Frankenyote- Frank for short.

Well the tanning process is complete, and Frank has joined Roberta (winter ) on the left, and Bob (a summer) Bobcat on the right.

Its fairly amazing how quick and well the tanning process went. I suppose when you don't have to wait for someone to get around to your project it goes a lot faster. All in all it took two days. The hide is nice and supple, and of course the surgery is well hidden by the luxurious fur that Frank was sporting before he ran afoul of me.

Gun sights and boredom

The weather has moderated to the point that the below zero temps have given way to low teens. I have gone out several mornings trying to call in some Coyotes, and have met with utter failure each time. Enough so that I have been catching up on my reading and unfortunately watching the steady decline of America on TV. There just aren't that many Coyotes this year. The only place that you can find them is with the Cows. There isn't enough food out there in the Sage to make it worth while, so they move into the ranches where the food supply concentrates.

Out of desperation I ordered a book off of Amazon for my Kindle that of course guaranteed that I could kill more Coyotes if I read it. What the heck, I was out of reading entertainment and anything to lower the learning curve of predator hunting would be a worthwhile pursuit.

One of the chapters concerned rifles and the best point to be sighted in. Now most rifles are sighted in for 100 yards. As most normal hunting situations are at distances like that or closer. Here the nearest tree or obstacle to sight is likely in a neighbors yard. As most of you know that the bullet as it leaves the barrel of a gun start lower than the line of sight, then arc above the line of sight, crossing again at predetermined distances and eventually dropping to the earth. How flat the bullet shoots is governed by weight, speed and ballistic co efficiency. I will not go into it in detail, but for instance a hunting rifle bullet can, with a 100 yard sight in, drop as much as 26 inches out at 300 yards. That of course makes it difficult to hit anything unless you know where it will cross the sighted line. The key of course is to know how much it drops at any given distance..

In essence there is a distance for sighting for each bullet by caliber, weight and speed that the bullet travels, that gives the least amount of variance. Coyotes are very cunning, as evidenced by history and Indian folklore. They do not willingly give up their hides. Lots of them hang up in the 200 and 300 yard range. If anything looks a bit out of order, they fade away without being seen. Sometimes what you do see is pretty small, so exact accuracy is of paramount importance.

I shoot a 22-250 rifle with a 40 grain explosive bullet that is traveling at 3672 feet per second. My reloading manual showed a 245 yard sight in as the best sight in range. That would mean that at 50 yards the bullet would be 3/4 of an inch high, 1 3/4 high at 100 yards, 2 1/2 high at 200 yards, and 3 1/2 inches low at 300 yards. The theory being that a straight on sighting would hit the kill zone on the Coyote no matter how far out it was. Sounds good- right?

My normal sight in is 100 yards. If they are further out then I hold a bit higher. So far this year I had not missed even out to 321 paces, but what the heck, I can handle improvement, most likely need it.

As you can imagine I was interested in trying all this out. Now, I have a good view of quite a bit of the area around me. I can see a 300 yard area below me that sometimes a Coyote will cross to get to the Creek, and up to 350 yards on the other side of the creek. I have been watching since early October and have seen nothing, other than Deer down there. So on a snowy morning I decide to go across the road and get set up before daylight to call there, I know that a local Bobcat sometimes hunts there and Coyotes use the area as well.

The temperature was 4 degrees. Now I used all my earnings from last year to get me set up for just this type of hunting. I can stay warm enough to spend 45 minutes sitting on the ground, but movement can sometimes be a bit of a challenge. I use a "stadium" type seat, and can lean back a bit, but sometimes the elevation that the Coyote shows up can cause a bit of a challenge to get the sights on the critter. Finally after about 45 minutes a Coyote appears on the creek bank below me at about 75 or so yards. I admit I was a bit shaky, but the sights were on the Coyotes shoulder when the trigger broke over. The Coyote squatted a bit and took off at high speed. Sometimes they will run a bit if the shot is not immediately fatal. If you can track them they will pile up after the adrenaline runs out. There was an inch of snow, so tracking was not going to be a problem.

