barn till much nicer weather.

We head out this time to a brushy stony fence line over looking a couple swampy areas full of brush and tall grass. After 30 minuses nothing showed so we pack up and get ready to leave. One of the bindings on my skis breaks. Rummage thru my pack for some twine with no luck nor does Dean find any. Well it could have been worse I could have a coyote to drag out. I was happy we had our tracks coming in and Dean making tracks out in that wet snow.

We decided to call it quits even though there was about an hour of light left.


Al

[wolverinebuckman]

Sounds like some good times. Doubling up on kills is pretty cool! Sounds like you guys have quite the system.

[Wetfoot]

Sounds like alot of fun. Would like to try that myself sometime soon.

[alleyyooper]

I like to hunt coyotes with friends. I belong to a group of friends 10 total now, one is our fur buyer whos daughter wanted to hunt coyotes. She hasn't hunted with us since Christmas time since she went off to college last fall.

We have a meeting a brunch one and draw for partners every two weeks. The wife or appointed lady draws a name from the hat. that person draws the next name and that is his partner for 2 weeks.
How ever one of the group Mikey is disabled so hunts with his cousin John so if you draw Johns name Or mikey you get them both.

We spend more time hunting coyotes than deer because thr season is 12 months of the year now.


Al

[backstraps]

Sounds like a lot of fun! If like around here the farmers and neighbors are happy to get the coyotes off their property too.

[alleyyooper]

It started over 20 years ago with one farmer asking for us to rid his beef farm of coyotes. Has expanded to over 30 some farms by works of mouth farmer to farmer who call asking for us.

We have a Christmas tree farm, a few dairy farms beef operations and 5 sheep farms.




Al