Ramblings and Such From Hunting Coyote

[DSheetz]

It's been a couple of weeks since I've seen any sign of coyotes in the pasture I was working. The pasture is around 12,000 acres and I took two adults, a male and a female, and four pups three male pups and one female pup. The fall dispersal is starting here now, I saw a pair of male coyote tracks in the sand of a draw, then at the junction of the roads he left his calling card. A quarter of a mile farther up the road he made a mistake that ended his exploration of the area he was going to move into that had been vacated by the previous owners. He was one of this year's pups, I could tell it was a male from the size of the tracks, the black color of his scat tells me he was eating mostly meat, there wasn't any hair or fur in it telling me that he wasn't feeding on deer, antelope or rabbits. There was some sign of grasshoppers and mice in it. His tracks lead right to the fence snare that caught him. The track doesn't show up well in the picture but are in the center of the picture. It was pretty plane to see in the sand where he had come in under the fence of the draw, and then up to the road, marked his new area and traveled up the dry road leaving his tracks in the loose dirt. I'm sure that he had done some recon of the area by howling before he entered it, probably for at least a couple of nights of not getting a reply he got bold enough to go take a look around.

 

[HRM Johnny]

Interesting and informative as always. Thanks for posting this, Dave.

 

[DSheetz]

These are examples of cam locks for snares. On the left side is a 1/16 " lock, then a 5/64 " lock and finally a 3/32 " lock. If you look at them closely you can see a 5 stamped on the dog of the middle lock. The 3/32 " lock has an s-hook break away device that we have to use on our snares. I was given some snares that had the 5/64 " locks used on 3/32 " cable and had the 1/16 " locks on 5/64 " cable, they will work on the larger cable but not the way they should, they don't slide as fast as they should and thus you can get bad catches not around the neck as you want. These were not made by the person that gave them to me but had been bought by him. He didn't know that they weren't the right size locks and wondered why he sometimes had good results and at other times not so much. I cut the cable stops off and changed the locks on two of them, putting a 5/64 " lock on a 5/64 " cable and one of my 3/32 " locks on a 3/32 " cable then show and tell time showed him how much faster and smoother they worked. I also showed him how to simmer his new snares in baking soda to clean the oil and grease off of them as well as knock the shine off of the locks and cable. Then a setting demo about not letting the bottom of the loop be on the ground so the animal's feet went under it instead of through the loop. I also explained that he wanted to set snares so that they were as stable as possible so that the locks worked to the best of their abilities as fast as they could, locking up as soon as they could before the snare came loose from the support wire to get a quick clean kill. He's not completely new to snaring he just hadn't been shown anything but was learning on his own. About 6 years ago I took him out and showed him how I called coyotes and got his first coyote called in to him. Not a one of us doesn't have a learning curve and it helps shorten the trial-and-error process if we will take the time to help others learn what we have learned ourselves.

 

[DSheetz]

Yesterday I had a nice visit with Lee who stopped by on his way home from shooting prairie dogs. The weather has been nice fall type weather sunny warm and not hardly a cloud to be seen. Today I took the time and finished a blade I was working on. I fitted it in the handle of a spring assisted opening knife then blued it as it's made out of 52-100 bearing steel instead of stainless steel. I had already heat treated it and drawn it back to not brittle and finished grinding it. The blade lying beside it is the original blade, made out of 8Cr13MoV it's a less expensive blade material. Me being me I preferer a little better quality of blade material, as well as the challenge of making a new blade and getting it fit correctly. The article about the coyote hunter being shot and killed by one he was hunting with is so sad and unavoidable. It goes against the basic guidelines of hunter and firearms safety. know your target and what is behind it. Yes, even in the military there are Accidental Discharges. I have seen way too many people that end up getting highly excited when they are hunting. And accidents happen because of it as well as a lack of experience. Please everyone practice firearms safety and good hunting practices. And yes, I have been guilty of getting buck fever as well as the next guy.

