A Week Of 'yote Hunting.

[SandSquid]

Been up here in New Hampshire at the old family homestead getting ready to bring my eldest daughter to Norwich University in VT this Sunday... The In-Laws, and their neighbors, even the town paper has been lamenting over the packs of coyotes running rampant in the area, killing livestock and forcing families out of their own yards for fear of the packs. MANY of the area's famiy dogs and cats have gone missing this spring.

Every night you can hear the roving packs calling, and working their way down out of the densely wooded surrounding foothills into the sparsely populated farming area. most of the locals are pretty aged and afraid to shoot towards their herd, and just blast over their heads to run them off.... but every now and then you can hear a shotgun blastand a 'Yote yelping his last..

So, I just happen to have my (scoped) T/C Contender ( chambered .44 Spcl../Mag.) with me, because I take it everywhere I can legally, and ran into the local Conservation Officer at the local breakfast/coffee-shop, so I asked him if I needed a permit to hunt 'Yotes, He said: since I'm Active Duty military, and on leave, I'm free to kill and many of the 'Yotes I can.

A few nights ago I successfully called in a small pack we heard up the road right into the 2 acres field behind the house, and I with my T/C, my FIL with his 12Ga. and my daughter with a .22lr, took 5 out of the 7 in the pack... wounded a 6th but I wasn't going after it. even if I was well armed

This particular group still had blood on their muzzles from what we found out a few minutes later, was the dairy goats they slaughtered about a mile away... The herds owner has lost at least half of his stock in the past 3 months and was quite happy to to show us and the Conservation Officer digital pictures off his game camera of several of these, now very dead 'Yotes.

Today the farmer came by with a nice (ca. 2 pound) block of a lovely soft goat cheese wrapped in fresh basil, as a token of his thanks.

My In-Laws have a few old hens out in the coop that stopped laying, so we are going to use them to try and bait-in another pack or two before we leave back out for TN.

[Sylvia]

Nice 'yote... *BANG!* Sounds like a successful hunt. Were the pelts saveable?

[Art]

Out West, and even here, they are solitary animals. Never experienced a pack of them; wolves yes coyotes no. We don't really have enough of them here to form a pack, even if they wanted to. In Maine, we could get a license to hunt them at night only, there too, was never able to call or bait more than one in at a time.

You here this crap all the time about "assault weapons" bans, but an Ar-15 or such with a night vision scope is the best weapon for varmint hunting of any kind, and if you are encountering packs of them, then a doubled up 30 round clip wouldn't be such a bad idea either.

Now, feral and disowned dogs do tend to run in packs around here, and no one in my family goes wandering the woods without a sidearm and/or shotgun.

Art

[Sylvia]

I don't think it's ever smart to go wandering around in the woods without a firearm. I've seen way too many timber rattlers, bears, cougars and such to feel comfortable without one. LOL one time I was left alone in camp while the Husband and his son were out deer hunting. I had a HUGE cow elk just about run me over while I was sitting in camp. Scared me half to death.

[electrathon]

Did you skin them so that you can make a trapper hat from the fur?

Aaron

[SandSquid]

No pelts were saved, the local Conservation Officer took the entire carcasses "back to The State labs for testing".

[TexasJack]

There's a reason you've never heard of anyone buying a coyote fur coat.

[Sylvia]

They have that nasty mange down there in Texas don't they? I've seen those pictures of the dead Coyotes that folks "think" are the Chupacabra.

[Tree Reaper]

The hides are only of value between November and March in North America.

Summer coats are pretty thin and damaged.

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

Utah is offering $50 for every yodel dog you take in the county you live in. Residents only =(. They want the population thinned out, so they doubled the bounty.