I forgot about day lite savings time. No all the clocks had got set except in my truck so I knew the time changed but I had forgot it would not be lite at 7:00AM today but would have to wait till 8:00 AM for it to be lite.
I wasn’t the only one either.

I arrived at Mikes at 6:45 AM ESDST had just stepped out of the truck and hear a rig coming down the road, down shifting then turning in Mikes drive. It is Carol with her Wrangler. A pretty gray colored one 2 door with the 6 speed manual. I am shocked.

At least Mike has a light on in the house and the out side door lite came on as Carol and I talk about her Wrangler walking to the door.
Mike is fixing breakfast offers us some, I turn him down as I had ate at home. I will take a cup of coffee though, He asked if I would rather have Tea and said sure would.
Carol said she had ate also but would take a slice of toast and some of the yummy smelling bacon.

We discuss that we will drive over to Lexington well about 5 miles west to start our hunting day. I am going to let Mike drive again, I like sitting back and talking to the two of them. We set and talk more since we had an hour to kill before day break. I also wanted to approach the subject of quitting early so I could skin my coyotes if I get any because I am going to be gone Monday and it is getting warm out now.
Mike says I’ll skin them for you, you sure put your time in helping me out when I really needed the help.

Carol had not heard of us building Mikes truck or moving him into his house before he moved in him self. So with that cat out of the bag Mike told her about healing and therapy and how every one had came together for him.

Mike all a sudden says sandwiches for lunch or eat out. Carol and I both said eat out.
Mike finished his breakfast and cleaned up then we loaded our gear in his truck and hit the road.

We take the freeway I 69 across to M19 go north and cut across to Lexington.
About 5 miles before we reach Lexington we turn north on a gravel road.
Drive 2 miles to the sheep farm, park get out in the warm wind less 29F air just as you can see lite thru the trees. A check with the scope says lets get set and slay some.

Walk back across the pasture to a hill over looking a large slough about 85 yards from the hill. Set the decoys and callers out half way return to the hide, start the challenge in action. OH MY the place lit up with answers lots of coyotes it sounded like. Took a whole 10 minutes for a pair to show up in Mikes zone I saw Carol adjust her shooting sticks he must have signed for her to take one. I saw that little belch of fire out her barrel and a dead coyote down range where two had been just a tiny bit before.
I see some movement off to my left, there stands a coyote about half way to the decoy with its attention on the decoy.
The Swift bucks, the coyote goes down, scan the area seeing no others. A challenge from Mikes caller rings out and no answers follow.
We gather our gear and go inspect our coyotes all males. Wrap them then drag to the truck.

As we are driving down the road Carol ever chatty when the eyes are burning bright asked about E callers. Why do we have to ones we have? How are the sounds put in them? Tell her Charlie was the first to buy a E caller we all had home made ones we were using. Glowing reports of the $69.00 Ico Tec with the 300 yard remote was the talk of the next meeting. Of course Walmart had sold out of them quickly.

So those of us who wanted to buy a reasonable caller at a decent price shopped else where.
Mike and I were the last two to get one. I was not sure I wanted to buy one and Mike still married could not afford one and support his wife the way she wanted.
Eric had got a GC350 so I got to see it work and liked it bought it off Amazon for 130.00 with free shipping.
John and Brit got the 500 Models with the AD400 decoys then didn’t like the decoys so stopped using them.

The sounds are on SD cards the 350 and 500 models come with 24 sounds, crow fights with an owl, crow and hawk fight, a buck deer grunt and more.

Ico Tec has a sound Library where you can down load sounds to a card, Got some from Wind River, Varmintal’s .com and recorded some up loaded to the computer and put on an SD card.

I see paper rubber banded to your rifle stocks what is that about Carol asked. That is the list of sounds on the SD card and what button on the remote corresponds to that sound.
You guys have every thing figured out don’t you she says. I tell her when we stop again I will show you the second sheet on my rifle. Corresponds to ranges for my bullets. I really don’t need it because I know my rifle and where I have it sighted in at.

We arrive at the next farm another sheep operation and head back to the woods one of the largest woods I believe we hunt. The sheep have all the under brush trimmed to nothing though. No answers to the challenge so I work the piglet sound. Took about 20 minutes before two coyotes show at the edge of the woods in Carols zone. She signs I should take the lead one and she would take the trailer.
I wait for her to tell me to fire see her looking at me so I drop the hammer and fire.
Both are females most likely last years pups.

At the truck I asked why she didn’t give me the sign to fire the coyotes were in her zone. She said she was sorry and didn’t know she was supposed to thought us guys were to do that.
Tell her no if it is your zone you give the sign.
She is still learning our ways.

Our next farm was a Orchard 90% apples they are a recent farm that joined our list. A year ago January they were out pruning apple trees and they had a pack of 4 coyotes come out of a near by woods and stop and give them the eye.

They finally went away after some yelling and arm waving.

When they came out the second day they decided they wanted some thing done about them. After contacting the county farm bureau agency and asked if they had a list of trappers who could come take care of the coyotes.


They got lucky one of the ladies that works there was married to a farmer where we hunted, called home and got our contact information.

Charlie Brit and Dean showed up to see what they could do. Took out all four coyotes in the first morning set.


We go out and set up in the orchard about 200 yards from the woods, seems this is the ticket there in past hunts.

Do the challenge sound and get a single answer, took the disitressed piglet to get a single lone female show in Mikes zone who put her down.


We get back to the truck and it is now getting hot, dressed as we were for 29F. The thermometer in the truck says it is 42F at 11:00 AM but the sun is still hidden above the clouds.


Our next farm is a dairy farm on the small side by todays standards I would guess they are milking around 50 head of Gurneys and a few Holsteins.

When we climb out of the truck the perfume of a good dairy farm assaults the nose.
People can say what they want but I have a love of fresh spread manure. I did a lot of it when I was growing up on the family farm. Memories return.

I had gotten the tractor and spreader stuck in the field. We only had one tractor then so dad had to come ups with a way to get it out. He cut a log carried it to the tractor and chained it across the wheel. He for got one Major thing. The tires valve stem and when the chain tightened up on the wheel that valve stem ripped out and the chloride in the tire was spraying all over the place.

The rest off the day was getting the rim off the wheel loading it in the pickup. Get it to the farm tire store remove all the chloride left in the tire remove the tube and get a new valve stem valcuinezed on it, put back in the tire then chloride pumped back in. Was late when we got back home. So the tire was taken back to the tractor the next day.

That was the first time I had heard my dad in my 10 short years of life swear, turn a sailors ears blue.

We had a dry hole after 45 minutes there, none answered our challenges.


Back at the truck we strip down and say lets go some place to eat. Sandusky is near by so we decided to head there instead of going back to Lexington. Some nice places to eat in Sandusky. Kare and I have been going to a car show there for 3 years now. But we have only ate breakfast at the Burger King, quick an tasty. Have had a a Blizzard and the crispy chicken sandwich at Dairy Queen.

We opted to go to DQ for lunch, crisp chicken sandwich and Onion rings for me.

Carol had the bacon cheese burger and fries and a small chocolate extreme blizzard.

Mike did the double bacon cheese burger and onion rings.


We had decided we would not do any door knocking since it was Sunday We had 3 more farms we could hit on the way to Port Austin But decided to call it a day since it was a bright sunny 60F out side.

After we ate we made our way back to Mikes where we skinned coyotes and talked about my brother.

Al