 

[DSheetz]

I need to make a correction it should have been avoidable not unavoidable, but you already knew that. We are getting cold rain at this time and have a little over 1/2 " in the rain gauge so far. With all of the good moisture that we had this year we were getting pretty dry and needing some moisture to get the ground ready for winter. We had a few years in recent times that we didn't have enough moisture for the ground to freeze. The freezing and thawing loosens the soil so it isn't packed like a rock, and lets the grass grow better. As we have said before grass is the crop of the ranchers, cows and sheep are the byproduct of the grass. But it sure makes it slick on the good sunny hill sides, when it thaws just the top 1/2 inch or so. This will be one of those days that I enjoyed as a kid build a fire in the stove watch it rain and listen to the rain on the tin roof while doing some things indoors that need done but haven't been gotten to because we were too busy getting the outdoors things done while the sun shined, and we could. Have a good day and enjoy what we have while we watch it rain, I might have to put me up a small tin roof just to listen to it get rained on just kidding!

 

[74honker]

Rain on a tin roof is the only way go take a nap lol. Finishing harvest today ahead of rain tomorrow. Have only seen 2 coyotes over about 6,000 acres. Both have been seen in the same areas a couple times so I will know where to start the hunt when time and correct wind allow it maybe over the weekend.

 

[DSheetz]

We're getting snow and rain mixed now and the rain gauge says we have gotten 1.8" at a pace that most of it is soaking in. I saw a runt coyote today about the size of a blue healer, pretty small, hunger makes them do things that they normally wouldn't even consider under normal conditions, like being out in the rain. Well, he doesn't have to worry about getting enough to eat now, a truck works the same as a rifle to make them dead. He misjudged my speed. I had a guy tell me one time that no self-respecting coyote would cross a paved road, I laughed at him and said well then all you need to do is pave the fence lines and kill the ones in that area to protect the sheep. It took him awhile, but he got over being mad at me. My sister told me that my sense of humor is as dry as the Sahara.

 

[Airedale56]

What was your velocity and truck weight?
We've "gots ta know" how much energy that runt was hit with….

 

[DSheetz]

The velocity was 111.46 FPS the projectiles weight was 31934000 grains, pushed by 85 oct propellent. The placement wasn't the best hitting behind the rib cage in the stomach area it would take a whole roll of dental floss and way too much time to sew it back together even if it was prime

 

[Airedale56]

75.954545 Miles per Hour result is rounded, btw.

31,934,000 Grains X 111.46 fps = 880,734.09 foot pounds of energy.
Dang!
That runt had no chance!
Even a Freightliner wouldn't have effected a better outcome. Just messier.

Did your shot placement cause his head or hips to wrap around and cave in your driver's door?

 

[DSheetz]

No it kind of bowled over and did a thump thump.

 

[DSheetz]

I had an antelope run into my truck one day and somehow, she got her head between the bumper and the fender. It didn't do my fender much good, and it defiantly wasn't a good day for her. I'm pretty sure she didn't feel anything. There are so many strange things that happen to us and are sometimes hard for others to believe that it did happen. The insurance lady looked at it and when she saw the antelope hair, she finally said she could believe it had happened. I was riding with a guy one night about midnight when a doe deer ran into the passenger side door, I nearly left him by himself before I realized what had happened and that we weren't taking fire. I had just been out for a year and a half.

 

[JiggyIi]

I had an antelope run into my truck one day and somehow, she got her head between the bumper and the fender. It didn't do my fender much good, and it defiantly wasn't a good day for her. I'm pretty sure she didn't feel anything. There are so many strange things that happen to us and are sometimes hard for others to believe that it did happen. The insurance lady looked at it and when she saw the antelope hair, she finally said she could believe it had happened. I was riding with a guy one night about midnight when a doe deer ran into the passenger side door, I nearly left him by himself before I realized what had happened and that we weren't taking fire. I had just been out for a year and a half.

I had an 8 point get his horn caught between the rear bumper and rear fender. This is after his horn hit the windshield in the drivers corner and he twirled down the side of the truck making multiple dents

 

[74honker]

Around here it's pretty rare to see a roadkill coyote. I probably only see a couple a year. As for deer and such, they can do some wierd stuff when hit. I've had a couple literally run along side only brushing the dust off and bumped a couple too with various levels of damage. Only had 2 deer vs semi and they lost but made a big mess.