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As a youngster, I went deer hunting with my father whenever he would allow. With the kids along, dad preferred the rolling sagebrush hills, to the rugged Wasatch Front. We had hunted all morning, and had seen but a few doe. Dad had found a good comfortable rock and had broken out the sandwiches prepared the night before. “What’s that?!” I knew it was no mule deer. “What .... where?” dad asked I pointed. “Shh” as he shouldered his old 8 mm mouser. At this point a standing shot was out of the question. The coyote was on the run. The report of the ol’ mouser echoed across the canyon. I saw the coyote roll; then heard the dull pop of hot lead penetrating the thin skinned animal. When we finally arrived at the kill sight, we found her lying in a pool of blood. Dad had placed the bullet just behind the shoulder, at what he estimated 200 yards. He had made it look easy. At the time I had no appreciation for what I had just witnessed. My next coyote encounter came much later in life. Deer populations were still struggling from the harsh winter in ‘83. Dad’s interest in hunting had declined, mostly because he felt it had become too commercialized, over crowded, and beer sales for opening weekend were second only to those of New Years Eve. My roommate, Jon, and I went to the Cache National Forest. To scout out that monster muley we wanted to hang on our wall, and fill our freezer. We had left all firearms at home, and set out with only binoculars. We had worked our way up a ridge and through a little saddle, where we found a lot of deer sign. We were standing in a grove of pine trees that was fairly free of undergrowth. I caught a flash out of the corner of my eye. I hissed at Jon to get his attention, and pointed in the general direction. We stood frozen in our tracks. Soon here he came trundling along, with his nose to the ground. The breeze was blowing from our left to right. The coyote held his course until he was directly down wind, and 20 yards away. That ol’dog stopped dead in his tracks, and his eyes met mine. The golden glint seemed to accuse me of trespassing, and he disappeared. Then and there I decided to get serious about hunting coyotes. My experiences thus far had led me to believe them an easy target. The next morning I was in the sporting goods' store. I bought a tape and a mouth call. I practiced all week. My next day off finally came. I checked my inventory to insure I had at least 100 rounds of ammunition, and began my quest to kill my first coyote. I called and called, squeaked and squalled. I must have been playing rock-n-roll to country dogs. Not one coyote responded. I was persistent, inviting different friends along. Hell, one buddy started laughing right in the middle of one of my best stanzas. However, he had no clue to the procedure that would attain our ultimate goal either. Soon after, I concluded all those calls on the shelves were just a scam to get my hard earned money, and I had fallen for it several times. I had shot at a few coyotes from the pick up while driving from stand to stand but had yet to draw blood. I continued to hunt coyotes from the truck for the next three years. I burned lots of gas and gun powder, and yielded few coyotes. I had begun to look back, in awe, at the shot Dad made so many years ago. I moved to Southern Utah in November of ‘94. I found some prime ‘yote country but my developed way of hunting had quickly become, going for a ride and taking a rifle along to insure we didn’t see a coyote. I began asking around work. I discovered Dave was a coyote hunter. Dave has been selling auto parts at the same dealership since the day I was born, and calling coyotes even longer. He gave me a few pointers, I dusted off the calls and I went out to some public land that looked like pretty good ‘yote country. I did everything he told me, I thought. Again and again disappointment came my way. Dave has a busy schedule and can’t brake away and hunt coyotes nearly as often as he would like (can any of us). Finally, the invitation came. I learned allot that day. Although no coyotes came in, I learned about stand selection, parking, camo, and expected paths of approach. Best of all, Dave had restored my faith in my calls. I wouldn’t think Dave wouldn’t have taken me on a “snipe hunt". That was the only time Dave and I hunted together that year. I continued calling on my own to no avail. I didn’t kill a single dog that year. That summer Dave hired a new part's guy by the name of Tom. Tom’s passion for coyote hunting exceeded my own. I got to know Tom pretty well that summer. Finally we decided to open the season that coming weekend. The big day finally came. I met Tom at his house at six, and we were off. Tom was laying out the ground rules and telling stories of years gone by. He pointed out a grass flat and said, “Dogs like to run through here after the snow flies.” “Like that one right there!” I almost shouted. The brakes on Tom’s old pick up locked up, and I was out the door and had a dead rest before he could get the engine shut down. My 22-250 belched flame in the dim morning light. I saw the dog’s bushy tail swirl and heard the familiar pop etched in my memory from dads shot so long ago. “Holly #!@^ ! That had to have been 400 yards!” Tom exclaimed shaking his head. We stepped it off it was only 320. I hadn’t made a shot like that before or since. It was just like every other coyote I had ever killed, pure dumb luck. I had now demonstrated my style of hunting, and Tom had witnessed 25% of my confirmed kills. We loaded her in the back of the truck and continued our quest. The old Chevy rolled to a stop in a little swell in the road, and out into the brush patch we went. We repeated this procedure twice more with the same amount of success I had become accustomed to. We finally hit pay dirt on the fourth stand of the day. We had been sitting for about ten minutes Tom had just finished a stanza (I was watching a crow; Tom had said they sometimes dive at incoming dogs.) “#@!%&*$ Ward!” was all I heard. I spun around to see Tom aiming at a coyote that appeared to be 5 yards from his position, at least from my angle. After the dog lay in a pile I sprinted over, Tom was shaking, and the coyote lay dead fifteen yards away. Like an addicts' first hit, I was hooked. Tom’s family responsibilities only allowed him to hunt one day out of a weekend. That gave me a day to go and apply what I had learned the week before. I was careful not to intrude on Tom’s hot spots. I only hunted areas I had found on my own when Tom wasn’t along. Tom was off hunting deer, I decided I could go to an area that I hadn’t ever seen a deer, or sign of one for that matter. In route I spotted two dogs on the run about 200 yards out. I resisted the temptation to lob a few rounds at them and kept driving. I managed to get down wind of the coyotes, I hid the truck and walked up the wash and perched in some brush near the top of the ravine. After letting things settle a little I began screaming and squalling. My eyes trained in the direction I had last seen the dogs. I called again, and again. I almost jumped out of my skin, there he was, working across the wash, he went behind a bush, I raised my rifle, and never saw him again. Filled with mixed emotions, I made my way to my pick up. I could only speculate what had gone wrong, and it could have been anything. After getting over my disappointment, I concluded, it didn’t matter. Finally! After all this time a coyote verified I was playing the right tune. Yet he still proved not to be the easy target I had first thought him to be. ~ B.J.W
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