Last night was ideal night hunting conditions. Full moon, cold, light wind, white snow. I am pretty green at night hunting. I have probably done it less than 5 times.
Xdeano and I went out to some spots. First stand looked good, until some losers in a mufflerless puddle jumper sedan come tearing down the road as we are putting on our snowshoes. "We thought you guys were stuck" is what they yell out the window. Thanks for screwing up our stand boys! Off they go with their loud car. Anyway no customers on that stand.
Second stand looked promising but nothing.
Third stand looked even more promising. xdeano starts off with some howls and we get a few packs howling in a few directions. We wait, and wait, and wait. It's about 3 AM and I doze off for 10-30 seconds at least a few times during the stand. Xdeano continues with lsome coyote vocalizations. Finally I spot one out on the ice maybe a half mile out. At that time I hear xdeano walking to me from his side of the vantage point. I motion for him to sit down and I start lip squeaking and doing a little rabbit blues. Suddenly I see a predator coming across an open spot and starting the circle. I am amazed at the large circle it is making. As it's coming in I am trying to turn my magnification on my scope from 4X to 14X...but it is STUCK (frozen)! Finally the predator circles so far that it makes a complete 180 degree turn midstride. I knew immediately that it saw the truck. I barked, it stopped, and I took a shot with my scope at 4x. It was about a 200-250 yard shot but we hear a SMACK! However the predator takes off trotting and I thought I missed. About thirty seconds later I look back at it through my scope and see it spinning and lie down. Xdeano continues with some distress sounds. Eventually xdeano starts walking my way, and sure enough, I spot ANOTHER approaching predator coming from my side! I get his attention and he lies down about 10 yards from me. This predator is now about 300 yards out right where predator #1 was laying, and they are both moving around together. (Keep in mind I am looking through a slightly iced over scope here at night so the view was not too good). I cannot figure out whether they are two NEW predators, or the one I shot at and a new one, or what. Some coaxing brings one of them in to about the same place the other one was when I shot it. I am figuring this one will see the truck too, so I stop him and shoot. SMACK, YELP, and it falls and kicks and is done.
Once the stand is over we walk over and here is what we find. Predator #1 was a nice red fox. It came in to all the coyote howling going on. Predator #2 was a coyote. From what we can figure out is that he came in, and then got preoccupied by chasing the injured fox that I had shot while he was breathing his last breaths.
Both were in that 200-250 yard range...223..50 Grain V Max.
Pretty good night all in all.
good job guys what vocals were you using??
