Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - Coyote on Deer Opening Day

Shot Wiley Coyote Junior this morning with my Ruger 77/44.

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I hunt a place that is 80 acres and for a few years passed on great deer hoping that they'd become tremendous deer. Not one lived to be that size, they were all shot off the property either the year that I passed on them, or the next year. I had one that I passed in archery season because it had a broken tine, I ended up shooting it in ML season because someone shot it thru the left front knee with a .223 (during ML season). I heard that shot and thought "Oh good, someone is shooting coyotes". Nope. It came limping by not a half hour later.

Like RAH said, don't worry about something that you can't control.

Hoping this guy hangs around another year

I leave the yotes alone these days because of all the deer diseases that seem to keep spreading everywhere. They help take out fawns and keep the population in check. They also take out the sick. I try to take my limit on does as well. Need a muzzleloader doe to tag out when the season opens this Saturday. Small bucks are the easiest to shoot and most of my neighbors are not picky about what they target, so taking my limit on does helps keep the buck to doe ratio better suited to improving the trophy prospects.

I try not to get upset over things that I cannot control. If I see a nice buck, especially if it is old, then I try and take it. Its hard to let young bucks with nice racks walk, but I someday hope to take a really big one so I now let them walk. My place is also too small to hold a buck all the time, but I continue to enhance the wildlife habitat so that the deer spend more time on my place. We are restricted to one buck in Indiana across all seasons, so the real issue for me is some neighbors inviting all their buddies over to hunt. If they restricted the whole bunch to one buck on each property, then it would be fine. One fellow calls himself a meat hunter, but there is plenty of good meat on a mature animal vs. a yearling. To each his own I guess. I just try to enjoy my place (and stay away from the borders on opening day of gun). With all the volleys of gun shots, I wish they would ban semiautomatic weapons so folks would take more care on that first shot. I understand a euthanasia shot to end an animals suffering, but rapid-fire volleys of 3, 4, and 5 shots seems irresponsible and dangerous to me. I have read that for encouraging trophies, 2 does per buck should be the target. You want the biggest bucks to do most of the breeding so you need to encourage competition. I do not ever expect to reach this goal but I can nudge things in that direction.

I've started giving coyotes a pass. I know they will take some fawns but that's just Mama Nature at work. Why give them a pass? Because they are the only predator, other than me, that can attack the wild hogs. And, I am butt deep in the damn things.