Too Tight of a Choke?

I had the chance to take out one of my Coyote Clinic students, a great guy named Eric, for a morning hunt. The first few stands didn't put anything in front of us, but once we made our way into a canyon, the action got hot.

On the first stand a fox came in so fast that he was literally knocking rocks down the hillside as he ran - it was less than 40 seconds from the time I started the call to the time that Eric had that fox on the ground. It was about a 20 yard shot, and you could clearly see the pellet pattern impact marks on the fox. "Screamin' Gray" from the FoxPro is still one of my favorite fox calls, and it continued to prove itself as less than 2 minutes later another fox came charging in. This one got two close calls with some 3" #4 buck at about 20 feet, but got away seemingly unscathed. We did find some blood, but after about 30 minutes tracking and searching, the little blood that was left behind led us to nothing. Regretfully, we moved on, but Eric was excited to have bagged at least one of the foxes.



On the next stand, we had another hard charging fox come in, and Eric shot him at about 40 yards, though a second shot was required to put him down for good. I asked Eric what kind of choke he had, and when he replied "Dead Coyote" it got me thinking - perhaps it would be best to carry additional chokes in your pack or pocket, so that when you find yourself in such tight quarters you could maximize the benefit of the shotgun and put in a Modified or Improved Cylinder choke.

The next stand produced another rapidly approaching fox, and this one came in close - within about 25 feet - before it stopped to even take a look. Again, Eric thought he was right on when he fired, but again a fox escaped the stand to retreat back into the rock cliffs. Eric couldn't quite figure out what had happened, as he thought he was right on, but the issue was clear to me: too tight of choke.

Often I meet predator hunters who want to "reach out" with their shotguns, and this is certainly possible. I have personally witnessed DRT shots on coyotes past 70 yards, and have heard of farther shots, especially with 10 gauge shotgun - some of those even stretch past 100 yards. And with my own 26" Remington 870 with a Xtra Full choke and 3" #4 buck, I can drop animals at 60 yards with ease. But often we are so excited to get our shotguns to shoot farther that we overlook their main benefit - multiple hits at closer ranges with a large pattern.

When I first started predator hunting I used my rifle exclusively, and rarely found a time when I wished I had something else. Then I started hunting thick brush, and turned to my shotgun due to its ability to spread some shot in a large pattern at closer ranges. But as time went on I desired that pattern to be tighter at longer ranges, due to my inability to seal the deal on animals further out. So I turned my shotgun into a rifle - and that can be a problem at certain ranges. With such a tight pattern, Eric, with a setup similar to mine, was basically shooting a fist-sized mass of pellets at a small moving target, where a dinner plate sized pattern would have been much more effective.

What I learned from this is that predator hunters would be well-served to keep additional chokes in their packs or pockets when shotgun hunting, and be ready and willing to change those chokes out depending on the distances encountered on each stand. It only take a few seconds to change a choke, and could mean the difference between fur down and fur running away.

All in all, is was still a good day, and Eric was quite happy with his two foxes:



Another thing to note is that both of these foxes had pink around their paws and mouths, and their scat was also bright pink, indicating that they had been into the cactus fruit so readily available in the area. When you see this kind of thing in your predators (checking scat is often overlooked as an easy method to pinpoint predator location) then you know that they are predators who are eating fruit, meaning that they are most likely ready for a meal of meat, or at least a supposed meal of meat followed by a meal of lead. ;-)