And Yet another good Coyote 21 May 15

I found it was to windy to groundhog hunt so I came home and went to add bait to my coyote bait pile. It was 1630 and still pretty windy. I used rubber gloves and scent lock shoes and while there I took a stick and knocked down a bunch of weeds which I know were triggering the game camera on the bait pile. Retrieved the SD card and wired the bait to the tree and left.

Got home and my son had called, wanted to know my plans for the week end. I had planned to let the bait sit over Thursday night since I had "disturbed" so much around the bait site and planned to hunt Friday night. He told me he was thinking of coming up for the week end and maybe we could go fishing Sat and Sun. Not my idea of the best days of the week to go fishing, especially on a Holiday weekend but any time I can spend time with my kids I'm going to do what it takes to do so.

I know the yotes will have eaten the entire contents of the destroyed/bloodshot deer shoulder before Monday so I decided since he is coming up later today I would go coyote hunting last night despite just having put out the bait.

I got ready to go and seriously debated whether to take my Remington .223 with the nice Timney trigger or to take the new Sig with the new Thermal NV and that lousy trigger on the Sig. Can't have a new toy without playing with it and one never wants to have a new gun without "bloodying" it so I opted for the Sig. The wind was still kicking tail but I headed out even though I thought I probably was going to get rained on even before I got to my condo. Made it and in fact it didn't rain any all night but the wind sure roared. One time it him my condo and rattled my "cage" pretty darn hard. First time I have ever been in the condo when the wind hit that hard.

At 2123 a possum showed up and I put the NV on it just to check it out. Really nice. The bait I had put out was a blood shot shoulder a friend had given me and I had kept it in one of my Dad's freezers. It was frozen solid. What a contrast between the frozen shoulder and the surrounding items and even more so in comparison with the possum. That little fellow stayed around for close to two hours. I found out that just because he runs off it doesn't mean something meaner is coming in. He left a couple of times only to return again. One time he only stayed for less than two minutes and took off running up the mountainside. Again nothing showed up.

Bumped my head a time or two against the binoculars, I was still tired from catching all those fish on Wednesday. Well that's my story anyway. At 0210 somehow I managed to stay awake enough to see eyes coming around the mountain side from the direction coyotes most often come from. Weeds have pretty much grown up by now but I could see eyes while it was still well back in the tall weeds and I was 99.44% sure it was coyote eyes even thru the weeds. I got on the rifle, turned on the Thermal NV and got on the eyes just as it emerged from the weeds into the logging road and shooting lane. No doubt about it that is a coyote and headed right towards the bait pile. It appeared that it might be favoring a front leg or shoulder, it's gait was somehow not like the normal gait of a coyote. It also appeared to be much like a really tired coyote. It also lacked the typical cautious approach to the bait pile. Although at the time I did not know where that possum was at I later discovered that it was still underneath the bone pile.

When the coyote got to about 65 yards from me, about 15 yards from the bait pile it stopped and just stood there staring at the bait pile but also facing directly at my condo. I eased off the safety, took up that mile and a half of slack in the lousy Sig trigger and with Divine intervention I was able to pull hard enough to get the trigger sear to break and the weapon discharge. Love that Thermal, it did not blink when the rifle discharged and I saw the bullet knock the coyote completely backwards on it's back with all four legs sticking straight up in the air. I knew it wasn't going anywhere but kept the scope on it just in case. Nothing moved and nothing else showed up.

Got back on the binocs in time to see the possum poke its head out of the bone pile to see what all that noise was about. Four minutes later I saw the red light come on indicating that the batteries in my binocs were dying so I changed them out.

Some time later I saw movement heading towards the bait pile, going away from me. I was sure it was a coon and when it got on top of the bait pile and turned so I could see it's eyes I confirmed that it was a coon. Put the Thermal NV on it just to see how it showed up. Perfect. It stayed for about 10 minutes then scurried off up the mountain at a good clip. I felt sure something was about to happen but again found that just because an animal runs off the bait pile doesn't mean something meaner is approaching. At least I didn't see it anywhere. At 0336 the coon came back and climbed on top of the bait pile. At 0338 it jumped off the bait pile and scurried up the tree I have the bait anchored to. I'm sure something is going to happen this time. Again nothing happened and at 0351 I saw the coon come back down the tree, jump off the side and run off up the mountain side. I still expected something to show up but nothing happened.

