Who Let the Dogs Out?

Not my favorite song, but it best describes the events that occurred on the night of January 1st.

We went out and made 5 sets… seemed like there was a coyote behind every bush.

1st set – Setup looked good, but no takers

2nd set – Called a valley for about 20 minutes, just after I paused the caller I saw 3 ‘yotes pop out across the field at about 250 yds. I got on them, hit the lipsqueaks and they were coming in on a string. I was wondering how this would all pan out with three dogs in the scope, hoping that my buddy was on one of the dogs to the right. At about 75 yds I dumped the left dog and all heck broke loose. I swung on another that was haulin’ out of town and took a few shots… missed. As we were going to collect the downed dog I found out that another ‘yote was coming in about 50 yds to the right of the three that I was on. My buddy’s scope fogged and he never got off a shot. Called in my first quad… unreal! Kind of a bummer that we only dropped one but what do you do?

3rd set – Called a brushy ridgeline for about 10 minutes and catch a coyote sneaking out of the woods heading our way. We had a strip of picked corn that I thought might make it tough to track a critter through but we had plenty of white on our side of it to recover. Sure enough, he headed for the corn strip and started to work downwind. I threw him some lipsqueaks and he popped out about 150 yds, trying to catch our wind. I stopped him, took the shot, and heard the hit but he took off… shot again and he came running right at us! He buzzed the call at about 50 yds heading right to left and I cartwheeled him… 2 dogs down. Found out after the fact that my buddy saw another ‘yote sneak out to the north of the one I shot and lost him in the corn strip.

4th set – We were pretty pumped so we crossed the road to try another ridgeline. After calling for about 12 minutes I paused the caller. Right in front of us on a brushy knoll we heard an old dog go off at about 120yds and he’s joined by a couple of yippers. I hit the call and in about a minute I caught motion on the fenceline and saw one at around 80 yds. He started heading downwind and I was on him waiting for a good shot. The terrain dropped off pretty quick so I barked to stop him and he sped up… took a running shot and missed again. Stayed on the call but no other takers.

5th set – Seeing as how the night was panning out pretty well we decided to tempt fate and do one more. We called a creek bottom for about 15 minutes and saw a ‘yote pop out to our east. We originally set up for a north wind, but about 5 minutes into the set the wind switched more westerly. The coyote started heading downwind on the other side of a drainage. I knew if he got into the ditch and downwind of us it was all over… I barked to stop him and took the shot… another miss. Before we picked up our gear I ranged the shot at 208 yds.

All in all an incredible night… not the greatest shooting percentage but lots of great action. What did I learn? I really need to work on my running shots and definitely play the wind to keep the odds in your favor

Stats for the night:

5 sets

8 ‘yotes called

2 kills