I walked back to the truck, and drove to the other side of the creek and began my tracking, expecting to find the Coyote piled up in the heavy sage. Well there was no blood at all, and after about 500 yards or more he finally quit running and began walking to another part of the ranch where it was a bit less exciting. A total MISS! How in the hell did that happen? I just don't normally miss. Just ask my dog, she will tell you that. She thinks I never miss. The only thing I can imagine is that I was a bit high on the shoulder when the trigger broke, and the bullet just barely missed the top of the back. Well crap! That wasn't supposed to happen. Back to my cave to sulk.

I decided that the charts were wrong, and the bullet was not performing as it was reported to be. I shot groups at 100, and 200 yards and found that they matched the book exactly. A hard pill to swallow. Being of genuine W.VA. redneck stock, shooting has always been one of the things that I excel in and pride myself on. Oh well, I decided not to tell my dog.

Finally shame at my slothfulness crept in to the point that I could no longer ignore the guilt, so a new plan to hunt a new area that should have a bunch of critters that had never heard a varmint call before and would be waiting for me to come gather them up.

A bit of a glitch occurred when I woke the next morning to find that a pretty brisk wind had blown in about a half inch of snow. I decided to wait for daylight before I started out so that I could look the country over to find a good spot. The wind was of course in the wrong direction for what I had planned, so I was pretty sure that it was a waste, but what the hell, I was already dressed.

I started up the hill from the house just as the Sun came up, and immediately turned back for the camera that I had forgotten.

 Already the day was better, just being able to see the Steens  glowing with the rising Sun.

I spent an hour watching the empty landscape, suffering just enough to ease my conscious about my slothful ways.

I returned home determined to ignore the suspicion that I was growing old and worthless. About mid morning I decided to call an old friend from the area where we used to live. I spent about 10 minutes talking to his lovely wife, and had just began talking to him, when I see a Coyote pop out of the brush across the creek. At first I was a bit amazed at the sight. I have not even heard a Coyote howl for months. I hung up, grabbed my rifle and went out to the hot tub to use if for a rest. I know that the top of the hill is 350 yards away, so I figured him for 300 yards. I couldn't see enough of him at three power, so I cranked the scope up to 9 power, held just below the top of his back, thinking that it would drop at that range. I touched it off and could hear the "smack" of the bullet and see the Coyote drop. Better!

 This is a camera view from where the Coyote was standing.

 The hide looks pretty good from here. The bullet I have chosen, is very explosive. The idea being that the bullet enters, blows up without exiting the other side. This requires a solid hit, and if it hits a bone, the hide damage is minimized.

 This is the first indication that the bullet hit a bit high. After returning to the house, I dug out the rangefinder and found to my surprise that the range was only 265 yards. Crap, the bullet hit just where I aimed.

  Remember I said that when the bullet hits a bone, even at that range, it blows up. Unfortunately in this case it took out the same amount of hide. At first I was inclined to discard it, but I cannot do that. I have been boning them and freezing them to feed to Yogi. She hates them, and likes the taste. It saves on my food bill for her, and salves my conscious at the same time. I decided to see how bad it was. As you can see the damage was fairly substantial, but due to the scarcity of things for them to eat, the hide was not all that fat. I have been wanting to tan one to hang on the wall to add to my "Redneck Ambiance", so this was a pretty good candidate for that.

 If any of you are wondering, a Coyote will supply 28 meals of hawk food, 30 if you don't blow them up. Its an ironic change of events that the top of the normal local food chain is now feeding those that he would normally prey on. First rule of Redneck- don't waste anything!

The hide fleshed quite well, and it only took 30 minutes or so to sew up the hole. Since the hide will be in a "tube shape" and turned hair side out, the missing part shouldn't matter all that much on the wall.

I think I will call him Frank. I just finished another fleshing session and will begin the tanning process this evening.

Throw another log on the fire!

