Well 0500 hours comes awful early anymore! But to get my new XR-100 out Varminting and "blooded" well I guess it was worth it!
I met my main Elk Hunting partner at his house at 0600 and we travelled to a remote valley here in SW Montana to snipe some Varmints! Ben had his trusty Remington 223 Remington 700 VLS along and I had along both my new XR-100 in 223 Remington and my Remington 700 VLS in 204 Ruger. I decided to use this tried and true "repeater" 204 for morning calling and some "drive by Coyoting" we were planning to do on the way to our calling grounds! The blooding of the single shot XR-100 could wait for the best set-up calling places I decided. Our travel to the Coyote "heaven" resulted in both the "bagged" Coyotes of the day!
I had the magazine fully loaded with 204 Ruger ammo (Sierra 32 grain handloads!) and we travelled with our actions open and the safties on. This is legal in Montana - I have my reservations but we had plenty of back seat room for our Rifles and our slow travels in, at times, up to 20" of drifted snow. Snow on the level was from 2" to 8" depending on altitude and valley width. The sun had not even cleared the horizon when I called out Coyote! This nifty colored Coyote ran about 100 more yards as we were piling out and pulling Bi-pod legs! It stopped and I dumped him at 240 yards or so. My partner "howled" as he was "turning down" the power of his Leupold variable trying to get the Coyote in his sight picture when I shot! I of course had learned this lesson decades ago and know that its easier to turn the power up on a distant Coyote than to try to get a close in Coyote in the sight picture of high powered variable that is set on high power!
He-he! I travel with scopes on low power - always!
One down and we are still miles from the best Coyote grounds.
As the sun began to rise (in our eyes!) we began seeing Moose and Elk! One herd of Elk had well over 125 animals in it and three were small 5 point bulls! The viewing of these feeding Elk not 600 yards from us took 15 minutes at least!
I was anxious to get to our calling areas ASAP.
Moose were every where in the willows it seemed this morning! We saw 11 Moose and 2 were small bulls.
Mule Deer were scattering at every turn of the dirt track!
Just as we were nearing our first planned calling site I spotted another running Coyote - on the second shot this big Dog Coyote was brought to "bag" by my main man (his turn to shoot)! And I mean that literally - my partner sprayed them with flea killer and put them in large garbage "bags" in the back of the rig!
Excitement was growing as we approached our first calling site just at sunrise.
Our set-up was perfect, I thought, but no luck. The cold would freeze up my call in a few minutes which means it was about 22 degrees out. I would thaw it in my arm pit! That is warm for this time of year and time of day! Normal would be -10 to +10 degrees.
I had switched to my XR-100 for the calling and we gave up after 20 minutes here. A Bobcat was taken within a mile of this spot early last week and we were trying to be patient for a slow coming cat. No luck. We started back for the VarmintMobile and halfway there we jumped a Jack Rabbit! I already had the legs of the bi-pod lowered and it was just a matter of time til the Jack stopped and I "blooded" the new XR-100!
Three Varmints - in the first hour and a half! Yee-haw!
On to the next calling site. I saw a Coyote crest a ridge doing MachII heading directly away from us! Little did I know this was to become the trend for the rest of the day!
Our next two calling sites were also dry and we were now into constant deep snow with drifts that made travel very difficult.
We turned around in a little sage brush covered bowl that was being used by a large herd of Elk. We never saw them but the snow was a day old and they had been there recently.
We had to backtrack now and not finish our original circle route due to the snow. Once back into the willowed valley we found an adult Porcupine in a tree. It became the second Varmint brought to bag by my new XR-100. This Varmint was on the spring and summer range of our rancher friends cattle and we will be sure to inform him of the harvest of this little troublemaker for his calves! The Porcupine was on the other side of the partly frozen creek and no retrieval was attempted for safety reasons.
