Dave's IL visit

[Melvin Eades]

On Feb. 7th, Thursday, our friend Dave from Neb. drove 9+ hours to come to IL. to do some coyote hunting with Lucas and I. The next morning we went to a place where a farmers cow had gotten out on him and I found her dead near some hay bales a few weeks before. Lucas had to work so Dave and I headed out there before daylight to see if we could sneak up on ol' wily coyote coming to breakfast. We had a lot of rain earlier in the week and the creek was up, first time since last spring. We couldn't tell how deep the water was in the darkness so we set up on the creek bank where we could see the cow.

When it got light enough to see good, I used a hand held howler and gave some howls. In just a few minutes two coyotes came out of the brush and walked around in front of the cow and stood side by side looking our way.

The cow is the black spot in front of the bales.



Dave lined up on the right one with his 22-250 and dropped it right there. It was a nice 222 yard shot. The other one ran off to the left and apparently there was a third one we didn't see because another one up on the hill behind the brush started giving challenge howls. I started giving challenge howls back and it would answer me but wouldn't come in. This went on for a few minutes. We decided to just sit quite and see if it would come back in. It did show it's self at about 350 yards but we didn't get it. We found a place where we could wade across the creek and went and checked out Dave's coyote.

Here's Dave and his coyote.



We hunted the rest of the weekend and only saw 3 other coyotes but they were about 700 yards out and weren't interested in our calling. All in all it was still a good weekend since we got to do a lot of visiting and we made our plans for our Spring time turkey hunt and prairie dog shoot in Neb. with Dave.

[DarkNight]

Good story and pictures Melvin. It looks like you have some nice mixed timber/farmland over to the west there! I took a buddy out tonight and tried calling a farmer's place where he had coyotes chewing on one of his dead cows. The fields were flatter than a pancake and we had one group howling waaaaay off to the north at sunset. They sounded like they were on the edge of a small town called Homer. No takers, just cold, flat, icy ground.

I am curious though, are you having greater response to the howls now or is the rabbit distress working equally well for you?

Happy shooting,
DarkNight

[Melvin Eades]

DarkNight,
It's a mix. It depends on where I go and how much time I want to spend at one place. Most of my hunting is done by myself so I let the area and wind conditions decide when I get there. If I have a big open area where I can catch one sneaking in across a field from a brushy draw I may do howling only and plan on being on stand for maybe an hour. This time of year I have a tendency to use female howls but a friend of mind about 25 miles south of here has been using distress with good results. Some big areas where I can come in from two directions I may use distress only at a low volume and then go around to the other side and do the same thing.

I'm planning on trying a new area this weekend and with all this freezing rain/sleet/snow coming in today and tomorrow I hope it makes them hungry by Sat.

[iKonic Status]

Hi Melvin , great story and excellent pics

I was admiring the land you shoot on in IL, it looks very, very similar to the land around my neck of the woods in the UK, it's called Somerset.

Enjoy you next trip and I hope you get the 'two that got away'

Konrad

[Melvin Eades]

iKonic Status,
I'd love to see some of your country over there too. Post some pictures for us if you would.

ME

[iKonic Status]

iKonic Status,
I'd love to see some of your country over there too. Post some pictures for us if you would.

ME

Melvin,
sure thing mate.....only thing is I don't have a license to shoot deer or vermin yet, i'm strictly a target shooter (the UK and it's draconian laws) so getting pics is kinda difficult for me, however I might be joining my cousin for some Stalking duty soon. I'll try and get some pictures for you then!!

Peace

iKonic