Dead Dog – First coyote of the season.

I figured out what to do with the weekend–hunt coyotes! And look what came running in looking for a free lunch.

I only had time to make a couple of stands. It was windy, but I set up on a high oak ridge. This would be the same stand where I missed a double last year on the day after Thanksgiving.

No missing today. This female came roaring in and ran right past the call and straight toward me. I was looking the other direction and only caught her movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned and she instantaly caught my movement and spun around.

Too late. I sent a cloud of Hornady Bad Coyote BBs her way at about 37 paces from a Stoeger 2000 12 gauge. I had to send a couple of insurance loads after, but the first dog of the season in in the bag.

It’s just so damn much fun! Can’t get enough of it.

Grouse

Love it!!

How do you like the Stoeger?

I was thinking about buying a reasonably priced 20 gauge semi or over under for grouse and woodcock.

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How do you like the Stoeger?

I was thinking about buying a reasonably priced 20 gauge semi or over under for grouse and woodcock.

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I like the Stoeger. I use a 20 gauge for almost everything that flies, but I bought the Stoeger just as rough-use 12 gauge for nasty wind, wet, snow, etc.

And yotes, of course. I didn’t like the idea of ripping 00 buck and 3 inch BB loads out of a nice $1500 autoloader, so I got the Stoger figuring that getting it done ugly is still getting it done.

One big tip, however. When Stoger autoloaders first came out, they got a lot of bad reviews that they wouldn’t cycle. This was almost 100% due to the new onwers failing to read the instructions and not assembling the fore-end retaining washers in the correct order. The washers MUST be put on as shown in the manual, they are not interchangeable.

Mine has never hung up on any load from light trap to 3 inch Yote Pounders. Benelli action at just over a third of the cost of a Benelli. Tough to beat in my book.

Unfortunately, Stoeger doesn’t make a 20 gauge autoloader. Just over/unders.

Grouse

Congrats!!!

them all

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them all

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Well,that certainly would be the goal of the cattle rachers in the area where I hunt.

I will tell you overall, that I highly doubt I’m even making a dent. It is fun, but it sure ain’t easy. My observation has been that even the coyotes that came in totally fooled, wised up QUICK when there was no free lunch where they thought the free luch should be.

My conclusion is that there are a lot more coyotes than simple visual sightings would indicate, but in MN they are vastly, vastly more wary and harder to hunt than I expected.

My cattle ranching friends have agreed to help out the cause by NOT shooting at any coyote that they aren’t certain they can hit. I hunt several father/son ranching operations and in both cases, the old guys have a habbit of pulling out the .30-30 and blazing away at every coyote they see. No use making them even more wary, so I got them to agree just to call me and not give away any more free wariness training.

Wheather or not this helps my batting average is TBD.

Grouse