I spent 2 days last weekend hunting coyotes back in central SD at my Dad’s farm. Had time for 2 sits on Friday night. One dog spotted but he/she wanted nothing to do with my calls. I was up early the next AM headed for Jeff’s place 7 miles south of us. My hopes were the dogs were less pressured down there.
The snow is hard and crunchy and we had a pretty stiff SE wind already. Jeff and I did our first sit east of the day just NE of the house, NOTHING. Well, the cows sure were interested. We then worked our way through the cattle lot to the NW corner of the place. We backed into some cedars and began with some coyote sounds. We had only been there about 10 minutes when Jeff spotted two dogs working east to west, about 3/4 of a mile from us. It was clear they heard our calls. As they got closer, Jeff switched to a rodent distress. Boom, they made a B-line for us. I whispered to him, here we go!!!
The lead dog kept working more west/downwind then coming directly to us. The back dog was on a string, but not in a huge hurry. About when they started to get within range(400 yards), the lead dog got our wind and left pretty quickly. Surprisingly the back dog kept inching closer. He hit about 350 and stopped. I told Jeff to whack him, but he was head on with a small profile. About then the dog decided something wasn’t right and took a few steps away from us. He stopped broadside and Jeff put one in him. I missed on a follow up shot. Then I missed again…. Whoops. 
The dog ran over a small knoll and went out of site. We gathered ourselves, reloaded and started out across the prairie. As we crested the knoll I spotted the dog. It wasn’t going anywhere but it picked it’s head up. Jeff quickly dispatched it with another Hornady 50 grain Vmax. The rest of the weekend we made several other hunts with no success. We spotted a few dogs running the country in our travels. In all, I saw 8 dogs in 2 days. Only 1 offering any kind of a shot. The snow was loud and wind strong. Two factors that worked against us. It was still a great weekend with one of my oldest friends.
Pic 1 – Jeff and his dog
Pic 2 – Last sit of the weekend, tucked in around a bale stack.
Pic 3 – My view on the last hunt.
we need to kill about 20 in my area 