Winter is progressing right along, although it has been pretty boring so far. As you can see we had a "blizzard" and it snowed almost an inch.  You may recall that rainfall here averages 4.5 inches a year. Thankfully being retired I could stay inside with the exception of the "critter chores", and getting more firewood.

With the advent of the snow I can see just how many rabbits we actually have here this year. Perhaps 3 or 4 are still alive and coming around the house. Pretty big let down for me. We had about 60 using the place this spring and most of the summer. Then in August they just disappeared. We also had several coveys of Quail and now we have perhaps 20 or so. They are coming in to the place to help the Pigeons and Chickens with their feed.

The weather so far has been pretty good. The coldest mornings have been still above zero.  A couple of mornings it got down to 4 degrees when I hunted Coyotes. Not much joy on that front either. It seems that the Coyotes have crashed in this sector as well as the Rabbits.

Most of the winters that we have spent here, it has stayed pretty good until the middle of Dec. and is pretty cold all through Jan. It seems to be right on schedule this year. The temperature this morning was -13 Degrees.

The biggest problem with minus temps is water for our critters, and during these minus temps, I end up carrying water. It is a blessing that I don't have to go outside unless I want to. It is compensation for being so old.

I have been a bit concerned about Jasper however. If you remember he is the little Kestrel that Tammi flew in 2011. He has chosen to stay here again this winter.  Last year the wild male that lives over at the ranch next door, managed to freeze himself to a metal rafter in their barn.

I primarily worry about him finding enough food when the temps get below zero. It takes a surprising amount of calories to keep such a little guy alive. About the only vermin that I ever see around here is a few Mice and Kangaroo Rats. The Rats are nocturnal, so a few Mice and whatever birds he can catch are about the only options.

Mice are a piece of cake for a Kestrel. Birds however are a different matter. Most can out fly a Kestrel, and most Kestrels do not ever try, unless they are desperate. Jasper hunts them regularly. He just needs to wait until they are distracted, and when things get tough, Jasper gets tougher.

When we were hunting him, it was here on the place, and mostly we hunted the Chicken pen for the Sparrows that were helping the Chickens with the food that I gave them. Last year I supplemented his food with an occasional Starling out of Jessie's food supply. I could tell when he needed some help, because he would sit on the power pole by the house. I fed him fairly often last year during the coldest part of the year.

He stayed here at the house until the Spring when he moved over to the ranch and courted a female that came by and stayed with him. I do not know for sure all that happened, but I think that the female that he paired with died when the young were just beginning to fledge. We found her when two young Kestrels of the year were found on the ground by one of the houses.

Young raptors have about a two week period where they are pretty helpless after they fly from the nest. We put a nest platform in the trees where they were found so that the parents could feed them. It never happened, so Tammi became a foster mother to them. Right about that time Jasper showed up at the house again.

All the rest of this year Jasper kept his distance, but stayed here at the place. I would see him most days sitting on the wind sock or his house that I put up for him last year.

When we were hunting him, I was in charge of the bagged game, so he was used to me whistling and waving a bird at him. He has shown no interest in me at all since last winter. When he has been hunting the pens, he would fly to the power lines when I approached.

This morning with the minus temps, I was concerned for him. I admit, I stayed in the house a bit longer until the minus temps came up above zero. Not much use in pouring water in tubs that would freeze before the Chickens and Pigeons would get a chance to drink. When I did finally go out, he was on the Chicken pens hoping to find a stupid Sparrow. He flew however up to the power pole while I was out there. I decided to see if he remembered and was hungry. I went into the house and picked up a half of a Starling and went back outside. I whistled the call that I used and waved the half Starling. He began bobbing his tail, so I knew he wanted it. I tossed it in the ranch yard, and as soon as it was in the air, he was off and on his way. He swooped down picking it up and flew off to a convenient perch to eat his meal. I don't mind feeding him occasionally, he has earned it.

One of the compensations of the winters here are the sunsets. Here is one as it developed. With the exception of sharpening the pictures, they have not been "photo shopped".

Jessie gets to hunt again.

