Utah Youth Coyote Hunt (November 8, 2014)

Friday night we scrambled to find all of our hunting gear for our third Utah Youth Coyote Hunt. I say scrambled because we just moved into a new house and we had a hard time finding everything we needed for the hunt. We loaded up and headed out. We had to make a stop at C.A.L. Ranch for some new camo pants as my daughter had grown out of her other pants. We got lucky and found a pair of Kings Desert Shadow just her size. We met my dad in Nephi and then drove to our motel near our hunting area. We would have roughed it, but didn’t know where all of our camping stuff was. My 11 year old daughter and 9 year old son were excited and bouncing off the truck walls. They were having a good time taking pictures on the tablets and then editing them to make them funny looking. They were busting up laughing. Morning came early for them though and we had to drag them out of bed. We made the drive to our calling location and put our A game on, well maybe. My dad and I would rotate calling with my daughter and son sitting with one of us for two stands in a row allowing them to be the caller and shooter before rotating. On stand number one my dad started calling. After about four minutes a coyote came over the ridge. I told my son there was a coyote. He picked it up, but had a hard time getting his gun on it. It picked our movement up and stayed in the trees and my son never got a shot. On our second stand I was calling and after only a couple minutes my son and I had a hard charger to our left. I came right down the treeline we were sitting on. It was to fast and furious for my son to swing his gun and make the shot at just 16 yards. It spooked with him not shooting so I tried to get on it, but it never presented me with a shot as it stayed in the trees. On the fourth stand I was calling and six minutes into the stand a truck came down the road behind us. As I turned to look at the truck, my daughter wispered, “Dad, Dad, there’s a coyote.” I turned back around to see it standing at 80 yards. It spotted us and the truck and turned and headed out. I got one shot as it topped the ridge. My dad and son never saw it come down the ridge, right in front of them, so they didn’t shoot even though it was about 50 yards away. Sometimes they can just sneak in on you. We now had chances at three coyotes and the kids were starting to hang their heads as no shots were fired. It was really the first time they have had chances to shoot and are lacking in the experience department. The temperature then got warm and stands 5, 6, 7, and 8 were dry stands. I figured we were done for the day. We had lunch as we relocated to a new area that we thought might be productive for a couple stands before we had to head back to check-in at 6:00.
As we pulled into our ninth stand grandpa told the kids he spotted the ears of coyote to get them perked up as they were dragging their heads. Grandpa started calling and the alpha male started barking. Shortly after a coyote poked out of the brush to his right. It went back into the brush before my daughter could get a shot. Then mayhem broke loose. Another coyote came charging the call and stopped 40 yards out. My daughter took aim and shot and it let out a yelp and went running back to the brush. As it got to the brush another coyote appeared. Grandpa shot it. Meanwhile what I thought was another coyote showed up. I pulled up and shot it right after grandpa shot his. Turns out it was the coyote my daughter had shot and it had only made to the brushline. After I finished off my daughters, I picked up another coyote way out in the brush. All I had was a head shot and I shot and dropped it. A little bit later my son and I heard something behind us and my son said, “Dad, there is a coyote.” It got into the brush before we could swing around and get a shot. In the end, we called five coyotes and shot three. Boy were the kids excited! And my daughter had shot her first coyote. We took pictures and got them all loaded up to make one more stand before heading in to check-in.
We said it was my sons turn to kill a coyote since he was the only one that didn’t on the last stand. We had our first visitor at the four minute mark. It came from our right and I told my son to set up pointing left. He got his gun swung around and the coyote came to 50 yards. It started to leave as my son was trying to get on it. It was behind a bush so he had to wait for it to clear. Meanwhile grandpa couldn’t take it any longer and shot it. My son was bummed. Then another coyote shot out of the brush behind us and went cruising in front of us. My son couldn’t get on it so I put the AR-15 to work and got seven rounds off but couldn’t hit it as it was changing zip codes. I got back to calling and we had a third coyote come from straight out in front of us. My son got ready and when it stopped at 80 yards he pulled the trigger, but his gun was on safe. The coyote spooked, I barked to stop it as my son got ready again. My son let it fly and hit it at 100 yards. A half second later, grandpa being impatient again, shot and finished it off. Now they were really excited as they both had shot a coyote and we had a great chance of winning the contest. We headed back to Nephi and checked in. We were in fact the winning team as second place had three and third, fourth, and fifth had two. It was great to have the best day of calling I have had in Utah come on the youth coyote hunt and get to experience it with my dad and kids.