Wednesday the 25th was dry for a change. Got the swift out to see if my bad hit on a coyote a couple weeks ago was due to it or if it was me, turns out it had to be me pulling the shot as the swift was putting them right where it was supposed to.


Once finished I came in and made a date to go hunting with Eric for Thursday (26th). Wake up early Thursday morning and it is snowing instead of the rain we have been getting a lot of as of late. I meet Eric at his office at 6:00AM gives us enough time to drive to the Deplane farm to make our first set right at day break. It is still snowing but it is a wet snow melting as fast as it touches anything as we get set up. Start the call and the area coyotes start up sounds like a bunch out there. After 20 minutes nothing has showed up so we wait another 15 minutes just to see since we heard so many.

So the first set is a bust, off to the second set which is just a short drive as it is on the other road border the section. Walk back to the stone pile in the middle of the field to set up, start the call all is quiet for a good ten minutes then we hear a bark off to the left. Adjust our seat a bit so we can see off that way better, not long and here comes a pair slowly working their way thru some autumn olive on the opposite hill side. We can see them standing out in the bit of snow that hasn’t melted yet even though they are still a bit over 300 yards away yet. They have to finish coming down that hill and cross a drainage ditch a big one for the area with several crossing culverts. Once they cross the ditch the range is a lot better less than 200 yards, they made it to the ditch between two different crossings; they just hung up over there. Kept sticking their noses in the air gathering scent which with the bit of wind in our faces wasn’t ours, finally just sat on their haunches looking around. I sign to Eric we should take the shot we had, he motioned back we should. I was to take the one closer Eric would take the far one about 2 feet more. At my signal we fired two coyotes stood up spun and fell, We wait a bit to see if any more would show up then went to collect the coyotes. Both were female one has the teeth and foot pads of a young one the other had older appearing teeth. Put them on the plastic drag them up to our set area gather the caller, decoy then head to the truck.


Decide we are already damp from the wet snow we should try another place.
The drive is about 20 miles giving us some time to down some hot tea I had brought since both of us were tea drinkers mostly. This is the Hemphill farm, they raise a lot of hay to sell by the semi loads but still have a few beef cattle of their own. This place it real hilly probably the hilliest farm we hunt, some are pretty steep but they still take the hay off them. Lots of good places to set up in fence rows as they allow the grass to just grow along with some wild bushes. We find a spot near a wild apple tree with some short brush and grass to make our set. Any coyote we see will be under 150 yards because of the hilly nature of the place. We call for 20 minutes without seeing a thing shut the call down and do our 10 or some minute wait. Was just getting ready to go gather the decoy and caller when a lone coyote pops over a hill in front of us that was on a mission, it was Erica’s area of coverage so he makes the shot. I was sort of glad it was him and not me who would be dragging that coyote over the hills back to the truck.

Back at the truck we decide to call it a day as we were pretty well wet on our outer wear so were feeling the chill of damp air and the damp clothes we were wearing.
Eric told me to just drop him off at home since he had a wet rifle to dry off and clean up. He would get his wife to run him back to his office to pick up his truck.

At home I took my damp clothes in to hang in the furnace room and dry making a note to get some more scotch guard. Then I started cleaning the swift with a good wipe down with a oiled cloth then set it in the furnace room also so it would completely dry before I did more. I had left my coyote with Eric offering to stay and help with the skinning but he declined the help saying it would not take long.


It will be my turn next time we get a few. Going to try to go out again Saturday, baring any rain, wet snowfog or howling wind. That seems to be the norm as of late.


Al

Lucky you! I remember days like that. :-)