Today is a bit stormy, and the wind is blowing. The low pressure is making Jessie very unsettled and more aware of her hunger. All in the wild are acutely aware of the weather and either feel the need to move on their migration and to stock up on food. Us humans just want to throw another log on the fire, and perhaps pour a little whiskey.

When I went to get Jess this morning, she started in begging me to either feed her or take her hunting. I decided that we would give the ranch a try and see if there was any new visitors.  I have kept her weight in the lower range of her response weight, and while she doesn't like it, her manners are better that way.

After noon, I had no more excuses left, so I talked Karen into going over with me. The wind had picked up a bit more by then. I snuck up to the little pond in the Sage feed lot on the other side of the barn. This is by far the best spot on the entire ranch to "Hawk" Ducks. It is only about 30 feet across and sunk down below the level of the ground, with tall Sage all around. If one is careful, you can sneak up close enough to see if there is anything in it.

I turned her loose after confirming that there was at least a couple of Teal on the pond. When the wind is blowing like it was today, she rarely goes up very high, rather skimming and zipping around. When I turned her loose a couple of wading birds took off, making me wonder if I had actually seen Ducks on the pond.  She really didn't give me that much indication that there was any thing there at all. I finally ran up to the pond, and found that there actually was Ducks there. One Mallard, four or five Teal. The Mallard and a Teal left the pond, with Jessie in pursuit. She in my opinion did not try all that hard to catch any thing. The Teal were still on the water, and was scared enough to stay there with me crouching at the edge of the bank behind a Grease wood bush. When she came back over, I forced the Teal to leave and they swirled around just above the Greasewood jinking and dodging any attempt to catch one of them. Surprisingly there was still a Ring Neck on the pond.

These little critters are almost impossible to get off the water when a Falcon is in the air. I went to the edge, no more than 15 feet away, and the Duck only ran on the water to the other end. I began throwing rocks at it and it finally took off into the wind. Jessie came swooping in down underneath the Duck and scooped it up, carrying it over the fence and landing on the other side.

While the flight was successful, it had very little that falconers strive for. but as one of my departed friends once said when confronted with what falconers call a "Rat hunt",  "Dead on the ground, is still dead,  and still count as one."

As you can see from the neck in these pictures the Duck has been dispatched. Jessie broke the Ducks neck, but nerves are still firing, and the Duck can thrash her around quite a bit.

The diver Ducks bleed a lot, I suppose that it because they get most of their food under the water, but whatever the reason. She always looks like she has been bathing in blood by the time she finishes.

When we got home, I gave her some new bath water, and as usual when she gets bloody, she wants a bath. It doesn't matter how cold it is, she is going to get soaked. I waited until she was done, and sitting on her perch shivering, I picked her up and put her on her perch in the shop and turned the heater on.

Here is a short video of today's flight. You can hear the wind, and I did not try to narrate the video.

https://vimeo.com/79840770   password ( owyheeflyer )

It doesn't always work out the way that you want.

 I have been working hard here at the place. I installed an electric gate on the driveway. Its always a pain in the butt when the rancher next door turns his cows out. There is little feed for them, and the smell of my hay stack requires that we keep the gate closed. Karen and I both hate opening and closing gates. At one time someone who lived here had an electric gate, so the idea has been lying there rotting away my resistance. Finally Costco had a sale on the one that I needed, so there went some more of my "summer wages" It took me most of a day to get it installed. I had to load up my cutting torch in the quad trailer to rid myself of some of the earlier attachment points. Everything seemed to be working satisfactorily, then the wind came up yesterday. I was a bit surprised at how much resistance a 20 MPH wind can cause. I had to adjust the "closing force" to counteract the wind.  Then I spent some time wiring the hanger with some flood lights so that I can see the area that I skin Coyotes.

I decided that it was time to do a bit more hunting, so I set my inner alarm for 5 AM. When I woke this morning, I grabbed a couple pieces of toast and headed to Bogus Creek.

