jazzman111
New member
A friend told me a story at a Christmas party last night that happened to him earlier in the day. He'd gone to a very large state park to hunt deer with his muzzle loader. He'd hunkered down into a low spot next to a tree and was using a hand-held deer caller. Suddenly, he said, a pair of coyotes--one very big and one smaller, came out of nowhere over a rise about 60-70 feet from him. They were moving fast and in "S" shaped maneuvers, obviously looking intently for the doe they thought they had heard. My friend is convinced they were expecting to be able to run down the deer because there was about a foot or more of snow on the ground with a thick coat of ice. In those conditions, the deer break through the ice but the coyotes don't, giving the latter the opportunity to run down deer. He said, seeing especially the big coyote coming for him at eye-level was a pretty scary experience. He swung on it and fired, but the combination of his double-position set trigger, shooting at a moving targe, and just plain excitement caused him to miss. The big coyote immediately took off at top speed. The smaller (probably younger) coyote, however, kept coming with his nose in the air, looking right at him but trying to identify what he was by picking up my friends scent. The air was still too thick with the smoke from his muzzle loader blast, which probably masked it pretty thoroughly. My friend immediately proceeded to reload his rifle, but by the time he did, the second coyote had taken off, too. He said he'd gone to that same park several times and tried to call in coyotes, but with no luck.