Coyote toughness?

[tennz]

Shot at my first coyote today while approaching a field that I frequently hunt groundhogs. I spotted it out around 180 yards. I was lucky enough to get a broadside shot at him while he moved in a slow trot. I'm not a great shooter, but I rarely miss a hog under 250 yards. Well this yote made a wierd jump as I squeezed off the round and ran up a hill and out of site. I just can't believe I missed at that range. If I gut shot him could he have ran like he did up a steep hill? I was using a 22-250. Thanks

 

[soren]

It's not tough to kill a coyote; but if you made a bad shot they can hang on like most any other animal. A 22-250 is good medicine.

 

[DropDead]

22-250 is excellent round for coyote, can do some fur damage tho.
Balistic tips will do some major damage on them, HPBT not near as much from my limited experiance. If your using ballistic tips and hit him any were near vitals id say hes dead out there not too far from were you last seen him. Ive shot a couple at 300 yards with ballistic tips and left a softball size exit hole. 1 at 309 yards with HPBT no exit but inside was a wound cavity about size of pool ball, a little lighter load tho than my ballistic tip loads were.

 

[GUNNER 1]

never be suprised at what a coyote will do with a big hole in them , i could tell you storys all day about coyotes that walk crawled or ran away , when hit really hard , and story about aint no way i missed , but in end i did, your 22-250 will do the job, any where on coyotes, the trick is to killem , dead first shot, good luck gun)gun)

 

[killahog]

Did you find any hair or blood where you shot him?. It sounds like when you shot it was still moving at 180 yards those shots get tricky.

 

[436]

Mr. Yote is very tenacious of life….. He doesn't give it up easily; especially if hit poorly. And he has two speeds; there and gone!
436

 

[dogdinger]

if that was your first it is very likely that you have never seen a skinned coyote. you will be suprised at how small the body size of the average coyote is when the hair is gone. only about 4 to 6 inches from top of back to brisket. you most likely just grazed him....now he is well educated! next time you have a situation with one walking, try to bark at him and make him stop and look for where the sound came from. it works almost every time. better luck next time...AJ

 

[RugerM77.270]

I feel your pain. Last deer season I shot my first coyote with a 270 at 60 yards. I hit him a little back I found hair and guts but no coyote. Tough buggers aren't they.

 

[tennz]

Thanks for all the replies. Yes he was moving in a very fast walk. I was so afraid to spook him I was very quite. I didn't know to bark and see if he stops. I will definitely bark next time.

 

[long range dogr]

never be suprised at what a coyote will do with a big hole in them , i could tell you storys all day about coyotes that walk crawled or ran away , when hit really hard , and story about aint no way i missed , but in end i did, your 22-250 will do the job, any where on coyotes, the trick is to killem , dead first shot, good luck gun)gun)

What he said! I've seen em hit with 25.06's and still try to crawl off. A bad shot is a bad shot!

 

[remingtonman_25_06]

A lot tougher then people think.

I've shot quite a few coyotes with a broad range of calibers from .222 rem through 338 EDGE w/300g SMK's.

If you dont hit a coyote good enough to kill him on the 1st shot, he will usually run aways. He may or may not die.

Like another poster said, a coyote is not very big once you get all there haif off them, usually only 4-5 inches from stomach to back, thats not a very big target at all, especially when there moving. Anybody can shoot sitting groundhogs at 300 yards all day, but when things start moving, it gets a bit trickier.

Since were on the subject of toughness or bad shooting lol, the last coyote I shot was a prime example of there will to live, especially with bad shot placement. My dad hit him first on the run about 100 yards, hit him far back with a 117g SGK, he was spinning and trying to get up so I stuck a 50g vmax in him from my 22-250, didn't know where I hit him, but I could hear the thud and he was still spinning and kicking, flipping, he ended up regaining himself and took off running, I proceeded to lead him a bit and touched off another 50g vmax which was once again confirmed as a hit by the sound of the bullet and him hitting the dirt. I thought he was dead so I foolishly left my rifle at the truck and when I got about 5 yards from him you could clearly tell he still had a lot of life left in him. That poor coyote was all shot up, one of the back legs was about gone from the 1st 117g sgk, had a hole in his neck from one of the 50g vmax's. When I started to walk away from him to go get my rifle he got up and ran off once again. By the time I got my rifle and back up there, he obviously had enough gas to make it out of the country because I never caught up with him again. Do I think he lived, no. But that is just one example of a couple that I've come across over the years.

 

[tracker12ga]

And he has two speeds; there and gone!
436

LMAO!! I have seen a number of them get up and run after what I thought were good shots. I saw one get smacked with a 243 (hard). It went straight down. We thought we had one DRT. While pup whining trying to get another one to come in, the one we just shot got up and ran off!! Never did find it and there wasn't hardly much of a blood trail.

The bigger ones here in Indiana seem to take a Vmax or a Blitzking from a 223 quite well. I switched to a 60gr HP in uy 223 and I had better knockdown results. Song dogs are one tough animal that has my respect!!

 

[theodore]

Tracked one wounded yote so far in my life. No idea where it was hit but I just will not believe it was hit in the vitals or gut due to using 7mm rem mag. There was snow so blood was really visible every couple of feet for about 1/2 a mile. Hardly any vegetaion on the mountains, went around down a canyon and the yote went into this only big tree-bush (about 20ft across) next to a creek in a deep rivine. I went in, put the gun safety on other wise it would have went off. Went about 10ft, didn't see it 2ft in front of me till it started barking. Scared the **** out of me, it couldn't go any farther or it thought. I couldn't pull the gun up because it was so thick. So it took me about 10 seconds to pull the barrel facing it, the gun was by my hips and let the safety off. Gun went off immediately. The yote quit barking and I couldn't believe it that yote disappeared with some fur flying in the air. Where the yote was sitting before it disappeared, there was small blood puddle that had to be from the first shot. That was it, went back to the truck to head back home for a chain saw. Then it didn't work out cause it took the rest of the day to get the truck unstuck.

So the yote won.