I haven't been out much for predators this year, I spent a lot of time getting my deer rifle set up to shoot longer range. So my free time has mostly been spent shooting that rifle. After elk season I haven't had much time to go out, but today my partner and I headed out for a half day of calling. We had a new spot in mind that we thought would be good and it payed off.
We were on stand when the sun came up and about ten minutes in this female came screaming in from my side. Man she was screaming, I had my rifle and Casey had his shotgun so I was gonna let her fly by me and let the shotgun do the dirty work. She got to about ten yards from me, hard charging the foxpro/decoy but then she hit the brakes. I assumed she must have seen Casey raise up and that he was on her, but he didn't shoot and she lit out the way she came. So I dropped her on the way out, at maybe thirty yards. Turns out he saw her as she was hitting the brakes and thought I was gonna get her. I did:
At the end of stand 1, Casey saw either a small coyote or more likely fox take off as he stood up. It got away. On the way to stand two we saw one cross the road, so we made stand 2 right there.
Stands 2-4 were dry. Stand 5 Casey saw one pop in and leave at about 15 minutes, no shots fired.
Stand 6 we were in more open country so we both had rifles, Casey had only killed one coyote with his AR (specifically for predators) so it really needed some action. At maybe 3-4 minutes I heard him shoot, the again, then again, then again... he hit it every time but it wouldn't stay down. He hit it low the first time, but had several nasty wounds. We are both surprised he needed 4 shots. Here's coyote #2 with the AR:
Stand 7 was to be our last, and we made it count. Again, at 3-4 minutes I here Casey shoot...then again, and again. Again, first shot was low and he needed more. He was shooting 40gr v-max from the .223, he's thinking about some heavier bullets. They did make a pretty good mess, but both dogs needed extra shots. Regardless, we got them. Casey's first dog was a young male but this fella was a little bigger:
So in all we made 7 stands, saw 5 dogs, killed 3. This was our first 3-dog day together. We've only been at it a couple years but we're improving!