Just got out with the pulsar dfa75 last night with the new illuminator and what a difference. I updated my impressions of it in a different thread, but this is strictly about the mutts, so I'll stick to that.
My brother and I setup near the road for this mutt near a corner of a field that had desert and sage brush on the far side, some 800 yards away. The field stretched off maybe more than 1/2 a mile to our left and there was a small corral just about 20 or so yards to our right and then another field beyond that which went 1/4 of a mile or more out to a house. There was a berme behind us and the wind in our faces. I took the e-caller out about 50 yards and a bit off to the left as that's where the majority of open field was and I expected mutts to come from the sage to the west and have to cross the open field to get to the caller.
About 8 minutes into calling... I asked my brother for the thermal so I could just double check the field that was off to our right, because I and my rifle blocked his view as I was sitting on his right side. 20 yards away, just sitting there, was a coyote just out from the far edge of the corral, looking in the direction of the caller. I slowly handed my brother the thermal, shifted my rifle and fired up the night vision.... NOTHING. It was gone. I looked right... Left....still nothing. Out of no where... A cat started yowling and then hissing over by the corrals. Scared the crap out of us actually! We still couldn't see anything... But the cat kept going. My brother whispered to me... "You sure that wasn't a cat". I told him it was definitely a coyote. We started to think that the coyote found a handy snack, until we noticed the cat moving directly away from us though the field on our right, heading towards the house. It was moving low and fast, but stopped to check behind it a number of times before it had finally crossed the field.
I thought that perhaps the coyote had circled around our six, so we slowly crept up the berme and my brother scanned the area behind us with the thermal... Nothing. We both fully stood up at this point. We were stumped. Dogs were barking at distant houses all over the place, but we couldn't figure out where that Wiley had gotten off to. I asked my brother to do another full scan of the area... And sure enough... Mutt in the field off to our right.... But way out to the west of where it was. It was some 300 yards off and moving closer but not coming towards us, just moving in a straight line through the field perpendicular with the road behind us.
I found it in the night vision and it moved out of sight behind the corral... But I could catch glimmers of his eye shine though the posts as it passed. It stopped just off the right side of the corral, about 250 yards away.... With the house just on the other side of it... No shot. My brother tony and I were standing... But holding absolutely still. The coyote also. Then... It starts coming directly towards us.... Still no shot because of the house. At about 200 yards it breaks at about a 45* angle heading back to the left... Behind the corrals again. I follow the intermittent eye shine til it's on the left side of the corral still moving at an angle through the field. It continued just to the edge of the field and stopped... About 110 yards away. I break the shot and the night vision blooms because of the muzzle flash. I know I broke my shot when I wanted, but wasnt certain the pulsar held zero from my trip to the range a month ago. Tony gets the thermal up... He confirms its down and not moving. After a high five... I head off to get the mutt and finally figure out how the Wiley had evaded us initially. From the corral... There was a 5 ft deep, 6 ft wide empty ditch that ran the entire length of the field. It must have slipped down into it and moved away from us when the cat went crazy! Lol. I crossed and retrieved the mutt!!
Man... What a stand. It was my first night coyote and a heck of a fun one. Not a very big mutt... But it put a smile on my face none-the-less!!!