Can you believe this wasn't Little Dog??

Well I did it, I entered a my first Coyote Contest in 2 years that wasn't Dupree Dog Days.  I love these things but with 3 young childeren I just haven't had the time.  This weekend worked out so I called Chief about 3 weeks ago to get him on the hook, but his schedule didn't work out.  I went to my 2nd choice Mark Stevens.  Mark hadn't been on a lot of coyote calling adventures so I was excited to get another person Addicted.  We started out the morning just before shooting light, and howled at the edge of the property we were planning to hunt, after a little bit we got an answer and the coyote wasn't that far away.  We put on a sneak into a nearby creek bed and found a coyote eating on something dead, knowing that it would be hard to pull this guy off of this fresh meat we put on a spot and stalk it worked and 7:30am we had a pup in the truck.  Temperature never really warmed up like they said it was going to and there was no wind to speak of, but the coyotes wouldn't come, after about 4 more stands we stopped for lunch to regroup, one dog in the truck and we needed more.  After lunch we tried a surefire spot but nothing showed, at this point we were getting frustrated, as we scrapped our plans and were making new ones we saw some deer moving, then a coyote, he was 800 yards away and had spotted us, no way to get him, took a long shot and missed, but our spirits had lifted as maybe things were moving now.  At 2:00 we called a coyote withing 50 yards, but I had the shot and I didn't see him, Mark took an off hand shot just as he busted us, needless to say this was my fault for not spotting him and chalk one up to 2 guys who haven't hunted much together.  I had just finished the series on the next stand when from around the ridge BOOM! a shot rang out, with no follow up, I was sure this was our 2nd dog of the day, but Mark got one to come in above him and shooting up-hill he was just a little short.  The next stand looked perfect it was just past 3:00pm MT and the sun just came out from behind the clouds, with the sun to our backs we headed for the next stand but just as we sat down a coyote took off ahead of us BUSTED!  Running out of daylight we tried to hit 2 more stands the next one provided nothing, as we were driving to our last stand of the day we scared of 3 more coyotes trying to get around them to set up a stand we lost light but fun was had. 

Our coyote weighed in at 21.8 LBS.  The Little Dog weighed 21.2 LBS.  Oh well you win some, and you loose some.

It took 3 Dogs to place 1st, 2nd & 3rd.  I left without the official results, but Jeff Rheborg and his partner placed, along with Bob Stalley and Austin Early.

Thanks to Rocky Tibbs and Jerry Hunsley for putting on a great contest.

I hope to see you all at Dupree Dog Days in February.