First Attempt for coyotes.

Tonight I made my first attempt at calling in a coyote. I went to an area where I bow hunt deer and have observed coyotes on several occasions. The setup is shown below.


The blue arrow indicates wind, my hide is at the orange dot (lower left, looking into the wind. There is an old weed covered mound at that spot, left from a bulldozer clearing the land many years ago. I simply slid in under some weeds, set up the bipod, checked for weeds that might obstruct a shot, and glassed a few minutes before calling. I do the same thing when moving into a deer stand. I climb up and look around for a bit before getting all the gear settled. This gives me a chance to see game I may have missed when walking in, before I scare it off moving around and making noise with the gear.

I used an H.S. Strut Double D diaphragm call. I have been listening to sound samples from Varmint Al's site and practicing. I do this on my way to and from work so I don't drive the wife crazy.

After about an hour and a half, with darkness coming on, I packed up and came home, unsuccessful.

I didn't have high hopes for the first hunt, so I was not disappointed. I haven't spent much time outside since wrapping up the deer seasons and enjoyed the cool spring evening.

So what went right or wrong.

Wrong (sort of)--It was a last minute decision to hunt, so I could have scouted an area for recent activity. The ground is soaked now, tracks would be easy to find. Do more scouting to better chances of success. A ground cover, maybe a camping pad or something like that would be nice to lay on.

Right--The camo seemed to blend good, so I am happy with the new paint job(See Illinois Hunter: The Coyote Rifle). The bipod seemed at a good height. I felt the call sounded good, for a new guy.