Put #9 down tonight!

[Grayfox]

Mitch and I headed out tonight to try and fill a bobcat tag but managed to call in a pair of coyotes and I ended up with a lucky shot and brought a nice female home.

We left around noon for the 2 hour drive to our bobcat spot. We ended up driving the backroads doing a lot of looking but with the lack of snow it made it tough. Saw a lot of tracks but of what it was hard to tell. Saw where some otters had been slideing down the road and looked to be some possum also venturing out. It was getting around 2:30 so we headed to a big flowage that we had seen earlier with no human tracks around. We got dressed and headed out onto the ice. I had my AR and Mitch grabbed the shotgun. In hindsight I should have had him grab his rifle too.

The wind was out of the NE and was starting to calm down after 2 days of up to 30 mph gusts and was supposed to be fairly calm the next several days. We headed East onto the ice and found a bunch of cattails 600 yards from the truck. The flowage wrapped back to the South and we set up on the corner. I put the decoy and caller 50 yards out on the ice and sat back on the corner. Seeing that Mitch had the shotgun I had him sit 40 yards South of me on a point watching for anything coming from the SE along the edge. I started with woodpeckers hopeing to get a shot at a bobcat but after an hour nothing had shown. It was after 4 pm and we didn't have much time left so I though I'd howl a few times and see what happens as we had seen several coyote tracks on the way out.

After 10 minutes I looked South toward Mitchells hide and saw one crossing East across the ice. I played with it for a while but couldn't get it to budge. It was about 300 yards out and kind of behind the point Mit was on.

I turned rabbit distress back on and he started coming in toward Mitch but stopped and that's when I saw #2. They must not have liked the decoy on the ice because they started to bug out going East. When they cleared the point I tried to get steady on the coyote in front. It stopped and as the second walked up to it they were right next to each other. They both stopped,I aimed a foot high and let one loose. One hit the ground as the other took off. The other one stopped for a second to look back and I put the crosshairs on it but I forgot to hold over and I'm sure I skipped one under it as it ran into the brush I had Mitch wait as I crossed the ice to retrieve it. I hit it through the hips and dropped it but had to finish it with the .22 pistol. Apparently I forgot to hold for the wind from the North too. We don't get many long shots like this so I never really practice them. I sure learned something tonight. That and bring a range finder during the day. I have no idea how far it was, as I started counting steps on the way back but lost count at around 200 when I figured I better pay more attention to where I was walking before I took a swim out here. This one looked to be a young,smaller female with perfect fur agian. I was going to bring it home but the furbuyer was open when we came through town so we decided to just drop it off.

We're heading to bed now and we're going to try for fox a little later tonight. Wish us luck.

Rob

[perchking]

Great Job GrayFox way to knock those dogs down...

[Gordie]

Your having way way to much Fun Grayfox

[moraarcher]

Good job! I always enjoy your stories. I finally have my gear set up and will be out there tomorrow night, can't wait. Thanks for your help.