Blackpowder Coyotes

[meathead]

I live and hunt in Central Montana. The General Hunting Season(aka:Great Plains ATV Rally)is over.Things are settling down nicely now and I cleaned the heavy Plains rifle and it's up in the rack. But I have the itch to scratch yet. I love hunting with a traditional muzzleloader, I can't put it any other way! It's good for my soul and helps me enjoy life!
I am going to take my Spagetti Hatfield(Pedersoli/Cabelas Blueridge)rifle in .45 and pursue the wiley ole Coyote!I am going to leave the electronic call at home and take a Howler and a reed distress call and go forth.(Taking an electronic caller while hunting with a traditional muzzleloader is about as lame as carrying a lazer rangefinder!!!)
Any other fellow muzzleloading hunters pursue the trickster Coyote?If so, do you have any stories to tell to help prime my pump? Good Lord I can hardly wait for the weekend!!***Meathead

 

[bucktales]

Count me in as a Coyote junkie.
Started hunting them during the Winter as an excuse to get out a few days.
As time passed, and when I started learning what makes them tick, their patterns, language and behavior, then I got a lot more out of it. Hunting them with a ML tops it off.
I usually start after the Holidays and hunt them till the end of March. I don't see or hear them every time,let alone get a shot off but it's fun trying to out wit them.
With Coyotes, wind ,scent, and concealment are everything.

I usually have a lanyard with my favorite open and closed reed mouth calls and locators.
I feel decoys are a must when using a call. They can be elaborate electronic gizmos or as simple as some wing feathers tied to a branch with string.

This year I'm going to try my hen turkey decoy, as it took a beating from a 3 leg coyote during this years Spring Turkey season. :shocked2:

 

[PreglerD]

Hello from Germany,

here we have no coyotes but similiar looking critters, the redfox. It is only smaller. We hunt them in ainter at baitings. Best material is dry dogfood like frolic. Install some baitings if legal and when they got used to them kill 'em.

Regards

Kirrmeister

 

[longcruise]

.(Taking an electronic caller while hunting with a traditional muzzleloader is about as lame as carrying a lazer rangefinder!!!)

I use mouth and electronic calls so I must be a heretic. :haha:

Is there any redemtion in the fact that my electronic caller is homemade?

 

[Britsmoothy]

I too shoot alot of red fox. I hunt them all year round. Stalking, calling and lamping. Relaesed pheasants by the thousands are my bait!

Very clever, a worthy opponent but sometimes quite dumb. You just never know with them.

Brit.

 

[FishDFly]

I carry a mouth blown rabbit call, cotton tail and jack rabbit combination at all times when hunting deer and hogs.

When I get ready to leave in the mornings, I will blow it a bit before leaving my blind to see what is in the area.

In the evenings, I will blow it after I settle into my blind for a bit.

During hunting, if I see a coyote that is too far to shoot, I will blow on it slightly, without fail the coyote will head in my direction. Of those coyotes that I see, when I call, I have not failed to kill the responding coyote.

Blind calling, without a seeing a coyote before calling, will result in 1 to 3 during deer season.

Calling is cheap entertainment.

The electronic call gets reserved for the center fire guns and long range entertainment as well as night hunting. I did learn when night calling, keep the speaker well away from you, owls will key in on the speaker and go for it. I had a hat knocked off during my learning experience.

RDE

 

[waturz]

It never fails, if I'm hunting with a centerfire one coyote comes in to the call. If I'm hunting with the muzzleloader, they come in two's or more!

We have been having progressively more reports of mountain lion sightings and livestock killings in my hunting areas. I've only had bobcats come in to a call, but I'd sure want to be dead-eyed if a bigger cat came in! I usually go heeled even when hunting with a muzzleloader.

 

[laufer]

i go after them too with mixed results. somtimes i got them, sometimes they got me.

 

[PGTMG]

Any other fellow muzzleloading hunters pursue the trickster Coyote?If so, do you have any stories to tell to help prime my pump?

Ok sorry this is long one.

You asked for a story but it is a partial heretic story.

I would not say I have achieved the title "coyote hunter" in the true sense of the word but I am working on it.

Up until the story below I had shot coyotes I saw first but never had called one in. Yotes of opportunity if you will.

A friend mine is a serious Coyote Hunter and he offered to show me the ins and outs. He said it would not be easy as coyotes are smart but there is no better hunting. “Once you hunt-em your hooked” he said. My buddy, when he is into something, only the best will do. He armed himself with a Bushmaster Varminter in 223 with a Leupold 3x9 illuminated mil-dot scope designed for use with a AR-15 rifle.

