Weekend Info

[shadowchaser]

Friday night was my first of the year for predators. I don't have a lot of areas to hunt so I waited for some contests. Endless Mountain Coonhunters Club had one so my journey began.

Friday morning(1am)called in coyotes. Winded me and wouldn't come in. Responded about 10 min. mark using eastern cottontail.

Friday late afternoon- Saturday morning (5pm-3 am)
Stand 1- Produced 0 responses or preds. Stayed on stand one hour. Used rabbit distress, platinum grey, and closed with coyote vocals.

Stand 2- 2 greys responded within 10 minutes to platinum grey followed by turkey distress. Peppered one about 30-40 yards with 12g  2 3/4 #4 Buckshot(no kill). They both continued to circle for 15 minutes with no further shot. Switched to coyote locator with an instant response. Stayed 1.25 hours with no sighting.

Stand 3-Foxbang set off while placing(platinum grey). Quickly got into position. Bobcat was 50-75 yards staring at me. Turned and left. At 30 minute mark played deer distress. Bobcat came to around 150 yards (missed .223). It popped back up around 250-300yds (missed). Tried coyote vocals no response. Checked shots for signs of hit. Coyotes opened on ridge. No gun, but I did use my Bee's O'Brien cowhorn. They responded for about 5-10 minutes.

Sunday morning (1 am-3 am)-Stand 1 nothing

Stand 2 at 30 minute mark 1 red blazed by call. No shot. Used rabbit distress.

Stand 3-Fell and smashed my skull, broke scope, mount, gun light and caller got banged up. Was able to fix light and got a new bolt for quick mount. Caller wasn't broke, but scope is a tad foggy. Skull is thick. Used numerous profanities and no predators.

Minus the terrible shooting and the owl still hooting in my head it was a decent weekend. Would have like to weigh in a fox, but oh well.

[Bowman66]

Wow what a weekend! Hope you feel better soon!

[Misterjake23]

There are a lot of guys who would love to have a weekend that eventful!!  The kill is only the icing on the cake.  The thrill of the hunt is knowing you out smarted them to the point they responded !!!   JMO

[Oldgrey1]

That's a good read, hope ur scope is OK.

[jaspr1]

  Awesome  One of us old guys needs to teach you how to fall correctly  so you don't bang up your gear... ............

[shadowchaser]

It gets tough because I like my Remington 700 SPS Varmint .223. It's a bull barrel and gets heavy as time goes by. I am surprised at the misses though with it. I'm usually spot on. I was a bit flustered by the caller going off. I've turned the foxbang off.

[Dale]

it's interesting the number of posts where people are getting shooting and missing... do y'all not practice at night?... when I was living up there, late summer after an evening of groundhog hunting, sit back enjoy the sunset and get your targets set up, when it gets dark enough it's show time... some times depending on the different loads I was shooting, there was no scope adjustments needed but sometimes there was slight adjustments... one thing for sure is I always needed to make sure I still maintained the same hold and cheek weld to keep things consistent... it was a lot easier to do this before the fur season opened and make necessary adjustments to keep up the proficiency after dark... the closer it came to season we'd break out the whole set up to include clothing just so everything was as it would be under actual hunting conditions... if a shot was missed it was seldom that we couldn't find a contributing factor not under our control that caused it...

just a little food for thought... good luck...