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Wyoming Coyote Hunt

By Norm DeCastro

Wyoming Coyote Hunt December through February in Casper, Wyoming are typically cold, wind blown months punctuated by intermittent periods of relative calm. New Year’s Day was just such a day. I woke up to a bright, sunny, calm day. My friend Darrel Siemy, my two sons, and I were scheduled, wind permitting to try some coyote calling. Darrel arrived at about 9 AM and we were on our way at 9:30, headed to the Shirley Mountains South of Casper.

Despite being an avid hunter for over 30 years, I had never tried to call predators. Darrel does so with good success on a regular basis and was along to show me the ropes. We pulled into a section of BLM and proceeded up a drifted in two-track road as far as we thought we could without getting stuck, parked the truck, and set out on foot towards some abandoned corrals in the distance. As soon as we left the truck, Darrel spotted a coyote watching us with casual interest from about 600 or 700 yards.

We made it to the corrals and got set up. The fence lines were overgrown with sage and housed dozens of Jackrabbits and Cottontails that scattered as we approached. Darrel had his .223, my son Kip had my .204, and I was helping my son Logan man the 20 guage loaded with 3” #2’s. We set up our Cabelas Mini-Supreme Extreme Decoy and started calling.

Within minutes a coyote, probably the one we had seen from the truck, came over the hill to investigate. He came to within about 300 yards and started circling to our right, eventually disappearing behind a small snow covered ridge that lead to a gulley. We kept calling and kept watching that direction, thinking he was going to come in from our right. Darrel and I kept scanning the open sage and the wide wash in front of us and to our left, trying to pick up any movement that would indicate another coyote responding to the calls. As we called sequence after sequence, Darrel kept whispering that we should keep an eye out to our left as he felt we would pull one in from that direction. After about 40 minutes Darrel stage whispered “TO THE LEFT, TO THE LEFT!!” I looked to my left and saw a coyote bobbing up and down as it quartered away from us at about 70 yards. She stopped at about 100 yards quartering away and looked back over her shoulder towards us. At Darrel’s shot she took off half running half pushing her front end towards the wash, but she never made it.

After the excitement we gathered ourselves and our gear and trudged our through the drifts to the coyote. We gathered her up and back tracked her to see what had happened and how she had gotten so close without us seeing her. We followed her tracks to within 50 yards of us where she had apparently winded us. We spotted her as she swapped ends and entered our field of view as she vacated the area. As we walked back to the truck, we also found the tracks of the first coyote, who had made it to within about 70 yards coming in from the opposite direction when Darrel shot the second coyote. From his tracks he hit the skids, swapped ends, and left in a real hurry. Had we set up a little differently, we would have had two dogs instead of one.

We tried a couple of other spots, saw lots of tracks including some very fresh tracks made by three bobcats (probably a female and two cubs), but did not have any more takers. No matter – I was hooked when the first calling sequence faded into the prairie. I will be doing this again – just what I needed – another hobby!!