STORIES AND PICTURES           _______________                                                                          

Northern hunt by Cory Davis

November 9 through November 13, 2006

Day 1, it was just before 5:00am, I just arrived at Eddie Hawkins house for a 5-day northern hunting trip for predators.  Mark Zepp and Jake Walker were also heading up north.  The plan was to hunt some stuff close to home before heading up the hill to the cold country.  Our first two stands didn’t produce anything.  On the third stand, we were 5 minutes into the call using a FoxPro FX-3 playing the woodpecker, and Eddie spotted a coyote coming in from about 450 yards out.  I turned the call off when the coyote got to about 200 yards.  Eddie kissed at it about 150 yards out to stop it, but it only changed its direction, coming straight to us.  It was now 80 yards out and Eddie tried to stop it again.  It spooked and started heading out, but then it checked up for a 78-yard shot.  I had just dropped the first coyote of the trip at 8:45 in the morning.  I was using Eddie’s Savage model 12 22-243AI on this trip for the extra long range if needed.  Stand #4 had us using the dsg cottontail on the FoxPro.  7 ½ minutes into the call and we had another coyote on the way.  The coyote entered the opening about 180 yards out.  I turned the call off and let the coyote come in.  The coyote stopped on its own at 113 yards for a frontal shot.  The coyote dropped in its tracks.  We did one more stand with nothing showing up before heading up the mountain.  It was now about 4:00pm and we were southeast of Winslow scouting out some stands to do before the sun went down.  The wind had picked up quite a bit, but we still did 2 more stands in before the end of the day, with nothing showing up.  The four of us ate dinner and spent the night in Holbrook.

Day 2, Eddie and I had decided to do some stands to the east where we had some pretty good action the year before.  Our first stand of the morning, we were set up in a wash with the shotgun and my .243 for backup if we had a coyote hang up.  We had been calling for 2 minutes using a cottontail distress, when I noticed a coyote coming in quickly from our far right side, less than one hundred yards out.  This time I let the call run to get the coyote into shotgun range.  The coyote was 30 yards out when I shot.  The back end of the coyote gave out and then drug for a couple of steps.  The coyote composed itself and hit the after burners, I shot a second time and it piled up. I was using Eddie’s Beretta 391 with 3 ½” #4 shot turkey loads, and a super full turkey choke.  The sun was just cresting the mountains and we had a big male on the ground.  We moved about a ½ mile for the second stand.  We changed the sound to a jackrabbit and 3 minutes later, Eddie got my attention since we had a coyote coming in, 50 yards out.  The coyote stopped at 36 yards for a frontal shot and dropped in its tracks.  I turned on the pup distress for a minute and back to the jackrabbit, and a second coyote was on the way at 7 minutes.  The coyote stopped at 87 yards for a broadside shot and piled up.  Eddie and I moved about five miles for the third stand.  We used the jackrabbit again.  As I lifted my head after turning on the call, I noticed that we had two coyotes coming in.  They responded in 3 seconds.  Eddie barked when they got to about 100 yards.  The lead coyote stopped and the second coyote spooked and ran.  I dropped the first coyote and tried to find the second coyote while turning on the pup distress.  The second coyote never showed itself so I went to retrieve the first coyote. When I got back to where Eddie was filming, we were talking about what had just happened when Eddie spotted the second coyote on a hill about 300 yards out.  I got back on the gun and took a quick shot aiming about 5” over.  I missed and the coyote left.  We did two more stands while heading over to Selligman with nothing came in. 

                       Day 3, it was real windy.  We called four stands with no action, and did a lot of scouting.

                      Day 4, Eddie and I decided to head back around Winslow, since it was less windy.  We did two stands first thing in the morning, before meeting up with Raymond Branch, a local trapper and member of the Arizona Trappers association, to give him the coyotes that Eddie and I had harvested. We went back out for the third stand.  We had been calling for 13 minutes, when I noticed a white spot that I didn’t remember seeing before.  I got the binoculars up and told Eddie that we had a coyote.  Eddie got the camera in position, while I got myself into position and took the shot.  140 yards and #7 was on the ground.  Eddie and I talked about going back to the stands we did on the second day of the hunt to do some howling and kiyi’s.  It was mid day by the time we got there.  The first stand we did, nothing came in.  We decided to go where we had called the two in, and I shot the first one and missed the second shot at 300 yards.  Eddie did two howls on the Zepps 1080 and waited about 3 minutes.  Then I turned on the Bill Austin kiyi for about 20 seconds.  10 seconds later we had a coyote respond back to us with a howl.  Eddie spotted it on the same hill where I had taken the shot on the missed coyote.  The coyote moved to another vantage point and stopped.  I had a solid rest and did not want it to spook, so I took the shot at 270 yards.  After a short run, it went down.  We did two more stands before calling it a day. 

                        Day 5, we didn’t have a whole lot of time before we needed to head home.  We got down in a huge wash and called, with nothing coming in.  The next stand we only moved about 300 yards down the wash and pointed the call in a different direction and change the sound.  At 13 minutes, Eddie had spotted a coyote coming in about 600 yards out.  I let the call run until she was about 200 yards out.  She kept coming.  Eddie stopped her at 82 yards out and I dropped her.  We did one more stand before heading home. 

5 days

Eddie and I called 10 coyotes harvested 9 coyotes 8 on the camera missed 1 coyote 3 males and 6 females

Mark and Jake called 8 coyotes and 1 red fox harvested 2 coyotes and the fox on the camera