Yesterday I shot my first coyote. I'll be 55 years old in about 6 months. I started hunting squirrels with my dad about 1960. I've still got the 22 rifle he gave me way back then.

Anyway yesterday I went fishing along the river that runs through the town I live in. It's a spot of public land inside the city limits where hunting is allowed. I'd never been there before so I strapped on my old virginian dragoon 44 mag revolver that my dad also gave me a few months ago. I use it for grizzly defense when I hit the woods west of here toward jellystone. Occasionally black bears and mountain lions wander through town so I didn't want to be undergunned if I met something big up close and personal.

I was heading back to the car uphill when out of a small stretch of woods a coyote tears out and runs sideways up a sage brushed coulie. I pull out the old single action and fire at him and miss. I pull back the hammer and fire again and the thing cartwheels. It was 50 to 75 yards away, twitched a few times, and lay still. I couldn't believe I hit it. Normally I can't hit the broad side of a barn at any longish range because I use 300 grain hard cast bullets loaded as hot as the pistol can handle for maximum power.

I walked up to it and the bullet hit it in the head and one of its eyeballs popped out. It was about as lucky a shot as the first deer about 15 years ago I killed using a 12 gauge shotgun with slugs. This buck was trotting after a doe about the same range as the coyote. I aimed at both bodies and hit both in the head and neck area. The first deer kill came before I got big game rifles to properly do the job. Since then I've seen a bunch of coyotes while deer hunting but let all of them walk.

So varmint hunting is in my blood now because the thrill is nearly gone for the deer and elk I've killed over the years. It's getting to be too much work toting meat up and down mountains. I plan to get a 204 sometime this year because the deer rifles I've used on prairie dogs produce too much recoil to see half the shot results. But I've got a tack driving 25-06 that'll shoot minute of angle out to 625 yards. So there's my 1st and hopefully not last coyote story.

quote:

Originally posted by johnnyappleseed55:
Since then I've seen a bunch of coyotes while deer hunting but let all of them walk.

So varmint hunting is in my blood now because the thrill is nearly gone for the deer and elk I've killed over the years. It's getting to be too much work toting meat up and down mountains. I plan to get a 204 sometime this year because the deer rifles I've used on prairie dogs produce too much recoil to see half the shot results. But I've got a tack driving 25-06 that'll shoot minute of angle out to 625 yards. So there's my 1st and hopefully not last coyote story.

Good for you!

Charlie will be glad you mentioned God's own chambering, the 25-'06!

Good for you and the luck shot.
Sometime's things happen when it's just impossible for it to do so.

Way back in the mid 60's cousin Bill invited me along with a couple of his college buddies for a little coyote fun n games.

Unknown to me until after it was done. He'd told them I was: "one hell of a rifle shot".

I'd loaded up a bunch of 110gr RN's for the '06.
Just as we all unloaded from the car & walked to the edge of a real steep hill. A coyote took off straight away from us close to 450-500yds. Hard to tell on a downhill like that was. But, it was a really long shot.

I held way high without any downhill and very little long shot experience then. Just as the bullet got there, the coyote jumped over a big rock & lost his head. Bullet hit at the base of his skull & wasn't anything left beside's eyeballs on lots of cords & crap.

Just a mighty unlucky coyote that day is all that could be said about it. IF he hadn't of jumped the shot would have gone 3-4 feet too high.

Bill said those guys bragged about my shooting the next two yrs in college to their buddies. Sometimes Just One Shot will make you almost famous. Even if it's an accident. All it needs is to have witness'es.
Most exceptional shots I've made happened when alone, and like that one, we're just flukes.

George