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Author
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Topic: Shooting Gallery
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Cdog911
"There are some ideas so absurd only an intellectual could believe them."--George Orwell.
Member # 7
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posted September 09, 2012 10:43 AM
I have recently, here and in articles, often mentioned a place we lovingly call the "Shooting Gallery", a 10-acre site bordering a large feedlot operation where we seem to enjoy what amounts to an endless supply of coyotes. Problem is that the layout of the site favors the coyotes in being able to see our approach from almost every angle. We've been out working a few concern areas where producers are wanting the coyote numbers reduced and each of the past two Sundays, we've done a drive through at the gallery to census the coyote numbers for the year.
First, we drive by the feedlot. The owner doesn't allow any shooting in or onto his property for fear we might spook the cattle. Before he invoked that rule, his son had told us to kill 'em all and it was common for us to find one sunning itself on the round bales. In fact, one day, we popped one on the bales and, while going to retrieve it, the owner told us no shooting and I had a coyote standing within ten feet of me while I opened a gate from the alleys to the paddock containing the bales and I couldn't shoot. he watched me open the gate, followed me as I swung it open, and when Kevin started forward to pull his truck through, he just trotted off like it was no big deal. I don't know that we've ever gone there and NOT seen a coyote, but I recall a couple instance where we've seen and called as many as 11 in one visit, all within minutes, and it isn't unusual to be able to see 4-7 coyotes moving around before you at a time.
Anyway, we started our way around and as soon as we got in sight of the round bales, I spotted a pair playing grab ass. I tried to get them both in the same frame but only got the one. Number two was too far to the left. After the pics were on the computer, I found what amounted to number three at the time, lying on the ground to the right of the right hand-most bale if you look closely.
After I'd gotten about a half-dozen pics, that one stood and trotted across in front of us while the one that had been standing there just kept standing there. Picture is crappy as the auto focus kept reading the fence in front of me, but you can still see both fuzzy coyotes.
We drove around the section and came in on the two-track access road that borders the top end of the 10-acre patch and caught one coyote trying to sneak out. When we got to the corner of the Gallery, we had one sneaking across a quarter-mile to the south of us across and open field, and about 300 yards further west, we spotted this one giving us the stink eye from one of the several drainages where they loaf during the day.
While I was taking pictures of this coyote, another one crossed the two track about twenty feet in front of my pickup not at all concerned that we were sitting there. Our policy right now is that we only shoot the mangy ones and let the good ones go by until fur season. All told, we saw 11 coyotes this morning, six at the gallery and three different singles out and about, and a pair that initially responded to my howls but disappeared and were never seen again where we were working the complaint. While there, I worked a coon in from several hundred yards to about 75 yards, and had 20-some deer, all whitetail does and fawns, coming in to check the call. Beautiful morning here with lows near 50. Felt good.
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I am only one. But still, I am one. I cannot do everything, but still, I can do something; and, because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.
Posts: 5438 | From: The gun-lovin', gun-friendly wild, wild west | Registered: Jan 2003
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Leonard
HMFIC
Member # 2
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posted September 09, 2012 03:12 PM
Keep it up and soon you will be known as "McNeal/East". Which is often called "coyote paradise" and, with good reason.
Good hunting. LB
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EL BEE Knows It All and Done It All.
Don't piss me off!
Posts: 31462 | From: Upland, CA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Cdog911
"There are some ideas so absurd only an intellectual could believe them."--George Orwell.
Member # 7
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posted September 09, 2012 04:50 PM
Anecdotally, I'd bet we have more coyotes than most ppl would believe, Leonard. The lay of the land just makes it a bit more difficult to see and call them, and later on, as other seasons open and they begin to feel pressured, the calling will get tougher. Last year, we had called this one series of rangeland that just wasn't producing like we thought it should. Ran into a buddy of mine just prearing to leave his truck/ trailer on his ATV to check his snareline and he told me that he'd already, at that time, taken 47 coyotes off that one section of ground alone with his best day being 12. All told, two months into the furs season, he already had 170+ hides from that area.
The Gallery will easily produce 15-20 coyotes a year for us with constant recruitment from the surrounding area. Our objective right now is locking down more ground within a six mile radius because I know that coyotes in an area that size are exploiting the buried cattle at that lot nightly and we could hammer them coming and going. Another big cattle op about 8 miles south of the Gallery is reporting too many coyotes, too.
Is there such a thing as too many coyotes? That just sounds like crazy talk to me.
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I am only one. But still, I am one. I cannot do everything, but still, I can do something; and, because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.
Posts: 5438 | From: The gun-lovin', gun-friendly wild, wild west | Registered: Jan 2003
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