Started off the '22-'23 calling season the past couple weeks. Been kind of a slow start for early season action which is usually pretty wild this time of year in South Dakota. Killed 4 coyotes and 1 fox so far this year.
9/23/22
Spent a day hunting with the shotguns in the rough cedar Belle Fouche River breaks. We did call a coyote to 15 yards, pretty sure he's dead but he got into the tall switch grass in the bottom of a spring fed draw and we couldn't find him.
10-17-22
Caught this fox mousing in the road ditch. Got out laid down on the edge of the ditch(completely legal here) about that time a car came down the road and the fox spooked. I let the car go on by. High tailed it over the hill laid down and a few quick distress cries later he turned around and trotted right back in to 80 yards. Had my comp 22lr along as my truck gun on this particular day. SK Match subsonic got the job done
10-22-22
Watched the weather forecast everyday for a week it called for 30 mph SW winds. Lined up ground I could make work In a south west wind Friday night at 930 the forecast changed to 5-10 NW winds
. So we played around most of the day in the barren Buffalo grass prairies until the wind switched and we could make a different property work late in the day. She's rough out there, no cover and no grass, gonna be hard for a field mouse to survive let alone anything else in huge chunks of this county this winter. We made the most of what we had to work with and grinded out 3 coyotes(the only three we saw under 1500 yards) all big solo males. Killed 2 at 40 and 1 at 290.
Built a new coyote rifle this year but having some feeding issues so I packed my 22lb PRS rig around to shoot 2 coyotes at 40 yards...
10/10 don't recommend. My buddy killed the 290yarder, he actually signaled me over to where he was because he had a coyote somewhere on his side he lost sight of. When I got up to move a coyote off to the west started barking, he had snuck in undetected. My buddy got him killed just as the last light faded.
10/24/22
Was actually on the way out to get rid of the dead and seen a coyote from the road. 2 air balls later and I realized I had a full mil dialed on the scope from a previous encounter. . Took the deads to feed the eagles and had the right wind so hiked over the ridge and a few minutes on the hand call and had a pair of pups show up and die side by side at 120 yards.
Hoping to have some new hardware from the chassis manufacturer this week and I'll have the new 22GT rocking and Rollin this week. The orange army takes to field here next weekend, in the past 10 years or so that I've been transitioning to more and more Predator hunting and less big game hunting 1 thing I've learned is there is no greater event that influences western South Dakota coyotes than the rifle deer season so we will see where it goes from here.
9/23/22
Spent a day hunting with the shotguns in the rough cedar Belle Fouche River breaks. We did call a coyote to 15 yards, pretty sure he's dead but he got into the tall switch grass in the bottom of a spring fed draw and we couldn't find him.
10-17-22
Caught this fox mousing in the road ditch. Got out laid down on the edge of the ditch(completely legal here) about that time a car came down the road and the fox spooked. I let the car go on by. High tailed it over the hill laid down and a few quick distress cries later he turned around and trotted right back in to 80 yards. Had my comp 22lr along as my truck gun on this particular day. SK Match subsonic got the job done
10-22-22
Watched the weather forecast everyday for a week it called for 30 mph SW winds. Lined up ground I could make work In a south west wind Friday night at 930 the forecast changed to 5-10 NW winds
. So we played around most of the day in the barren Buffalo grass prairies until the wind switched and we could make a different property work late in the day. She's rough out there, no cover and no grass, gonna be hard for a field mouse to survive let alone anything else in huge chunks of this county this winter. We made the most of what we had to work with and grinded out 3 coyotes(the only three we saw under 1500 yards) all big solo males. Killed 2 at 40 and 1 at 290.Built a new coyote rifle this year but having some feeding issues so I packed my 22lb PRS rig around to shoot 2 coyotes at 40 yards...
10/10 don't recommend. My buddy killed the 290yarder, he actually signaled me over to where he was because he had a coyote somewhere on his side he lost sight of. When I got up to move a coyote off to the west started barking, he had snuck in undetected. My buddy got him killed just as the last light faded. 10/24/22
Was actually on the way out to get rid of the dead and seen a coyote from the road. 2 air balls later and I realized I had a full mil dialed on the scope from a previous encounter.
. Took the deads to feed the eagles and had the right wind so hiked over the ridge and a few minutes on the hand call and had a pair of pups show up and die side by side at 120 yards.Hoping to have some new hardware from the chassis manufacturer this week and I'll have the new 22GT rocking and Rollin this week. The orange army takes to field here next weekend, in the past 10 years or so that I've been transitioning to more and more Predator hunting and less big game hunting 1 thing I've learned is there is no greater event that influences western South Dakota coyotes than the rifle deer season so we will see where it goes from here.
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