Saturday afternoon my seven year old and I went predator calling. We made a set along the edge of a 200-acre wheat field. We set our Jack in the Box Decoy, the MoJo owl decoy, and the Ipod predator caller about 100 yards east of us and we climbed up on top of an old peanut combine. I felt a little stupid setting on top of a red and white combine in camo but it offers an unbeatable view. The way I have the Ipod setup (Ipod, miniature audio amplifier, outdoor speaker) it goes through about 35 minutes of calling and periods of silence. Most of the sequences are rabbit distress calls about one minute long each. The periods of silence are two to four minutes between calls. The end of the sequence has about 8 minutes of woodpecker distress calls. I do that to pull a bobcat in that maybe hung up just out of sight. The whole thing plays over and over until you stop it. All the calls were downloaded from Varmint Al's site.
Back to the story....
I normally just let the call run through once and we move but with all the "stuff" and the 7 year old, it was best to just stay here til dark. We had started about 30 minutes before sunset and had made it through about 45 minutes of calling when the pair of coyotes came out of a wooded draw north of us headed east to the decoys. When i saw them I pulled 2 extra shells between my fingerson my forearm hand. I let them clear the brush and get out into the open of the wheatfield before I shot the tailing dog, the male. I have noticed over the years that the female is always in front during the breeding season this time of year. I shot him with my handi 357 a swift 2X scope mounted scout style. I used 140 grain Winchester silvertips for the ammo and I shot him at a ranged 94 yards. I squealed like a whooped pup and stopped the fleeing female at about 175 yards and made a quick kentucky windage adjustment and hit just under her belly in the sand. The calves in the field then proceeded to run her off.
If you don't predator call, try it. Just a mouth call and any handi rifle or shotgun will work. Calling in the woods with a 12 ga and #4 buckshot is dealy to over 50 yards. make your situation fit the gun in hand as far as range is concerned. It is all fun and better than tv or even the computer anytime.
