# A great snowy afternoon with a friend.



## alleyyooper (Mar 9, 2018)

Met Dean Wednesday at a pizza grinder joint for lunch (since it was not at home where it is dinner.) before we started out to hunt afternoon and evening coyotes. I had not made Sundays group brunch gathering because I went shooting sporting clays with my BIL Chuck. I/we do not know how much longer he is going to be able to do any thing due to heart problems.

Dean with drew both his name and my name from the partner draw since we have not been able to get out together in the last two weeks. I don’t mind as I enjoy the groups members but Dean has a humorous wit so is always upbeat, well 99% of the time.

He filled me in on some of the talk at the meeting. Mike is sleeping in Johns sugar shack since sap is starting to boil now. John says he does a great job keeping the fire going and storing the sap. He has stopped using the walker, relieing on his cane all the time now. Still drives Johns auto trans truck to his therapy sessions 5 days a week for an hour and a half.
Dean said Mike has asked him to look for places to buy. Some acreage smaller home 2000 sq. ft. Or less.


We finished our grinders and got my gear loaded in Deans truck and headed out for our first farm. It had started snowing hard, already 4.5 inches of fresh as of 8:00 AM the radio weather guy said. We park put on our heavy clothes and head out for a stone pile above a big slough with high grass and some brush. We set out both decoys, clipped turkey feathers to the tails so they would look bigger in the falling snow.
We also decided to run both calls, mine with the cats and Deans with a Piglet in distress.
At the 12 minute mark I see a coyote working just inside the edge at 182 yards. It is snowing real hard so it is hard to see clear in the scope so I wait. It slowly makes it way in the direction of the decoys. At about 90 yards it stops and I think it is about to spook so I fire. It goes about 15 yards and lays there.


We wait for 45 minuses waiting to see if any more show up. None do so we go about gathering our gear and go to my coyote. A young medium size male with decent fur, wrap in in the plastic and head for the truck.

Next place we hit is along the river with a wood lot buffer. We set up in a fence line on a hill over looking the river. We have shot coyotes running on the ice before as a high way.
Once again the double decoys and callers same sounds. Isn’t long and I see Dean making pointy motions to my right. Two coyotes are sneaking thru the timber, Dean signs I should take the leader and he the trailer. I shift slowly so I can get set up comfortable, watch Deans finger for that fire sign. Both coyotes drop, yet we wait till 45 minuses to make sure there are no others. Only 6 deer work their way thru the trees.

Gather gear, go down to the coyotes two females one is older with well worn teeth, the other younger by a good bit.
Fur is still good on these too so wrap them in plastic and off to the truck. There is about an inch and a half of snow on the hood it is still coming down hard.

We decide the next place is going to be a sheep farm with high voltage lines running thru a wood lot that was timbered off a couple 3 years ago so is really brushy.
Wait 30 minutes and nothing showed.

Get to the next place and the farmer is going out top get started with evening chores. They hire milk maids who milk 3 times in a 24 hour period. But the farmer a nice guy checks on them and feeds the calves and bull that are kept in the barn till much nicer weather.

We head out this time to a brushy stony fence line over looking a couple swampy areas full of brush and tall grass. After 30 minuses nothing showed so we pack up and get ready to leave. One of the bindings on my skis breaks. Rummage thru my pack for some twine with no luck nor does Dean find any. Well it could have been worse I could have a coyote to drag out. I was happy we had our tracks coming in and Dean making tracks out in that wet snow.

We decided to call it quits even though there was about an hour of light left.


 Al


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