I got there just as the Sun began to light up the sky. Coyotes were howling their greeting to the Sun down the creek towards the line Shack. The wind was also blowing that way, so I decided to go upstream to a couple of little springs, and try my hand there.

                                The moon set as the sun rose in the sky.

The normal set up to call Coyotes is to find an area that has some Coyotes, find a good field of fire, facing into the wind, with your back to something to block your outline. Now I am new at this, and the learning curve is pretty steep. As they say, " Even a blind Hog finds an acorn now and then", and I have been pretty lucky so far, and an accurate flat shooting rifle will go a long way to even the odds. Now someone who has never matched wits with Willy C might think it is a piece of cake. Not so!

The last Coyote that I called got suspicious out about 200 yards, and the rifle turned the tables for me. I have been told that one should have both a rifle and a shotgun when calling. Well I don't want to carry a shotgun along with all the other stuff that I carry.

The longest area of visibility was down wind, and about 100 yards maximum. In front of me I had about 75 yards before Lava domes cut off the view. I started the call, and about 5 minutes into the series, I could see a Coyote coming on the run, straight at me. I tried to get the rifle up, but the scope was set on 9 power, before I could readjust, a 3/4 grown Coyote ran up to the decoy, realized that it was a fake, turned and ran back the way that he came. Disappearing just as fast as he appeared. The descriptive term- "Bear Cub with mittens" comes to mind.

I had to laugh at the mental picture of what my reactions had been. I hoped that he would stop somewhere out there to look back, but he never did. I then cut to a "Coyote pup in distress" call, hoping that would make him look. I was scanning the area, and saw a large full grown Coyote cross the creek below me. He was obviously headed down wind to see what his nose could tell him. I had to turn over on my belly to try to bring the rifle to bear on him. I kept thinking that he would stop to check things out, but he never did. He dipped over a little ridge between us, and when he peeked over, he was about 60 yards out, and directly downwind. I never saw him again. Coyotes 2, pilgrims 0.

I went down the Creek towards the line shack, and stopped in a few places to call, but apparently all were sound asleep somewhere else.

I had been looking forward to calling at the shack, as I was sure that it was the spot to redeem my morning with, but I never saw a thing.

All was not a loss however. I find as I get older, I tend to loose things on occasion. Knives have been the obvious age indicator for me. For a while I was losing them on a regular basis. I even attempted to counteract this tendency by buying cheap ones, two at a time. Well this morning I discovered that I am not the only klutz running around without adult supervision.

So I spent the morning looking at Sun Rises, Moon sets, not seeing another soul, but seeing vast distances, and beautiful vistas. Finding that I am not the only one who can't keep a knife. Not to mention the exquisite pleasure of being outsmarted by Willy Coyote.

Exercising Jessie with the Kite.

 I have been trying to get Jessie some exercise when I can, but one thing or another always seem to get in the way. The Duck hunters that have the bird hunting rights on the Ranch were down this weekend, so Jessie and I stayed home, and waited until the birds had a chance to settle down.

The weather has been so nice that the wind has not been strong enough to fly the Kite, so every thing has conspired against us this year. Yesterday we did get a flight at some Mallards at the Ranch.  Jessie snagged a Mallard Drake over the water, but had to drop him to keep from going in the water herself.

Today I installed an automatic gate opener on the entrance to the place, and what with one thing or another spent most of the day working on it. The weather is changing a bit, and the wind began to blow by the time I finished. I decided that I would fly Jessie on the kite, and work on her muscle condition. Quite frankly I was too pooped to trudge through the Sage to do anything more.

I ran the lure on the kite up to 350 feet, she is too out of condition to do more. I talked Karen into running the video camera for the flight.

https://vimeo.com/79535232  password- owyheeflyer

The lure line is rigged with a fishing trolling release that is on a 8 foot line leading to a lure. The lure is garnished with the rear end of a Starling as a reward. The other end is tied to a small carabiner that is secured to the main kite line. That way when the hawk pulls the lure free from the quick release, it is able to slide down the line to the ground.

