# I can't believe it!



## weasle414 (Dec 31, 2006)

This one's a long one... Been typing for almost an hour now, lol.

Right now it is 3:00 in the morning on Monday January the 19th. I just got home from one of the most memorable nights I have had in my 18 years of being alive. It all started off as a typical, calm January night as Steven Daubt and I headed into the field for another late-night coyote hunt. I had high hopes for the night, but not very high expectations as we sat down for our first of two sets. The visibility was terrible and there wasn't a sound to be heard but the distant humming of cars on highway 12 a few miles south of us.

As I expected, the first set didn't produce much besides the howls of two middle-aged males and one old female coyote about 3 miles from us. I had a good general idea of where they could've been howling from but really had no specific area of where they'd be.

After about 20 minutes of nothingness we packed up the guns and decided to move to another area closer to where the howling came from. My first thought was they must be about a half mile west of our next set and I didn't know if they wanted to travel that far to get to us. Boy was I ever wrong!

I had hunted this Wildlife Management Area a couple times in the past with good results and was hoping for something to show up there as it would be the last set before we headed off to bed. Ha ha, that was at about 1:15 when we got there and we figured on being asleep by 2; now I'm up typing this because I can't get to bed after what would happen next.

We decided to go into this WMA on the South East side and call to where I thought the coyotes would be. It was a great spot, don't get me wrong, but we came in at the wrong time! We had to walk through a couple hundred yards of chest tall grass and reeds to get to the spot we wanted to sit, but we only made it 100 yards from the truck at best. As we walked down this trail we heard something thump in the snow about 50 yards in front of us and both instinctively dropped on the spot. We sat there for less than a minute in suspense, trying to figure out what it was that crunched the snow ahead of us. After that intense minute of waiting we heard it again, except this time it was 30 degrees to our right.

"Now that just doesn't make sense," I thought. "How does an animal travel that far in this crunchy snow and thick brush without us knowing?"

Next thing we know, it happens again back in the original spot! We came to the conclusion that whatever it was, there was two of them! Wrong! We heard it again, except this time it was directly to our right! I told Steve to blow a little rabbit in distress to get them curious and come to us so he let out a couple pretty good screams on his call.

As I scanned to see what could've been making the sounds, I saw something... THREE somethings! I didn't see three somethings in the places that we heard the noises from, though. I saw threee distinct blurs 100 yards or so 45 degrees behind us to the right trotting along the treeline behind us. Before I could even react there was another something 60 yards to my left! I knew just what it was, but I had no way of proving it to myself or to Steve though. Since there was no moon at this point, I couldn't see that well and we both got me thinking my eyes had been playing tricks on us, but this blob was moving, I know it was.

Not even 10 seconds after I take my focus off this blob, a coyote pops up 30 yards, 40 degrees to our left. Since we could only see a little bit of it because of all the brush, we had to confirm our thoughts.

"One, two, THREE!"

We both stand up as fast as we can, guns pointed at this dark blur in the brush and it disapears! We looked around, all the other blobs we thought "could be" coyotes had vanished as though they had never been there. It was the most intense, saddening, and exciting feeling all in one to think of what had just happened. At that point we where convinced they where all coyotes but couldn't prove they where.

We had decided at that point, we had nothing to lose. We where busted and we had to have closure on it all. We decided if we walked the rest of the way to our spot, maybe we would see something running across the lake. We never did see or hear them again, but what we found was evidence enough for us! Tracks! Right where the first sound came from! That one was walking towards us as we walked towards him.

As soon as I saw those tracks, reality set in, hard. The two of us had succeeded in walking right into the middle of the pack that was howling at us as we called at our first spot!

We walked back to the truck, completely frozen and awestruck at the events that just took place. We had honestly thought we had been out crouching there for 10, maybe 15 minutes yet we couldn't figure out why in the world we got so cold in that short of time. It was 2:15 by the time we got back to the truck! We spent a whole hour out there observing, waiting and watching these animals hunt us just as we where hunting them.

In the end, no coyotes died, but the experience was all I needed to make my night complete!


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## jerry hunsley (Jan 20, 2006)

That is an interesting story. I think what happened is you just left your stand too soon. They were coming to the howl. That's what it sounds to me.


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## ND FiveO (Jan 15, 2009)

That's a great story. I'd probably done the same thing...pick up and move closer. If they were that far away to begin with, I say close the distance. Good intuition and nice work. And it's nice to hear that someone had a great time just "hunting" without necessarily killing something. I feel the same way when I get out to just "be out", even if I don't shoot my rifle.

Nice work and thanks for the story.


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## YoteSlapper (Mar 12, 2007)

Good Job Weasle

You write a great recap of your hunts!

Keep after um and one of these times you'll have a picture to cap off another good story.

YoteSlapper


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## weasle414 (Dec 31, 2006)

Thanks guys! Glad to hear I'm not the only one who thinks a successful hunt doesn't always involve killing something, Five0!

I'm gonna wait a couple weeks and head out to the same area the next full moon night and try then. If we had better visibility there would've been a few dead but we couldn't ever see clearly enough for a good clean kill. Hopefully then I'll get another story up with pics!

I also found out that there's been a pack running around of about 6 or 7 that run between Waverly and Montrose according to the DNR so I'm pretty sure this was the group they've been tracking. I also called in a group last year that was 5 strong in this same spot so maybe it's the same bunch from last season?


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## R Buker (Oct 29, 2005)

The DNR tracks "packs" of coyotes???? I'm gonna have to write a letter.


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## Wrestler720 (Dec 21, 2007)

how'd you find out dnr tracks coyotes and where you find that out


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## Fallguy (Jan 23, 2004)

R Buker said:


> The DNR tracks "packs" of coyotes???? I'm gonna have to write a letter.


 :eyeroll: Good luck Randy. I hope you find out what that is all about. Let us know!


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## weasle414 (Dec 31, 2006)

Steve, the other guy I was hunting with, had a nice little chat with a CO or DNR officer, can't remember which it was, about it. We couldn't figure out why or how they'd track them like that.


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## MN goose killa (Sep 19, 2008)

well that was interesting.


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