the kill light is the way to go imo, but I would say the reason you've missed your coon with your shotgun is because you were using 3.5 dead coyote rounds at i'm sure a pretty close yardarge. When i'm out to shoot a coon, I just use a 22LR, or a shotgun loaded with something like number 5 lead in a 2 3/4 or 3 inch turkey load, those 4buck will tear a coon apart at close range. But i've killed a few coon from the top of a tree with the 22LR and it dropped like a ton of bricks.