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Not a big fan of killing anything I don't eat, and would never tie a live animal up, each to their own, but around here the coyote has gotten quite brazen, I took a buck during archery season, waited 1/2 hour to climb down, not push it further away, was a perfect heart shot at 20yds. the only distance I'll allow myself to shoot, well it went about 100 or more yards into a bog, with the humps everywhere, few creeks in it, mostly dry but with short growth elm, and all the rest, not easy tracking, damn coyotes beat me to it, no fooling around, I was shocked, we never had this problem before. They travel a lot, I hear them at night all the time, we have more than a dozen, anything dead or the rabbit call will work usually, sometimes you get shut out. I use the .223 Mini-14 ranch rifle, but sometimes the.308 M1-A1, just like it better, little more wallop than is needed though. Make sure to be sighted in. We have too many coyotes now, the rabbits are abundant here, so they have been drawn in, but these are large coyotes, they pressure the deer often, I've been in the field and have had deer run right by me with their tongues hanging out, then spot the coyote who is foiled by my presence, same deer came by twice, seemed to be doing laps. Problem is you have to get them at night, I have an elevated stand, so they don't get wind of me, the best is when snow is on the ground and you have moonlight and it's not bitter cold, I get enough light in my scope to place a shot with snow and or some moon light. I'm all for keeping them in check, after they beat me to my kill last fall, that was the worst. About 2 years ago I spotted one just laying down to rest about 8:00 a.m. November, found a nice sunny spot, an easy kill, but instead, I crept up on him, I eventually got so close I could have kicked him, when he finally spotted me, I never saw such a terrified animal, he took one look at me and his legs could not get under him fast enough, he ran like hell, I could hear him in the corn off in the distance. I never thought it possible to get that close to one.
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