The word around Callaway is that the coyotes are pretty scarce this year.  Almost every rancher we talked to sang the same tune that they hadn't been seeing or hearing as many coyotes as in the past.  We had to go find out for ourselves.  Welcome to this year's recap of the 2003 Christmas Callaway hunt.

This year, some of the names and faces have changed.  Our normal partner, Jim Woolsey, was unable to attend.  His son, one of America's Finest, was back on leave and he wanted to spend some time with him before his departure.  We figured it would take two guns to replace him, so in his place were first-timers Sterling Winkelman of Utica and my son, Kyle.  Also joining us on Day 2 and Day 3 would be Jeff Obermeier of Utica (visiting his sister in Callaway) and his cousin Shane from Callaway.

Day 1:
Day 1 started with the drive up to Callaway.  Roy and Sterling stopped in Ansley to visit Roy's cousin and ended up spending the day calling around Ansley.  They jumped one coyote while moving between stands, but the coyote kept a tree between them while making his escape which made for difficult shots.  Don, Kyle, and I fought the wind and tried a couple of new pieces of ground, but we drew a blank.

Day 2:
With seven hunters ready to go on Day 2, we split up four and three.  Roy, Sterling, Jeff, and Shane hunted Cole's ground, while Don, Kyle, and I hunted Vinchattel's land.  Once again, it was quite windy and Roy's group did not see a coyote.  We fared a little better.  On our second calling site, we set up watching out over a large canyon with 3 draws coming together.  Don covered the draw to the north, while I covered the draw to the south.  Kyle sat near the intersection of the three draws and also covered the draw to the west.  I started off with a set of howls and five minutes later followed them with a dying rabbit.  Shortly after that, a coyote crested the hills across the draw to the southwest of me.  He continued to gallop around some cedars and came to a halt halfway down the hillside to survey the situation.  The coyote was looking slightly to my left.  I gave out a couple lip-squeaks and he zeroed right in on me.  A couple seconds later he continued trotting down the hillside towards me.  I took a quick glance at the bottom of the draw and realized that if he reached the bottom of the draw, I would lose sight of him as he started up on my side of the draw.  I learned a long time ago to not lose sight of a coyote in these hills as you never know where he will reappear.  I refocused on the coyote and saw that he would soon be hitting an open patch in the knee-high weeds.  As he stepped into this patch, I barked at him, which stopped him at 200 yards as he scanned for the other "coyote".  He spun at the shot, ran five yards, and fell over. 

Day 3:
With Jeff and Shane still joining us, we decided to again split up.  Roy's group would hunt east of Chuck Pitkin's house and Don, Kyle, and I would hunt west of his house.  Roy's group would continue to have tough luck in finding the coyotes and would once again come up empty.  We decided to set up on a shelterbelt a half-mile northwest of Chuck's house.  We set up a quarter-mile from the belt so that we wouldn't spook the coyotes.  The belt was to my northwest with the wind out of the north.  Don watched a draw coming from the northeast.  Kyle was set up 60 yards in front of me.  I broke the morning stillness with a howl and immediately spotted 3 coyotes start from the west end of the shelterbelt.  They made a looping run around us from the west.  At one point, I had a 150 yard broadside shot on one of the coyotes, but there was a center-pivot system between us and I did not want to risk the shot.  By now a fourth coyote has appeared and is hustling to catch up with the first three.  The first three have dropped below a rise and come past me within 50 yards, but all I can see is their ears as they trotted by.  I try some furious lip-squeaking to get one of them to show their head, but they continue behind me to get the scent of the coyote that had howled.  I knew the first three would catch my scent, so I refocused on the fourth coyote who was still several hundred yards out.  Soon, I see him turn and start to head away from me.  I know that he has now seen the three behind me catch our scent and take off.  He stops several hundred yards away and begins to bark.  This draws a howling response from a fifth coyote that is still up on the east side of the shelterbelt.  I decide to try to call in this coyote since the others know what is going on.  Unable to see the fifth coyote, I begin calling to him.  After a minute or two, Don let's me know on the radio that he has seen this coyote run off to the east.  Now, the only coyote in view is the fourth coyote that is around 400 yards off.  Since I have nothing to lose, I line up a shot, but all I do is chase him into high gear.  A lot of excitement, but nothing to show for it.  Bummer!