This method gives the hawk more exercise than it would actually get from just flying in circles waiting to chase what ever you flush, as well as teaching it that higher in the sky is better. If you take a hawk out, turn it loose and let it amuse itself by flying around you are teaching them to wander. That is not good! This is all business, the bird is in the right place for hunting, and the exercise can be as demanding as the bird can stand.

Lure training with the kite is something that is normally done at the start of the year to condition the hawk. Hunting is crappy right now and Jessie if not exercised and flown just becomes cranky in the extreme. This at least allows us to pretend we are doing something worth while.

Coyote update

 This is the condition of the horse when I first visited the area, at 3 PM of the 9th. The easy part had been consumed, and the only part left is that part lying on the ground.

 Since I am hunting the Coyotes with the intent of selling the hides, not eradicating the gene pool, There is a lot of work to do, and since the spot that the bullet hit this Coyote,caused a lot of damage, I worked until 9:30 PM repairing the damage. I went back the next morning at daybreak and killed a really big male. Since he had seen me approach, he ran a ways before he made the mistake of looking back, I didn't go near the carcass. I could see however that the ribs had been chewed off. Again it took most of the day to get his processing all done. Plus it is about a half mile one way to get to the ambush site, and a 35 lb male Coyote is a chore to pack. I felt the need for a rest. I also mistakenly thought that taking out five other Coyotes on the ranch might have reduced the population a bit.

 This is what I found when I went back on the 10th. As you can see they have dragged the carcass several feet around, ate all the meat that had been lying on the ground plus all the hide. Quite frankly I was more than a bit surprised. That horse had to weigh between 8 and 900 lbs. Figure a Coyote can hold about 10 lbs at a sitting, maybe 15 lbs a day. That is math that I am not qualified to do.

After I shot this one on the morning of the 11th, and carried it back home. I left it cooling for a couple of hours, while I had breakfast and stalled a bit. When I did go out to skin it, to my pleasure I found it a bit easier to process. Plus it was not quite as fat as the others had been, so the fleshing process was a bit easier. Karen and Sharron from next door were going into town, so I was left with most of the rest of the day to myself. Lets see, TV, or hunting? So I went back over there. I was pretty sure that there would not be enough left to draw a Coyote back in there after another day.

When I arrived at my ambush point, I was surprised to find another Coyote chewing on the bones, and added her to my bag. Being a female she was not quite as heavy as the males that I had taken. When I go in to hunt, I carry a fold up seat, electronic Varmint call, coats, and camo "gille suit". Its all bulky and a bit heavy too, especially if you are carrying a Coyote over your shoulder. I decided to carry her out, come back and sit on the carcass for the rest of the evening. I left every thing there and hiked the half mile back to the truck.

I had a nice quite evening sitting there looking at the landscape, but saw nothing else. Eventually my butt got numb enough to cause me to go home, and go to work on the last victim.

The weather has been unusually warm during the day. Mornings are 20 degrees, but afternoons have been in the high 50's. The interesting part is that the horse never got that "rotten" smell. It never had a chance to spoil.

If you remember this spring the Savage rifle in 22-250 cal that I had bought to varmint hunt with, blew up after about 80 shots. They eventually sent me another one after a lot of hassle. I had just about decided to steer clear of Savage, but the rifle that I wanted cost twice as much, was a lot heavier and much too pretty for what I had in mind for it. So I decided to keep the gun that they sent me and take my chances. So far the gun is working well and shoots like it should. My longest shot to date was 325 paces.

I have always hand loaded my own ammo. The first one blew up with a reduced load that should have never caused any damage. I found a load that does well with the bullet that I have chosen. I ended up with a load of 38.4 grains of Hodgden H380 behind a 40 grain Hornady VMax bullet.  Since my shooting eye has had laser surgery to repair a leak in my pupil, my vision in my right eye is not all that it should be, so I do my sighting in at 50 yards. I decided to check it at 200 yards since a minor variation at that distance becomes much larger the further from the end of the barrel. I shot a four shot group at 200 yards and ended up with a group of one inch 1/16. Not all that many years ago, a rifle that would shoot a one inch group at 100 yards was the industry standard. If the gun holds together I will be a happy camper.

