A couple of years ago on this site there was a couple of posts about shoot'n right out the kitchen window. Varmints and stuff. I had nothing to add (post) but I did reply and say how much I envied those guys and how it brought back memories from when I lived on the praires.
Since that time, I purchased a small ranch. Anyways, I got this frozen dead horse about 90 yards from the house. This morning while I was at my computer hang'n out on accurate, I happen to look out the window and there is a frigg'n coyote eat'n my dead horse.
I leaned over and grabbed my 222Rem., that I have close by in case of emergencies. I pushed the window open and stuck the 222 out and POW. The coyote didn't even kick. I set the gun down and was back at my computer within seconds.
I guess you could call me an 'arm chair hunter'.(Is that one step below a road hunter?)

Any of you have premium hunting like this?

What could we call ourselves? (ex. LRH-long range hunting, SRH-short range hunting)
ACH?

Daryl

You are indeed a lucky man. I can shoot a deer off my deck but don't because I enjoy hunting them. Also I would have to carry the gut pile away because one of the dogs would be in it in a heartbeat.

If you need help with the coyotes let me know. I always wanted to go to the Yukon.

Rich,

Yes, I am a lucky man. The Yukon is a great place to live but better yet, My wife and family love it just as much as I do.

I know it is exspensive but just one hunt (in the right areas) can be an experience of a life time. Same goes for Alaska and the NWT.

Daryl

I always wanted to buy a old two story farm house over looking a large feild. Then set a bench up on the 2nd floor and place road kill at 200 yards. Would be great fun I guy I know was a freind in Canada that freeze moose heads into the lake he lives by and get 3 to 4 wolves very winter off them.

pdog shooter,

That was my plan with the horse. Freeze it on a large lake on a friends trapline. The way things are working out, I think I will leave it here in the yard. I might not have any horse left by the time I go.
I like the idea of the 2 story house. I remember the old stone or wood houses on the praries.....

Daryl

I moved out to a large orchard that my in-laws own about six months ago. I wasn't sure I was going to like it, long drive to work and town. The first weekend I was there I walked out onto the back porch and ripped a crow off of my shop with my AR15. I've been yelled at a few times after the wife picked up some 22LR brass in the vacuum cleaner off of the living room carpet. Now, I don't think I could live in town again.

After years of living in urban areas, we moved back to Ky. and I am in hog heaven!

The other day a visitor looked at me and asked," how many were there?"
I asked him what he was talking about, and he just pointed to the pavement and said,"the last time I saw that much brass on the ground, we had just fought off over 20 VC."

Yukoner: As a city boy born and raised for 50 years in the shadow of Seattle's Space Needle I revel in my new surroundings! 4 1/2 years ago I moved to Dillon, Montana and only wish I had done so earlier! In my yard and the surrounding fields I have seen Fox, Mule Deer, Antelope, Whitetail Deer, Rock Chucks, Skunks, Ground Squirrels, Weasels, Jack Rabbits, Cotton Tail Rabbits and Snowshoe Hares. Along with all manner of Bird life from Hummingbirds to Golden and Bald Eagles! I simply enjoy the presence of all of them! I have learned a lot from my yardside observations including watching Fox eating Nightcrawler Worms in my watered lawn. The Fox also love to eat my crabapples! I have also seen Fox taking showers in my lawn sprinklers at night. I have 5 sections of lawn to water and each section runs for 30 minutes. The Fox during the heat of the summer will go from section to section and wet their fur and slide themselves in the grass on their front shoulders and sides! I have also had Mule Deer bucks kill shade trees in my yard by stripping the bark with their antlers. The Magpies here are also great crabapple eaters. I have yet to see or hear a Coyote though from my yard. I simply attribute this to the Hog proof fencing around me that allows Foxes to pass through but not Coyotes. I can go 2 miles in any direction though and I have seen Coyotes. Someday I will add a Coyote to my "seen from home list". I am sure someday one will follow the road down to my house.
I have only shot 2 Varmints from my yard here and they were both Skunks. My dog has a habit of getting smelled up by them and its a 2 day job cleaning him! The Skunks also eat the Pheasant and Hungarian Partridge eggs during nesting season so I keep them in check. I am sure the pleasure I get from watching the wild creatures around here adds to my quality and quantity of life.
Keep those Coyotes in check up there!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

