Well, boiz, like the title says - I got my first coyote in a hunting scenario rather than just shooting them in the head while they're in one of my foothold traps. Coyotes are such ninjas that about 13 years ago when they killed my cat I got so tired of unsuccessfully hunting them with rifles that I learned to set foothold traps. Trapping is an art in itself, but I always wanted to have the accomplishment of actually shooting a coyote in its environment with a rifle. And that is exactly what I did last night.
So basically the homie Erik got a rabbit that night, & cleaned him for the freezer. That obviously put rabbit scent everywhere. We were then playing around shooting mice with thermals and I had my NODs (PVS-14, Gen3 WP with a super high FOM) on. Saw the neighbor like 3 doors down (250 yards?) shining a flashlight around like he was looking for something. Heard a few airgun shots. Maybe he shot at this (or another) coyote? Anyway Erik was about to leave so we took a jaunt through the forest and saw 2 rabbits, which got a pass since we didn't feel like skinning 'em. Then Erik noticed another critter in the long grass using his thermal (Infiray phone attachment https://amzn.to/49ynxA7 ). I walked out into the path and there was a coyote just standing tall, sniffing the air. With black hot mode on my ATN Thor 4 he stood out like none other! Time went into slow motion. I took a standing offhand headshot at him at 50 or 60 yards. Straight down. The Panthera Hunter Compact .30 sent that Hybrid slug right into the back of his brain. He was doing a bit of a death waggle on the ground so Erik and I both just started dumping on him. Had I not been so excited I maybe would have thought about the pelt and maybe not allowed us to riddle him with holes...lol
Here are some more pics. He was a huge coyote. Probably about 50 lbs and 50" from snout to tail:
EDIT: I did shoot one with the .22 Maverick about 2 years ago but he was across the river and I didn't recover him. I am pretty sure the went down, but not 100%. So to me that is not a confirmed kill, whereas this is 100000000% confirmed! Haha
So basically the homie Erik got a rabbit that night, & cleaned him for the freezer. That obviously put rabbit scent everywhere. We were then playing around shooting mice with thermals and I had my NODs (PVS-14, Gen3 WP with a super high FOM) on. Saw the neighbor like 3 doors down (250 yards?) shining a flashlight around like he was looking for something. Heard a few airgun shots. Maybe he shot at this (or another) coyote? Anyway Erik was about to leave so we took a jaunt through the forest and saw 2 rabbits, which got a pass since we didn't feel like skinning 'em. Then Erik noticed another critter in the long grass using his thermal (Infiray phone attachment https://amzn.to/49ynxA7 ). I walked out into the path and there was a coyote just standing tall, sniffing the air. With black hot mode on my ATN Thor 4 he stood out like none other! Time went into slow motion. I took a standing offhand headshot at him at 50 or 60 yards. Straight down. The Panthera Hunter Compact .30 sent that Hybrid slug right into the back of his brain. He was doing a bit of a death waggle on the ground so Erik and I both just started dumping on him. Had I not been so excited I maybe would have thought about the pelt and maybe not allowed us to riddle him with holes...lol
Here are some more pics. He was a huge coyote. Probably about 50 lbs and 50" from snout to tail:
EDIT: I did shoot one with the .22 Maverick about 2 years ago but he was across the river and I didn't recover him. I am pretty sure the went down, but not 100%. So to me that is not a confirmed kill, whereas this is 100000000% confirmed! Haha
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