Not long afterwards the little possum came back. Kinda ironic, both the coon and the possum went to the fresh bait I had put out but neither tried to eat from that fresh meat. I know it had to have thawed on the outer surface because it had been out of the freezer now for about 12 hours. Since I had disturbed so much territory knocking down weeds I didn't give the coyote a chance to get that close to the bait pile just in case there might have been some human scent that it didn't like.

After daylight I got down and went to the coyote. It was I believe by far the biggest female I have shot to date and there was no sign of her having pups.

Due to Photobucket I can't add photos so I'll try to add them another way later.

Good deal Larry.

I surmise you are going to change the trigger out?

nice story Larry,,,,,,nice,,,,,

Sounds like that trigger has got to go but I take it that you are pleased with the Thermal NV set up. You have quite the collection of NV toys!

Glad you were successful with the Yote hunt..

Another good one Larry, story and coyote that is. Keep em coming.

NCCatfisher: You have the right assumption howsomeever, I can't find anyone that makes an improved drop in trigger for the Sig rifle I have. I have searched high and low but haven't found anyone. I was provided some info by 1SHOT about a trigger that is smoother and breaks clean but according to the info it DOES NOT shorten the trigger pull length nor does it lighten the trigger at the end of the travel cycle. He did however provide some suggestions.

I talked to Timney where I have bought the drop in trigger for my Remington .223 (I love that one) and their rep stated they plan to release a half dozen or so new drop in triggers this year and that my vote for a trigger for the Sig would be cast. They couldn't promise me anything positive though. I still say this is the worst trigger I have ever experienced and I've pulled a "few" triggers in my life time. LOL.

If anyone knows of any company that provides a drop in trigger (even one that requires some professional fireamrs expertise) for goodness sake please let me know. I already like the rifle and I LOVE the Thermal NV.

I finally got around to reviewing the video clips from the SD cards I had pulled Thursday evening. I had about 15 videos of the darker colored coyote that is blind in the left eye. After reviewing all the clips I'm convinced that it is a she and that she has a litter of pups somewhere. You can plainly see her teats are swollen and visible in the video clips. I've never been able to see this in but one other video clips and I killed that coyote just a few minutes after the game camera had taken that video. The next morning after daylight I was able to confirm that she did have milk so I'm sure she had pups somewhere.

My son showed up late Friday evening so we rode the 4 wheeler over to get the coyote and take it to the dump hole. Something had been eating on the venison shoulder that I had put out Thursday night, almost half of it was gone. Probably buzzards.

Incidentally my son and I went to Kerr Scott fishing Saturday. It was 38 degrees when we left home and there was quite a bit of frost. We didn't do great at fishing, I caught 12 and he caught 10 but none of them came very close to breaking the lake record. LOL. They were still doing a lot of "flipping" at the bait rather than actually attacking as if to eat. I caught one that was at most 4 inches long. As I got it to the boat it spit out a small fish, didn't get a close enough look at it to tell what kind it was but it was a good inch long. The lure I was using was 2 1/2 inches long not including the trailing treble hooks. I asked the little fellow WTH he thought he was going to do with that lure. It never did answer so I dropped it back in the water as I told it to learn from the experience. My son just cackled, he couldn't believe that bass had eaten that big a minnow and was still trying to eat a lure bigger around that it was and darn near as long. LOL.

We were going to go boat fishing down the New River today but it was just to windy to even think about it so we opted to take our dogs for a hike. We wound up walking to the top of the Elk Knob State Park mountain AGAIN. Lost count of how many times I have climbed that mountain now. You would think I'd learn but then again if you have ever been to the top and seen the view you would understand why I keep going back even if it is close to 4,000 feet above sea level and probably close to a thousand feet from the base to the top. I keep thinking every time I get up there, Hey man there ain't nothing between here and the North Pole. LOL.

Yeah, those AR triggers even the good ones aren't what you and I are used to. The one on my Rock River was a very good trigger as far as AR triggers go but I was still very unhappy with it. Luckily a friend of mine is an expert on them. It didn't take him long at all to make it even where I was happy with it.