I had the only gun I brought with me a half stocked 40 caliber cap lock rifle with PRB in it. I had it as I was going to be using it in a woods walk the next day. He offered use of several of his but I like to hunt with rifles I have shot.

Looking at my ML in disbelief. My buddy said "If you get into this your going learn the value of a fast follow up shot." We flipped a coin and he won first shot privilege.

All morning we did not need a first shot let alone a second. We tried many stands but did not get anything to come. It went like this we would set up and my buddy would blow one of several calls that each made the-god-awful-worst-racket. After 10-15 minutes or as I like to call enough time for a nice headache to set in he would stop the noise and we would move to another place or stand. I asked if we could perhaps try a more soothing call to change our luck. My buddy said it was my fault I must have been moving (possible the nails down the blackboard noises have always have invoked twitches in me) or I wanted one too badly and coyotes can sense that.

We knocked of for lunch and I was regaled with stories about the herds of coyotes the roamed those very spots not a week ago. He started to ask me if I wanted to hear how he had first bloodied his Bushmaster? I told judging by his calling ability I assumed he must have cut himself loading it. He quickly informed me that that attitude was not productive for coyote hunter or people sitting the woods with other people with no sense of humor and a high powered rifle.

His wife called and we spent the next hour or so grocery shopping while dressed as bushes. All the while having kind people in the store asking us if we had any luck and my buddy explaining how he would have if he was alone. While showing his electronic calls remote to a fellow shopper we nearly gave a woman in the parking lot a heart attack. She had made the error of parking next to our truck when the curious shopper switched the call on. We did not return to hunting till after dinner (which he calls supper because he calls lunch, dinner). I don’t want to focus on this as coyotes it turns out can sense sarcasm. We decided to try his uncles farm that way if we had not luck we could at least visit.

We got to his uncle’s farm had a short visit and started hunting around sunset. The first stand was midway up on hill the terrain had us about 20-25 yards apart so we could view a larger area. He set up his shooting sticks and placed me by a fallen tree with some bushes me to his left slightly higher and behind him. The electronic call was closer to him. We called for maybe 2 minutes using rabbit in distress call. I did not see the coyote at first but could see my buddy’s reaction and then saw a coyote making tracks to us like he had not seen a good meal in weeks. Since we had not shot anything that day but a poor woman’s nerves I figured this one was his.

The coyote was focused on a rabbit skin on a stick that my buddy set up. I was really mesmerized by the coyote approach. At about 25-30 or so yards my buddy whistled to stop the coyote to keep from losing it behind a rise. Instantly is froze and looked directly at my buddy (they have great directional hearing).

Every thing seemed to move both slow and fast after that (if you hunted or were in an accident you know what I mean). He was in position but no shot happened. His head came off the rifle a little. I figured something was wrong (safety on or blood in the action). I swung my rifle up thumbed back the hammer to full cock it sounded so loud. The coyote swung to look at me and my buddies’ rifle boomed and it looked as if it flinched or ducked. Before the coyote turned on the after burners but my front sight found it shoulder and I pulled the trigger hard. Through the smoke it looked as if the coyote had just lain down. Two quick tail twitches and it was done.

The feeling was like the first time I had shot a deer. I was charged up. I reloaded and my buddy said we were going to keep calling because we might get another one.

We called again but nothing came. We went down to collect the coyote. He examined the coyote looking for a second gunshot wound but there was only one then shook his head in disbelief. Then he muttered something about leaving his scope one 9 power.
I wanted to say something to ease his embarrassment and encourage my friend after his mishap. So I leaned over and said. “I can see why you value a quick second shot.”

His reply cannot be written due to forum rules. :wink:
By the way he was right about one this I am hooked. :grin:
:grin:

 

[bucktales]

Cool story! :thumbsup:

 

[rabjr]

:haha: Very cool!

 

[jbg]

We have a constant problem with a local yokel shooting deer out of season and just leaving them lay. He has been known to do it in people's front yards. A couple years ago he shot one next to my house, maybe 100 ft. from it. It drew in quite a few coyotes, but the only one I was able to get a shot at I missed, and let's just say the next 2 shots were futile. Those things can run.

In Sullivan County, NY, where I live, there is an annual contest. $100 for each coyote, $200 for the heaviest that day and $1000 for the heaviest of the contest(I think it goes 2 weeks). Over 50 coyotes were brought in last year, and if memory serves the heaviest was just over 50 lbs.