More shotgun action

Last Friday was a bit of an odd day. Work had me taking a farm truck to the mechanic that for safety reasons was driven in via back roads. On the drive there and back I spotted 21 coyotes!!! It was insane. Never in all my years in this area had I ever seen so many coyotes running around in the middle of the day.

The rest of the day wore on as I desperately attempted to get off work early. Finally at 430 I was released from the bonds of tedious manual labor and rushed out to where I had seen 3 coyotes wandering around mousing.

The approach and setup did not lend much cover but after finding myself a small snowbank I hunkered down and let out a series of lone howls.

With no response I switched it up and let rip with a series of cottontail squeals. Once again no response and no coyote.

Now confused as I knew this area didn't offer much for them to hide and they surely had to have stayed in earshot I used my 4x Leica rangefinder to scan for coyotes which shortly answered my questions.

1100 yards out the 3 of them stood out on the meadow. They were wandering around moping about obviously not paying any attention to me as likely they saw my truck when I pulled up. With nothing to lose I picked my loudest howler and let loose with the loudest barks, yips and ki-yis I could muster. The view through the Leica told me it at least caught interest of one as he was slowly ambling his way over albeit quite slowly. At roughly 900 yards he checked up which I later learned because he could see my truck. Once more I bawled and screamed away on the howler trying to sound like a big fight was going on.

As I was looking towards the coyote I was calling to I caught movement to my left. Not 30 yards away a large female was circling around in front of me with a look like "why is that snowbank barking so much???" Slowly as I could I lowered the call and brought the shotgun to bear. One shot between the barbwire was all it took for her to crumple like a cheap tent.

The calls I used. Pup/female howler on the right for lone howls and the adult howler on the left for coyote fights and screams