Perhaps this shot had a Coyote on the far side of our creek bottom spooked and this adult Coyote once spotted just stood on a ridgeline at 600+ yards away and watched us drive slowly by. Notes made.
Coyotes are getting smart! They know the range of modern Rifles!
Especially in the wind it seems. The wind now was a constant 10 to 15 MPH!
Another herd of 50 Elk was jumped out of the valley - they must have been coming down to the fast water section of the creek that had not fully iced over. We spooked them back up the hill a half mile before they stopped.
I spotted a gathering of Varmint Birds along with some Hawks and a Golden Eagle ahead of us. They were feeding on something (turned out to be a long dead cow) and I used my Dog-Gone-Good window bag to whack the first Varmint Bird for the new XR-100 at a laser ranged 230 yards!
Satisfying this!
We were now getting within a few miles of "civilization" Montana style. A few remote and now uninhabited for the winter, ranch hand cabins were coming into view. Along with huge herds of wintering Antelope! One herd we passed had already bedded in the lee of a ridgeline and there were at least 150 Antelope in it. The Bucks had all lost their horns but they still were easy to pick out with their black faces and permanent horn base protrusions showing up in the snowy background.
Another Coyote was in flight when first spotted and no reasonable shot was offered. Dang! More notes made.
Our next two calling sites were inexplicably without reward.
I was seeing some Coyote tracks in the snow. A sign here of over-Hunting (call shy Coyotes!) or something I thought!
About two miles out of the tiny town we were going to eat breakfast in I spotted another gathering of Varmint Birds and birds of prey. I collected another hungry Varmint Bird with the XR-100! As we drove up to the feeding site for these birds I stopped. There were three skinned Coyote carcass's that the birds had been feeding on laying 20 yards off of the road!
Dang! A trapper in the area!
About a mile further down the road a ramshackle rusty pickup was parked alongside the dirt road and the creek. A trapper with three Muskrat was just returning to his rig. We talked and sure enough this retired preacher was running a trap and snare line for Muskrats, Coyotes and Bobcat down "our" valley!
He had dropped off the Coyote carcass's on a previous line check!
Dang.
We headed for town and for breakfast!
A large flock of Hungarian Partridge were feeding along the road and they flushed as we crept by. About 30 in this flock!
Breakfast was SO wonderful! The coffee was nearly as good!
We tried a couple more calling sites on the way to my partners place but no comers! We did flush a Fox from the burough pit of the siding road but we are on a non-shoot regimen for Fox until they recover from a recent population decimating mange plague. He was well furred and healthy. Good sign this!
Two Coyotes were in high gear and 300 yards out as we came around a bend in the country road that leads to my main man's home! No shot possible. But more notes made!
The Coyotes were feeding late this morning it seemed!
What a beautiful day in Varmint Heaven!
Our plans for tomorrow are to Hunt Geese in the morning and try to call some Coyotes in a new area during the midday.
More later from SW Montana.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

always enjoy reading you VG. A bedtime storey for me.....I'm off after the illusive Pa whitetail in the AM. I haven't seen a deer yet this season with 6 days in the woods.

Lofter: Best of luck to you on the morrow!
I am amazed with the late seasons in the north latitudes "back east"!
MY other main go to Big Game Hunting partner left the shadows of the Tobacco Root Mountains (near Twin Bridges, Montana) and headed out to Hunt Whitetails in Iowa about 9 days ago. He still isn't back!
And he hasn't called to let me know if he has been having any luck!
Normally by this time of year its 10 below zero at night around here and the stress of that temperature at this elevation AND Hunting during the day time would just be to much for the game herds - I surmise? Ergo - early seasons.
Speaking of Pennsylvania I will never forget an article I read many many years ago where they did a study in Pennsylvania and during that one (1) year they confirmed 70,000 Whitetailed Deer KILLED BY AUTOS in the state! Sheesh!
Thanks for the kind words!
Anyway again best of luck tomorrow and Hunt carefully!
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy