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.