Nov 29, 2011

Coyote Hunting

I had never seen a coyote in the wild especially around Duchesne until I was in High School. I knew they existed but didn’t know they were anywhere near the farm. Then one day as I went up onto the hill to go rabbit hunting as I quite often did since the black tail jackrabbit were a major problem in the fields and we had to keep them under control. As I got over to the oil well road, which ran down from the bench onto the east side of the farm, and I saw my first coyote near the farm. I had my .22 rifle with me and was actually a pretty good shot or so I thought until I shot at the coyote. He went down as soon as I shot and so I figured I had him but when I got close to where I had thought he should be and couldn’t see him then I began looking around and sure enough about 100 yards away I could barely see him sneaking through the brush. I fired again but the bushes were in the way and thus I couldn’t hit him. I only saw him one more time up there and had the same results.

Later that year as Harold and I were deer hunting up in Four mile canyon in the right hand fork of Indian canyon we spotted one that looked very sick. We kept hiking and also kept watching it. It became quite apparent a little later that he was stalking us and had no intentions of leaving us alone. Harold and I both shot at him and yes you guessed it had the same results I had when hunting them near the house. We continued hunting that evening never seeing him again but always wondering if he was just watching us from a little safer vantage point.

So even though the coyote pelts would have brought money from the government those critters wasn’t going to let me make it by selling their hides. They truly are a very elusive creature.