The ATV helps the author cover more territory when he hunts coyotes in the snowy winter months.
because he continued running as fast as he had appeared. I have hunted coyotes for many years and I am still amazed by their ability to perceive danger and react to it while running at full speed. Wow! As I started back toward camp,
clouds and rain sheers fi lled the western sky and they were coming quickly in my direction. I quickened my pace and ar- rived back at camp as rain drops started ricocheting off the roof of my tent. It rained off and on all night but when my alarm went off at 5:00 a.m. I was up and preparing breakfast. Light rain and fog were still here but I knew that by mid- morning they would be gone. Ah, the technology of radio. No computers here at 7,558 feet above sea level. Besides, I am trying hard to emancipate myself from the computer. (Good luck on that.) I dressed in rain gear, Frog Togs to
be exact. Weirdest stuff in the world – has the texture of a greenish paper towel, but it keeps the rain out like you can’t believe. Got it from none other than, yes, you guessed it ... Cabela’s. The 800 Polaris Sportsman had by now warmed up and I was off into the low clouds and rain. The ride was about four miles to a spot I had not hunted before but I knew it had everything for a perfect coyote habitat: deep ravines, tall sagebrush, and some small pine trees. I parked the big machine a half mile from the edge of a monstrous bowl-like canyon, escaped from most of my heavy clothing, shouldered my pack and guns, and walked straight to the east. Clouds were screaming by at eye level and the biting rain was there too, both driven by a 30-mph wind. The rain drops hurt too bad to look to my right so I just
Page 184 Winter 2012
The author's equipment: FoxPro electronic caller, rifl e, shotgun, and coyote decoy.
walked along until I had to crawl under an electric fence. Once under, I moved to the right until I was standing at the west edge of the canyon. I moved quickly over the edge and started side-hilling to the south, my right, until I found a sheltered spot out of the wind and rain. I sat under a large pine tree, a tree that appeared to have held up this edge of the mountain for about a gazillion years. Hard to tell who was here fi rst, the tree or the mountain. It had stood as a sentinel here for who knows how long, proven by its scars. Three lightning strikes had left scars for all to see. I was honored to sit under such an elegant giant. I pulled out my Bivy Sack and crawled in to wait out the storm. An hour passed with no letup, then another. It was about 8:30 a.m. when the clouds lifted and some of the rain subsided. I could see well below me and after crawling out of the Bivy Sack set the FoxPro down on the hillside below. I was on a mountainside that dropped off at a 45 degree angle into the main canyon. After placing the caller and returning to my hide I prepared for the start of calling. The 22-250 was on shooting sticks and the Benelli Super Black Eagle II was on my knee with the safety off. By now the wind had stopped and all was quiet. Soon the air was fi lled with the sound of an animal quite in pain and anguish. It probably didn’t matter that some unfortunate critter was meet- ing an untimely end, because in 1 minute and 38 seconds the second largest coyote I have ever taken walked up to within 10 yards of the caller and was downed by the Benelli shotgun. Later, after I was back at my camp, I weighed him at 56
pounds. A solid inch of fat encased his whole body. The weather stayed cold all day
and the wind increased. With nothing to do in camp but sit around I decided to make use of my down time and skin this huge coyote. I marveled at his size and the fi tness of his body and wondered, why he was so much larger than the hundreds of other coyotes I have killed? Was he that much better at hunting and was he able to feed himself that much better? Was it in his genes? It was soon after that an amazing thought came to mind. The area where I was hunting this year had experienced a major grasshop- per infestation. Had he learned to eat grasshoppers? We know that coyotes are mostly nocturnal and in the cool or cold of the night grasshoppers are hardly able to move. It would be easy to walk along and eat one’s fi ll. Then I have to ask why weren’t the other coyotes do- ing the same? Something to fall asleep thinking about. The 25th was windy and very
warm again so the morning hunt was very diffi cult. I did have a coyote com- ing in to the call but he dropped off into a shallow but long gully and never came out. The wind caught my scent and that was it. I took a long afternoon nap and when I woke the wind had calmed to about 10 to 12 mph. I dressed for the evening hunt and walked the half mile to the valley south of camp where I had screwed things up only a couple of nights ago. Tonight, I was ready ... with a fresh box of ammunition and no preconceived expectations of where I might engage and shoot a coyote.
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