Coyote, good excuse for a walk

Guy Miner · Feb 7, 2013

My son came home about noon from his morning classes, we grabbed a bite to eat and headed into the hills, ostensibly to hunt coyotes, but mostly just to get up into the hills. It was a great excuse! He had his 6mm Rem, and his .45 Colt Blackhawk. Somehow he forgot to put on a belt, so we ended up shoving his revolver in my pack to carry up the hill... Hmmm... May have to revisit that! I had my .25-06 and the .44 mag S&W revolver. And his .45 come to think of it... :grin:

Parked the Jeep and walked up a dirt road that's long been gated off. A favorite hike of mine any time of year. With our amazingly mild winter, it was pretty much snow free.

The cunning young man who tricked me into carrying his Ruger Blackhawk up the hill! Seems to be smirking, since he didn't even take a pack...

We tried out our calls. Predator calling has produced coyotes for me in the past. And ranch/farm dogs. And mule deer have responded. I swear a hawk came in once to find out what was shrieking like that... And sometimes I get nothing to respond. This was one of those days, sigh... Found coyote poop, but that's about as close as we got to a coyote as far as I know.

Mule deer however were found in abundance! Looks like moms & kids have come through the worst of the winter in fine shape.

The only predators we saw on our hike/hunt were a pair of rare, and dangerous, Cascade Black Panthers. They were close to a farmhouse and I can only hope that the farm family was prepared to defend themselves from this horrendous threat!

All in all it was a good hike, and a great way to spend the afternoon! I do like checking up on my mule deer all year long. Helps me stay in reasonable shape too.

Regards, Guy

JD338 · Feb 7, 2013

Good pictures and story Guy.

JD338

Guest · Feb 7, 2013

Thanks Guy. Good story.
My wife seems to have adopted a black panther also. Wonder how he got all the way here from there? :lol:
Dewey

DrMike · Feb 7, 2013

I was with you all the way, Guy. You made it live. Thanks for the account on a day when I was stuck inside.

sask boy · Feb 7, 2013

If we went for a walk around here it would be up to our waist in snow

.
The weather has finally warmed up but every day we are getting a little bit of snow. My son came home from the farm in south east Saskatchewan and he advised that they are seeing herds of 100 whitetail in some of the hay fields and flax straw fields.
It has been a tough winter on the whitetail and pheasant.

Blessings,
Dan

tecumseh · Feb 8, 2013

Good pics! Coyote hunting is a great excuse to get out into the field this time of year.

Guy Miner · Feb 8, 2013

Yeah, a couple of years back (maybe just last year?) I was hiking the same area in March, with only my .44 revolver on hand. Saw a large coyote chasing a few pregnant does across the hillside - out of my range with a revolver! I've been pretty good about making sure I haul along some sort of rifle ever since.

Usually the .25-06 goes with me, but sometimes the .204, and I guess now I can take the Evil Black .223 Bushmaster! Cool. It would make a good walk-around coyote rifle too, particularly with a compact scope.... Hmmmm... :grin:

FOTIS · Feb 8, 2013

Love the panthers.

Guy Miner · Feb 9, 2013

Fotis - we saw those black house cats (excuse me "Cascadian Black Panthers") while we were driving out of the area and I stopped & grabbed the camera, laughing about sharing the photo with "my internet buddies." Young John was laughing at me. Pretty fuzzy photo - the camera does that to me out at max magnification. That's okay, I didn't want to get too close to the panthers... Dangerous!

nshunter · Feb 9, 2013

Nice looking country! We were having a fairly snow free winter, but that all changed today! 40cm down and still snowing! This pretty much kills getting into the woods without a ski-doo!