One of my best memories as a 15 year old was similar to yours. We always milked a couple of holsteins for our own use and I hated those bitches! When the last one died just south of our barnlot, I checked the bait daily from my bedroom window before school and finally saw a coyote chewing on that hated cow, sneaked past the barn and shot him at about 250 yards. That is the last cow I've ever milked. Thank God. My dad said I never used any obscene language in my pre-Holstein era, but they taught me quick.

jstevens
Know what ya mean I milkt cows fer 20years before I burned out & got a cushy town job(weekends off & overtime is OK by this country boy).Only problem is I moved to town(man I miss the contry but cost to much to live there now!)
That was the norm though,anything that died in late fall-early spring got pulled 250 yards off the barn for bait.The 243 was loaded by the back door & acounted for numerous killes each winter.
There was a couple of crows on the neighbors Compost pile yesterday.Took all I had not to nailem,but cant do that in town....now where did I put the blowgun????no one could hear that=CJ

As a kid, I used to bait crows out my bedroom window. Got lots with my 22. The skinner I take fox and yotes to fired his 22-250 out the kitchen window at night once. He said half the glasses and a few bowls in the cupboard blew up. Real good way to piss off da wife, wake her up at 2am with a grenade

Spent some time on a ranch in southern Idaho that was almost overrun with rockchucks, cottontails and jacks. We used to keep a scoped .22 in the dining room. When a critter was seen during meal times, the sliding window was opened, the .22 cracked and another rockchuck met his end.

They started associating the squeak of the window with the demise of a fellow chuck and would scramble for dear life when it opened. I fixed that with a liberal dose of WD-40 on the window frame, the kill ratio went right back up! Guy

Yukoner,

Wow, lucky you. I live a few hours east of you. I have not seen any yotes up here. Are there many? Seven more months and I'll be a resident.

Ian

Thanks guys for sharing your experiences.

I like having living critters around my place. Except wolves or coyotes!
I have killed 5 coyotes and 1 black wolf off this horse in 10 days. It has been a little Quiet around here the last couple of days.

Ian,
there are to many coyotes up here IMO. For a while Whitehorse was having a problem with them. Dogs&cats taken right in thier yards. 1 kid was attacked that I know of. I would see them daily during the winter. Just like that, they disapeared or got scarce. I was suspicious that the gov't did something about them. Later, from an inside sourse, I found out that they had. Fine with me.
Where abouts you from? I can remember when I could hardly wait till I got my residentcy. Some very good hunting not far from you. What is on your list?

PEI ROB,
If you really want to piss of da wife just shoot a fox 20 yards out the back door, it wasn't the noise from the shot (I usually just get "what the S??H are you doing") It was the fox urine smell that lasted for about a week and I thout only skunks smelled that bad.
Albert

Yukoner,

Originally from Manitoba...lived all over the province.

On my list is moose, caribou, and a sheep would be nice.

Was up in the mountains near Spencer Creek this fall on the atv's and had a little fun with the arctic ground squirells. Not all that thrilled about it being law to eat them! Saw a monster grizz. This fall I mainly had to keep myself content with grouse.

Happy New Year.

Ian

Yukoner & Ian,

You guys have some great opportunity in your areas....I drive the Alcan a couple times a Winter and am always frustrated by big furry coyotes loping down the road ahead of me....I recently saw two wolves between Watson Lake and Fort Nelson....stood on the shoulder...my 243 is in the truck but being in another country, I would certainly be at the mercy of the law....
Yukoner.....where are the 40 Mile caribou?....last I heard they were east of Dawson City....should be a few critters following

Vern....Delta Junction...End of the Alcan

All you second storey artillerymen are entirely to blame for my breaking a sacred vow. Never to tell, that is.

Thirty years ago I lived in upstate New York and was privileged to deer hunt on a friend's dairy farm about 40 miles south of Syracuse. Shotgun country, this.

On this particular morning, snowing/blowing/cold, I left my two companions on their stands and came back to the farmhouse around nine to thaw out. Benetta, the mistress of the house, was sitting in the kitchen clad in a snowmobile suit and sipping hot cocoa ( the same gallant lady whom, the year before, had unceremoniously whipped off her ample bra and used it to bundle up the liver of a buck I had just killed, there being no ziplock baggies left in any of my coat pockets). Benny's face, I now saw, was covered with unseemly black specks; puzzled, I asked her what they were.

She instantly reddened, licked at her fingertips, and then began rubbing her cheeks and forehead. Soon she was giggling uncontrollably. Could I keep my damn mouth shut, she inquired? I said I could. "It's deer blood," she half-whispered, and then proceeded to tell me how it got there.

