Last night for spotlighting

[picksbigwagon]

So I was down in SE MN for the past couple days at the in laws and my s-i-l's boyfriend suggested spotlighting deer friday night after the local 9 on 9 FB game. I haven't gone spotlighting in years so I said sure, I'll drive. well we knew we had until midnight friday night and used just about all that to find some decent deer. we cruised for about 2 hours with nothing but does and a couple decent bucks (high racks, good mass, no width though.) We enetered a huge field that had been mowed and bailed earlier in the week and we see 3 sets of eyes about 250 yards out. He was shining, I was working the binoc's and what do ya know, not three does, 3 coyotes, mom and two pups. So we decided to call to them.

I dug around in the cavernous console of my truck, and dug out the trusty red desert howler. I gave out a greeting howl. Both pups turned and closed to about 150, mom even came off the hill a bit. I tried a rabbit distress, they didn't like that one bit and head back towards mommy. We then turned the spotlight off, truck off and headlights off. I proceeded to lip squeak for about 30 seconds, paused a minute and did it again. I was hanging out the window of the truck. my partner hit the light and lead pup was within 50 yards, the second was at 75 and mom was in to about 100 yards. I decided at that point to give my best rendition of a yodel to see what would happen next. Mom was gone in a heart beat. the closest pup was still coming, and the second one was torn, join mom or sibbling.

Needless to say, I know where I will be heading in about another month (MEA week) to thin that local heard. We hit two other spots after that and had 3 different packs howl back. Maybe this winter will be kinder to me than last....