We hike a mile to the southwest to hunt some rougher canyons.  On the hike over, I spy a coyote on top of a ridge watching us at 200 yards.  I was within 2 seconds of firing a shot before he turned and disappeared, but I'm glad he did as I later realized I did not have one in the chamber (saved me some grief from Don and Kyle).  In order to put the wind in our favor, we made our way around to the west side of the canyons.  Kyle was watching to the north, I had the east covered, and Don had our backside on the south and west.  I had called for close to ten minutes and was about ready to quit when Kyle radioed that a coyote was approaching from the northeast.  I spotted him just as he disappeared and dropped into the bottom of the canyon.  Expecting him to come running down the canyon, he did not appear for several minutes.  Kyle radioed to be ready on the east ridge as he may have travelled behind it to try to catch our scent.  I kept watch on the ridgetop when I finally noticed him making his way just below the east ridgetop, but on our side.  Kyle had seen him for a little while now, but he was about 100 yards from Kyle and his buckshot would not reach across the ravine.  I put the crosshairs on him and waited for him to stop, which he finally did giving me a nice broadside shot at 150 yards.

After Kyle found out how difficult these canyons can be when it comes to dragging out a coyote, we moved a half-mile west to another set of canyons.  It was Kyle's turn to call and he watched west/northwest and Don covered north/northwest with his rifle.  I watched their backside to the south.  I started with some howling and then Kyle took over with the jackrabbit distress call.  Several minutes into his calling, I noticed a coyote standing on a hill a half mile to the south of us watching us.  We called to him for several minutes, but she decided it wasn't worth the effort to traverse the hills towards us and eventually hunted her way over a hillside to the south.  We decided to take off at a quick gait to close the distance and see if we could spot her when we came over the top of the ridge.  Ten minutes later, we were quietly crawling over the ridgetop.  She was nowhere to be found, so we decided to set up to try calling her in.  As Kyle and I crawled towards a cedar, I finally spotted her below us walking out of a small cut.  She was hunting away from us and was not in a big hurry.  I had to slide over several yards to find where a cow had lain in the tall grass so that I had an open area where I could shoot without grass disintegrating my bullet.  Once I found a spot, I cranked up the scope to 14 power and barked to stop her.  When looking back up the hillside, we estimated the shot to be around 150 yards.  Kyle insisted on dragging this coyote also and fell quite a ways behind us on the walk out.

Day 4:
The morning dawned calm and quiet over Doc Smith's pasture.  Jeff and Shane had now departed and a previous evening's night hunt had left Sterling craving for sleep.  Don, Kyle, Roy, and I hunted our way from southeast to northwest across Doc Smith's pasture.  Setting up in the same location that has produced coyotes three other times in the past, Roy and I started with howls and then Don took over with the Dying Rabbit Blues.  Kyle was set up in front of Don and both were watching to the Northwest.  Roy was watching Northeast and I watched the backside to the Southwest.  Many minutes later, I spied a coyote slowly making his way towards us across the minimum maintenance road on Johnson's land (which we also had permission).  He would look up at Roy and then continue to slowly make his way towards us.  However, as he neared the road, he started to hunt around in the cedars and seemed to lose interest in crossing the road.  Don may be right in speculating that the coyote may have learned that it is not wise to leave his territory and try to impede on his neighbor's territory.  I would also lose sight of him if he crossed the road below me and I didn't want that to happen.  I cranked up the scope to 14 power, estimated the distance at a little over 300 yards, placed the crosshairs at the top of his back (making sure to not give the coyote away) and I sent the 52 grain hollowpoint across the road.  At the time of the shot, the coyote was reaching back and biting at his hind leg (possibly an itch or a gnat) and the bullet actually passed through his nose and broke his back.  We found him dead under a deadfall. 

Day 5:
Our last day left us with only three hunters.  Don and Kyle took off towards home at first light and did have some excitement on the way home.  They got a shot at a real mangy coyote, but failed to connect.  They said the coyote looked like he had no tail because his mange was so bad.

