one I had just shot. The Hensley Custom 6.5-284 went off again and he was down and howling like a dog hit by a car. He lay there for some time and appeared to be dead, then just stood up and walked up the hillside, blood running down from his right upper hip. He turned in my direction once more and was gone. My 6.5-284 had four rounds in it, because in the twelve years that I have hunted this valley I never have fi red more than one shot, with the exception of one time and that was two shots ... but never more until today. Murphy’s Law? You bet! Walking back to camp I kept thinking, “Now why didn’t I just put a couple of extra rounds in my pocket?” That would be too easy. Now, the next day was fun. I was
A camoufl aged shotgun and an electronic caller result in a dead coyote.
thing on the caller shaking and rotating. Next came “Light’n Jack” from the magi- cal box, or what our friends at FoxPro call the “Prairie Blaster.” As “Light’n Jack” was doing its thing I fl ipped up the Butler Creek scope caps into the open position on the 22-250, in preparation for the upcoming arrival of our good friend, the coyote ... and, I hoped, several of his associates. Then he did come! At 75 yards I tried to stop them
with a bark and stop they did ... right where I wanted them. Perfect. No, not quite. Murphy’s Law had struck again. As I looked through the rifl e scope all I saw was white. Water vapor had glom- med onto the lenses of my scope within seconds of the opening of the caps, even though the rifle had been out in the cold and humidity all night. Well, the two coyotes exited stage left ... faster than pickups at the drive-up window of Wendy’s. After a quick analysis of the situ-
ation, and several fl owery adjectives, I remembered cleaning my scope lenses but hadn’t reapplied the anti-fog solution on the lenses. Hello, Murphy! Oh! It gets better. Later that after-
noon I hiked out of camp the mile and a quarter to one of my favorite places to ambush coyotes. It’s a long meadow but a fairly narrow place, about a mile or so long and anywhere from 300 to 500 yards across. From where I set up to the far side of the meadow ranges mostly out to 600 yards, but you can have a shot as close as 304 yards. I arrived at the hide at
Page 182 Winter 2012
5:30. At shortly after 6:00 p.m. a cow elk and her calf started across the meadow toward my location. About halfway across, the cow stopped and her head swung to the left. Watching animals and knowing their movements and body language has made me a very success- ful hunter, especially when it comes to hunting coyotes. Soon, both she and her (this year’s) calf were looking intently to the left and close. Then I saw her ... she was mousing at the edge of the meadow at 325 yards. I had dialed the scope to 467 in anticipation of coyote traffi c on a well-worn cow trail that is obviously a highway for coyotes in that area. With the scope now dialed down to 300 yards, I studied her. She was eating a mouse when the shot broke and she just stood there. I chambered another round and shot just a little lower for the downward angle. She spun to the left three times and was down. I chambered another round into the 6.5-284 and moved to another rock pile some 10 feet away. As I moved I saw a coyote running parallel to my location off to the east. Then within a few seconds another coyote came running up a small gully toward me. He stopped at about 80 yards on the far side of the gully and looked back in the direction from which he had come. I held on his left front shoulder just below the knee and the rocky hillside behind him exploded. The 107 Berger had passed through him and had hit on the off side and he was down. Within seconds another coyote came to the same spot to check out the
up at 5:00 a.m. I had heard a group howl last night just west of camp and so I went there to call. Darkness was fading as I made my way west just below a ridge line, and at just over a mile from camp I found the most perfect setup. A large granite boulder had settled itself just below a ridge line and had allowed a 15-foot Christmas-looking spruce tree to grow on its south side. The boulder and the spruce tree behind made a per- fect setup. The tree disguised my shape and with a large open valley out front, it was perfect. I had set the FoxPro out in front at about 20 yards, and with elk bugling all around I was set to start call- ing. Suddenly, a bull elk started bugling right behind me and by the sound he was coming closer. He bugled again – he was very close behind me and I could hear him breathing. Within seconds he was standing on the opposite side of the tree I had my back against. This bull was less than fi ve feet away and when he let out his next bugle it was deafening. He stood momentarily and then moved off to my right. As he did the breeze shifted and he winded me. Then he jumped and ran ... only to stop a short 20 yards away. What a bow shot that would have been! A 336-inch 6x6 bull elk. When that heart-pounding event
was over I turned on the FoxPro and the coyote hunt for today fi nally was up and running. Soon, 13 cow elk and calves marched by at about a hundred yards. They looked in the direction of the call but it did not seem to bother them that some poor creature was be- ing dismantled by some other creature. They obviously had heard the cries of a
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196 |
Page 197 |
Page 198 |
Page 199 |
Page 200 |
Page 201 |
Page 202 |
Page 203 |
Page 204 |
Page 205 |
Page 206 |
Page 207 |
Page 208 |
Page 209 |
Page 210 |
Page 211 |
Page 212