Nov 10th

The Rut is still building, and this is the latest visitor. As you can see, he is the biggest one so far. This one has six ladies with him.

He is not that much wider than the others, but he is much taller, and more massive. He is still not close to the biggest one around, but he will do in a pinch.

Who says size doesn't matter. Look how much bigger he is than the Doe's around him. The other bucks were pretty close to the same size as the Doe's. This guy is pretty close to mature.

We have been flying Jessie on the Kite, when there is enough wind to get it up in the air. She has done better than I would have thought she would do. Boredom will make you do things that no one would believe.

Of course now we have a warm front coming in, and it is dead calm, which is a bit weird for this time of the year and area. I have been keeping Jessie at a "full Attention" weight. In other words she is very glad to see me, rather than her normal "screw you" attitude. So I have been waiting until the last minute to feed her, and she is unhappy about that.

Yesterday morning I decided to take my Varmint call over to the "lake" that starts Crooked Creek to see if I could find a Coyote to add to my collection, and check for Ducks while I was at it. I got up well before daylight and arrived at the lake at first light. Unfortunately there was nothing there other than Geese. I would just as soon not put her up over Geese, you never know whether she will get a wild feather up her butt and take another one.

I sat there in temps in the teens for more than 40 minutes with my call and got no response at all. I could not understand that at all. I know that several Coyotes hang out in that area.

When I got back home it was obvious that the wind wasn't going to blow that day either. I decided that I would roll out the plane and go see where the Ducks were sitting, so that we could go out and hunt for a change.

https://vimeo.com/79004790    password is - owyheeflyer

I did find some Ducks in a spot that we could catch one if she really wanted to, but I also found why the Coyotes were not available. They were feasting on one of the old "retirees" of the horse herd. I saw two of them on it as I flew by.

Karen wasn't feeling well enough to go hawking and Tammi was not at home, so I grabbed my rifle, threw Jessie and Yogi a Starling apiece, and headed out. I parked at the spot that was closest to the rimrock where the horse and hopefully Coyotes were. It was still a half mile walk through the Sage. I kept my eye out for any Rabbits that I might find, and am very sad to say, I didn't see one.

As I got close, I used an end of the rimrock to hide my approach. I peeked over the end and could see two Coyotes working the carcass. One was behind a chunk of Sage and the other was facing me working on the shoulder of the horse. I thought OK, I will just shoot it in the top of the back. I don't think I will do that again. I was sewing until 9:30 PM trying to put the hide back together again.

Of course she never knew what hit her, and she dropped right where she was standing.

This is they way that I carry them. I am selling the hides, so I need them in as good a shape as I can manage.

 When I shot this one, the one with her took off over the rimrock. I saw him peeking over the Sage about 175 yards away trying to figure out what happened. I could not get steady enough to be sure of my shot, so I didn't shoot at him. As you can see from this picture, he again stopped to look and this time I was ready. The white spot on the other ridge is where he stopped, for good this time.

 This time I decided to shoot him in the shoulder to cut down on the sewing. I am using a 40 grain V Max bullet, that is traveling at 3800 fps. He never got out of his tracks. It blew up just under the skin, with no exit wound. Much better. The first one that I carried out last night only weighed 16 pounds, this guy tipped the scales at better than 35 lbs. I am pretty sure he was the boss dog in that area. The half mile this time was a bit of a chore.

 The sun was just coming up and I couldn't resist a picture of the Steen's

 This one is a panorama. Since it is the first one that I have done, I am not sure if you can get the full effect. If you right click on the picture and "Open it in a new tab" you can enlarge it enough to see it. It was very early, and the picture was taken with my phone, so that is all the excuses that I have for it.

I had intended to take Jessie for Ducks today, but the ranch has some Duck hunters there today, so I guess a nap is in order.

Not every thing has left.

