Kind of an odd coincidence after the class last week but.......I saw my first local coyote last night.
This isn't a "oh, that might have been" or "maybe that's a......" This is the first time I've 100% I.D.'d a coyote locally.
I rarely use bunny sounds for fox locally, I have much better luck with rodent and bird distress. Season is almost over and I've taken four reds off this property so, I decided to try something different and used some rabbit distress.........no hits. Hunting where I do, I'd never seen a coyote before so, I don't use coyote vocalization.
There's a barn behind where I was sitting, as I was walking out, around the end of the barn to the gate, I picked up eyes in the field across the street by the turnpike (behind where I was sitting). Thought it might have been a big fox at first....the eyes were too low and close together to be a deer and not moving like a deer does. He was about 100 yards away but in a spot I couldn't shoot.
I turned the scope up to and eased the light down on him with the Carnivore Mag on high (really bright) and lip squeaked (still thinking he was a fox) hoping to pull him across the street and out of the Safety Zone.......because of the glare off his eyes I couldn't make out the body at first but you can tell Reds by the way they bounce in......then he turned and walked to the left and I clearly saw that it was a coyote. I was shocked. He walked about 10 feet then turn and walked back into the woods. I could see him very clearly.....100% it was a coyote.
Don't know if he was a local or a transient........I've called in lots of fox on that property......never a hint of a coyote so, I'm thinking he might have just been passing though. I tried a couple of female howls and pup distress but, he wasn't having any of it at that point.
30 years of hunting this area, this is the first coyote I've ever seen so....never say never I guess.