The kids were packed off on the school bus and Al, her husband, had come in from milking. As usual he was expecting breakfast, but that's not what was on the menu. Understand, there isn't much idle time on this or any dairy farm, and what little was available Benny meant to make the most of on this particular morning. Dragging her husband upstairs by his Udder Balm-ed chapped hands, Benetta pushed him onto the bed. The clock was ticking, ticking. Ahhhhh, sweet mystery of life....

Events proceeded to unfold, as per normal. But then Al made an error in judgement. For whatever reason he happened to glance sideways out the bedroom window (like so many old farmhouses, the windows in this dwelling came down almost to the floor). Standing some 50 yards from the farmhouse was a nice big whitetail, facing the county highway with his front feet planted firmly on the far shoulder. Al froze in place, as though doing pushups. In a few seconds a car went by, then another. The deer stood there, alert and uncertain.

Without uttering a word Al leaped from the bed. Clad only in his argyle socks, he flew downstairs to his office and grabbed his Hawkins 51-calibre cap and ball from the locked cabinet. He checked; it was loaded. In a flash Al was back upstairs, startling his wife as never before. "When I saw the gun I pulled the covers over my head and shouted -- for God's sake, don't! I'll go fix breakfast!"

The deer hadn't moved. Al threw open the sash, laid down in a nearly prone position, and leveled the gun on the sill. The Hawkins went kaboom. As the smoke cleared, Al saw the buck laying chin-down, with his head just on the edge of the asphalt, neck shot and stone dead.

Once again, time was of the essence. Hollering at Benny to follow, Al raced downstairs and squirmed into his snowmobile suit. Similarly clad, Benny followed him outside and they jumped in their Olds. It was but a short distance to the deer and they quickly loaded it into the trunk. It was a nice eight-point and right around 200 pounds. They then drove the car back up the drive past the house to the barn, where the deer was pulleyed into the air beneath a rafter in the hay loft. The blood specks on Benny's face had occurred while helping gut out the buck, and in fact her husband was still down at the barn cutting up the carcass. End of story.

But it wasn't. Two years before, I got turned around in their woods and ended up some three miles from the farm, lost, on State forest land. I managed to hitch a ride back to the farm with a mailman. Al spotted me trying to sneak out of the car. My punishment came in the form of a neatly bundled Care package, consisting of a roll of bright red toilet paper, a Gillette razor, after shave cologne, compass, flare, pocket bible, waterproof matches,whistle...you get the idea.

But now it was my turn....and it didn't take long.

The Syracuse Post-Standard in those days carried a weekly outdoor column by-lined by a fellow named Rod Hunter-- obviously a pen name. I decided to put some words of my own in Rod's mouth, but closely following his own style. This I did, describing -- as tastefully as I could, but with plenty of word play -- the events of that snowy day. I titled the column: "The Argyle Buck." Since I worked for a publisher myself, the rest was easy: setting the column width and type size/style in an exact replica of the Post-Standard column. I then printed a batch of copies on newsprint, making sure to add a dateline, and clipped them from the page.

I mailed one to Al's brother. I mailed another to four of his closest neighbors. I mailed more to fellow members of his milk co-operative. And I mailed one to the local hotel in the nearby hamlet of Georgetown where Al and Benetta religiously dug into the Thursday night seafood special. With a note. To please post prominently on the hotel's events board.

The first inclination that something was terribly wrong occurred at a district meeting of the milk co-op. A fellow member casually walked up to Al, reached down, lifted a pant leg, frowned, and then dropped it. "Whatsa matter?" Al asked, and the man replied: "Hey -- where's your argyle socks???" A moment later another gent repeated the performance. Al was greatly puzzled by their behavior.

The clincher was just around the corner. When Al and Benetta sat down to their usual repast of snow crab and mahi-mahi a week later, the hotel owner had switched their dining room place setting napkins with matching pairs of argyle socks. Benetta spotted them and felt the walls pressing in. Al remained clueless even as the dining room patrons erupted into laughter. It was only when their waitress directed them to the events board and the clipping posted there, that the pieces began to fit together. Benetta later told me her husband read a couple lines, shouted "no! No! NO!", then a couple more lines and more shouted disbelief, right up to the merciful last sentence.

Things calmed down a bit when I later admitted that only around 15 or 20 people had been in their bedroom that day, and not 400,000 as first thought. And yeah, we're still friends.

Like Rod concluded in his column, there's a moral to this story: always wear a pair of argyle socks to bed. They'll help you ride hard and shoot straight.

Tony,Great story! Well written,too.