Living in a Rock house, with walls about 18 inches thick makes it hard to monitor what goes on outside. The gate on the driveway is about 150 yards from the house, and we spend most of our time on the side of the house away from the driveway. It is impossible to hear a car drive in to the yard. We are about 1 & 3/4 of a mile from the road, and the house is not visible until you get committed coming over the hill from the pit. Various tourist, looking for a place to take a crap have a tendency to drive down our road, and there is no place to turn around until they get in the yard.

As you might  imagine in the spring and summer when it is comfortably warm, clothing is optional here, for the two of us. It is pretty hard to relax with the knowledge that the sight of my old wrinkled butt may cause some interesting stories among those who have a tendency to wander off the beaten path. So in the interest of privacy, and to keep the occasional starving Cow out of the yard unannounced, I put a couple of driveway alarms on the entrance.

Recently unexplained alarms at the gate have gone off at various times during the evening and night. When I have gone out to see what is causing the alarm, I have found nothing. No shiny eyes of Coyotes, Deer or anything at all. Finally getting tired of it, I put the trail cam on the post that the sensor is attached to. The above picture shows the culprits. I think Yogi and I will do a bit of hunting this evening.

It is also the time of the year when Deer pheromones began wafting through the air. The peak of the "Rut" for Deer is fast approaching. I put a picture on the last blog, of one of the local "boys" that normally live on the ranch below me on the creek. Some of the biggest Bucks that I have ever seen live there. These two guy's, although most hunters never kill anything bigger, are small fry. My guess is that they are about three years old, and a buck Deer doesn't reach maturity until about 7 or 8.

  This is the first one that hung around here for a while. Notice the two white spots on his neck. He is also a 3x3, and his horns are a little bit wider than his ears.

 This is the latest one.

 You can see the first flakes of the winter in the air.

Here is the latest one, and he is a 4x3. Only one white spot on his neck and his horns are no wider than his ears. The ears on a Mule Deer are about 18 inches wide. There are Deer further down the creek whose horns spread almost 30 inches wide. You nor I have the money to buy that tag from the rancher.

The recent rains and the bit of warm weather afterward sprouted the Cheat grass. The ranch below me needs all the natural feed he can get for his Cows, and he has dumped them out on this section of his ranch. The Cows mow it down as fast as it can grow, but this section is fenced off from them, and along with the tall Sage at the Creek, it is one of the better areas for a Doe that doesn't like crowds. There are generally about 30 or more Deer on his place feeding in the Alfalfa fields. The big boys will be fighting for the privilege of siring the next generation. Here, all they have to do is wait for the Doe that lives her to come into estrus.

Oct 30, 2013, pretty much of a bust!

I was unable to come up with a title for today's events, since the events of the day covers so much ground.

Now that Deer season has closed, with Karen not seeing anything to shoot. Now granted, she didn't put in much effort, since we still had venison in the freezer. Now of course the heat is off, and they are all over the place.

 He is kind of a nice one, even though he is only a three x three. Of course the Rut starts sometime in the next week or so, and that is why he is so bold. When it only happens once a year, you want to be ready.

We have recovered from our trip to the OFA Meet, so I picked up Yogi to see if we on our own could find any Rabbits. I also thought to take my rifle along just in case I could call up a Coyote. Well that didn't happen, so after giving it a good 40 minutes, and only irritating a lady's Dog on a farm about a half mile away.

I went back to the truck, and moved a bit further back into the lava flow to see if there were any Jacks back there. Yogi and I put in about 2 hours walking all through the Sage, and managed to jump about 4 Jacks. They were busting more that a hundred yards ahead of us, so our chances were doomed to begin with.

Yogi got so desperate to find something that she began prospecting on her own.

 Of course I didn't have the heart to tell her that she was wasting her time.

https://vimeo.com/78205742    password- owyheeflyer

After writing this part of the day up, I loaded up Jessie to see if we could kill a Duck. The short answer is no, she still doesn't want to play. Sigh! It looks like its going to be an interesting year. :-/