Can't get them all . . . . but it's always worth it.

I headed out with my son late this afternoon in hopes of catching a few coyotes before the sun went down. We pulled into some thick brush to hide the truck and then hiked up onto a ridgeline that overlooked several washes and some very thick scrub oak. As we nestled into the bush that would help to hide us, I leaned over to my son and said "We're going to call in a coyote - I can feel it." He smiled at me and then the calling began. About 10 minutes into the stand nothing had shown face, and the wind was really starting to pick up, so I switched to putting out some long and drawn out pup distress sounds. After 2-3 minutes of that yielded nothing, I was just about to call the stand off when close behind us a coyote started in with some loud and abrupt barks. I've heard this tune before - it means "you're busted." How he busted us, I don't know, but I started in with the pup distress again just to see if I could pull him in. His barking turned into short howls, which gained in frequency until suddenly they stopped. Figuring he might be on his way in, I got a solid grip on my rifle and got ready to make a quick shot . . . . but no dice. He never showed.

We walked back to the truck and headed on to the next stand. Our setup was a great view from a hillside overlooking a stand of juniper trees, but it produced nothing for us despite my best attempts at sounding like a pathetic dying rabbit, so we headed off for one more stand. The sun was now sinking below the horizon and I knew that shooting light would be fading fast. We climbed two ridgelines and setup in an open area underneath a juniper tree. I got right to work with a high-pitched cottontail, adding in some real raspy distress.

Just as I was figuring that the stand was done for, I see a pair of ears come bounding through the cactus and there he is - a nice dark-colored coyote is running right for us. He holds up at about 80 yards and I figure I better take the shot, so I line up on him quickly and shoot. He goes down in some tall grass, and I start in on some puppy distress for about a minute. Nothing else shows up, and the sunlight is now fading quickly, so we head over to collect our coyote and . . . . he's gone. No blood, no fur, nothing. I am almost positive that I connected with the shot, but there before me lies the evidence of either a poorly executed shot or a clean miss. I didn't see him get up after he went down, but clearly he did - or maybe he didn't actually go down. We looked for any sign of a hit nearby, but there was none to be found. Then my son cheerfully tells me "Well Dad, we got to hear one bark at us and we got to see one come in. That's not a bad day." I just smile, agree with him, and we head back to the truck.

As we're pulling into the driveway at our house I say to him "Thanks for going hunting with me, buddy" to which he replies "I like hunting with you, Dad." And just like that, the pain of an apparently missed shot is gone.

And since I didn't get to post a picture of a dead coyote here, I figured I'd share this picture. It's from the first stand we did today. Just before we left the stand I trotted out a few yards and took a shot of my son hidden in the brush. Can you find him?