Roy, the Coyote Jinx, and the Dawg Hawg decided to give the shelterbelt northwest of Chuck Pitkin's house another try.  As you can see, nicknames were once again in force by the end of this trip.  Sterling had yet to be in on a kill much less even see a coyote while in Callaway.  We were determined to break his jinx that he cast over us.  I retained the Dawg Hawg nickname that dated back to last year.  To change things up a little, we approached and set up on the east side of the belt.  I was directly east of the belt, the Jinx was slightly northeast of me watching a big draw from the north, and Roy was south of me watching the south side of the belt.  Roy and I started with a coyote serenade and Sterling would follow a few minutes later with Dan Thompson's PC-1.  It didn't take long after our howling for the jinx to be broken.  Sterling broke radio silence and whispered that a coyote was spotted 400 yards north and closing.  As the coyote approached rifle range, Sterling eased the rifle into shooting position and then noticed that he had inadvertently breathed on the lens of the scope causing it to frost over.  While trying to frantically clean the lens, he lost sight of the coyote.  I finally spotted the male as he dropped into the bottom of the draw and slipped behind the knob that Sterling was lying prone on.  I swung my rifle into position in case he reappeared.  Thirty seconds later, I spotted him hustling back in the direction he had come (after probably scenting Sterling).  He was about to disappear into a cut when I barked and stopped him at what we later paced at 308 yards.  Once again, I made sure to not give the coyote away as I placed the crosshairs right on his back.  I lost sight of him at the shot, but the resounding WOP reassured Sterling and myself of my hit.  Later, after our calling ended, Sterling gave him a finishing shot as he tried to hobble away when we stood up.

Now, before we go any further, let's switch over to what Roy has been doing during this time.  When he heard that Sterling had spotted a coyote, he sat quiet to see what would unfold.  As the coyote approached from the north, he howled back at us once.  Roy answered the male and then immediately started lip-squeaking to try to bring the coyote past Sterling or myself.  However, his squeaks brought in another coyote from the shelterbelt.  It approached Roy slightly from his right and as he started to swing his rifle to meet the coyote (now at 125 yards) he heard me bark.  At that point he knew that he wasn't going to get the shot off in time.  At my shot, his coyote immediately slipped into the grass and disappeared.

When I shot, Sterling immediately began calling on his PC-1,  A few minutes later, the morning sun crested the eastern hills and started to light up the tops of our hills.  Shortly, a bright object shone from the top of the next hill to the north of me.  I swung the rifle over and the scope showed a handsome coyote sitting on his haunches much like a life-sized porcelain statue of a German Shephard that you would see in a novelty store.  He just sat there shining in the sun and watching in the direction of the dying jackrabbit.  Even though he was sitting 250 yards out, it was a rather easy shot as he just sat there listening to the call.  At the crack of the rifle, he crumpled much like a procelain statue would.

After gathering our dogs, we made the trip towards another shelterbelt that we had yet to hit this year.  Due to a south wind, we set up on the west side of the belt.  Roy was the designated caller, and Sterling sat to the north of him and I sat to the north of Sterling - all of us watching east.  A couple minutes into the call, I hear Sterling bark to stop an approaching coyote.  When Sterling barked, the coyote took three more steps before halting and stopped in some taller weeds.  Sterling could see her outline and decided to give it a try.  At the speed a .22-250 sends a bullet, even something as light and fragile as a weed can disintegrate and destroy the bullet.  The 45 grain bullet never found its mark and the coyote was quite perplexed.  She has a rabbit dying in front of her, another coyote barking at her up near a cedar tree, and a heck of a loud boom just scared the bejeebers out of her.  She took a couple more steps towards Roy and then decided that her best decision would be to get the heck out of there.  This indecision would soon prove tragic for her.  As she turned and took off for the shelterbelt, she received a gut ache from Sterling unlike any tainted roadkill had ever given her before.  I saw her stumble into the shelterbelt and immediately took off running to the north of her in the shelterbelt to cut off her escape.  I posted up while Sterling and Roy got on the blood trail.  It didn't take long for them to catch up with her and give her a finishing shot.  With this coyote, Sterling had soundly broken his jinx along with giving me reprieve from my moniker.

We finished the trip with 17 sightings, 14 call-ins, and 7 kills.