It's been a little bit of a drought here lately in the coyote department. One 12 hour shift of hunting with Larry, and ilcoyote only yielded a missed shot, and a set of eyes that wouldn't cross the road. The next night, Larry and I hunted for six hours, and managed to finally get one on the ground. We (Larry and I) hunted 12 solid hours the next day and saw NOTHING. A week later we hunted all day again, and only called in one bobcat.

We had planned on hunting this Sat. , but rain and high winds changed our minds. We met up Sunday morning, and decided to try an area we had only hunted a few times at nite, and hadn't hunted yet this year. The dirt road that leads to the field was blocked with trees down from the recent ice storm. We walked in to a hay field, surrounded by timber.

We set up on one edge, side, by side, and put the e-caller out. The bunny blues started singing, and in less than two minutes, I catch movement on my side. A coyote is bouncing across the field looking for the racket. I start turning to get a bead on him, and just before I set the shooting sticks down, I see another coyote come out of the timber.

He caught me moving, and I set the sticks down, and get him in the scope, just as he stops. I hoped the first coyote was far enough out in the field for my partner, Larry, to get a shot on him. When the second coyote starts to take a step back into the timber I let him have it. He goes down like a bag of bricks.

As it turns out, the second coyote wasn't far enough out in the field for Larry to get a shot at. He disappeared (although I gave him a warning shot - with no effect). About 2 or 3 minutes later, the second coyote starts giving us the barking routine. I started matching him, bark for bark, howl for howl, and had him really agitated. After about ten minutes of this, he had come as close as he was going to come. He sounded like he was no more than 75 yards away, just over a rise in the timber, but was keeping invisible. After he got quiet, and wouldn't respond any longer, we tried a variety of different sounds, to no avail.

The coyote I shot, was a female, and had frost on her neck. The pair had probably been laying up, very near to the field we called. She had some badly rubbed areas on the top of her back, and didn't make the trip back to get skinned.

I was unable to hunt that evening, but Larry was. We agreed he should go back, and try his luck at calling in the mate. He set up in the same location, and after two howls, he got what he described as a very lonesome howl back. About five minutes later, a coyote pops out into the field, coming from the same area the coyote was giving us the tongue lashing from in the morning. He made a clean shot, and collected a nice male coyote.

Here's a picture of the female from the morning hunt.

Lance Brown