Saturday a friend posted elsewhere about a fawn that was seen alive and then soon after, found dead. Evidently by predation and very close to homes with small animals. I volunteered myself to come out and hunt and was given the blessing to come back as I had previously hunted the area. With previous experience I decided to bring a 458 SOCOM suppressed pistol and 500gr subs. Homes are close and everywhere is someone's backyard. We know there are bears, sometimes a cougar. We don't know what killed the fawn.
3:30am wake for a 4:30am departure to be ready by 30 minutes before sunrise. I arrived a few minutes early and crept into the neighborhood. I posted up on a platform he made for his grandkids to zip line from. Promptly at legal shooting time I began calling with a fawn distress call for 20 minutes, no action. Another half hour goes by, no action. So I decided to creep around through woods between homes. Plenty of deer sign, berries are ripe, no bear sign, to cat tracks.
The next spot to post up puts me in a seated and elevated position over a dirt road with no vehicle traffic and the ability to see into a hillside cut. After settling in I begs another round of falling with a cottontail call for 20 minutes. No action. Another half hour goes by and it's time to move again.
This time I make my way down toward where the carcass is supposed to be. I'm walking a road and looking into the thicket looking for game trails and sign. The first game trail I find, I take, and a few feet in I smell death. There it was, a fawn carcass. Inspecting the scene I suspect the carcass had been moved, and I referenced the image from Saturday and yes, it had been moved since killed...twice. Once right at the attack and once overnight as was later pointed out to me. Also, the rear end had been eaten. I posted up a few feet away and used the fawn distress call for a few minutes.
He comes over to say good morning and check out the scene, points out the carcass had been moved and the rear had been eaten, all while holding a giant cup of coffee on an A-10 Warthog coffee mug. He pulls the game camera card and checks it but there's nothing of use on it. There were chairs near by so I sat over the carcass for three hours. While sitting there I texted Karl Blanchard and asked what kind of predator eats from another animal from the rear? He responds, "Canines". A bit after noon it was time to get up and move again.
Making my way back to the second post, I slowly crept down the road. I made sure to wear soft bottom shoes yesterday. A few minutes in I hear leaves rustling and wonder if it's just an opossum or a doe. It sounded odd, I didn't recognize a cadence to the sounds in the leaves but something was getting closer. Time to go hot! With the safety off I stood in the road sighting into where I think it's going to emerge. A coyote dashed out and stopped long enough to look at, I'm looking at him, he starts to dash off, POW! Another coyote jets across the road quicker than I can react, my bolt is locked to the rear! There's a full mag in the mag well!
The shot coyote squirms a bit while I reload and I find my casing. I'm not wasting a round 2 on it. It's dieing. I make my way over and it lets out a death moan. I was maybe 25yds away when I shot it.
There it was and for some reason, I thought about Jerry O'Connell's character Vern Tessio saying, "You guys wanna see a dead body?" I've been trying to get a coyote kill for 15 years and part of me thought, "What just happened?" It was just over that quick and with my weapon of choice that I hadn't punched anything with other than paper. Well, time to get some pics!
Afterwards I dragged her through the property and approaching the owner's porch I called out from afar, surprising them with my presence and a dead coyote. They were quite pleased with one less predator being around and I was quite happy to finally get a coyote. She won't be making any more babies. The icing on the cake being I didn't have to blow out my hearing, Bowers Dreadnought for the win!
BLACK HAMMER ARMS
07/02 NFA Dealer
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07/02 NFA Dealer
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