Dang cats are expensive.

[Travis798]

Never been a cat guy, but quickly realized they are a necessity after moving out of town and in what is basically the middle of a pasture. Gotta admin the dang things grew on me.

Coyotes got one not long ago. Took me a week to go back and really comb through footage after she went missing. They stayed back in the dark that I don't monitor at night except for about 15 seconds worth where one ran up after another cat that got away. Missed it while combing through at 32x, found it later. I didn't get the actual kill of the cat on camera, it was in what I know is a night blind spot that I've been meaning to cover, but I got the audio of the kill on the cameras.

Anyway, the expensive part is me, going out and buying a thermal scope so that retribution (justice?) may be served. Then me realizing that oh, a coyote call might be helpful, but I'm lazy and don't want to take the time to learn a manual one, better get an E-Caller. Dang, this AR gets heavy after a while scoping back and forth to see what's out there, better get me a thermal monocular.

Probably wouldn't go through all this, but waddles (she waddled when she walked by the time she was here long enough for me to name her, I feed them well) was my best hunter, and a good kitty. Plus I have more to protect. 2 would be fine staying locked up at night, but that defeats their purpose, and one is having none of being locked up. I think it kills her soul a little each time. So this is what it's come to.

 

[Travis798]

Just after posting this I missed my chance.

Heard coyotes yipping and howling just outside, watched out my bedroom window for about 15 minutes (screen slides up). I was watching some deer kinda hidden behind a bush, they weren't moving and just standing there, grazing I figured. One kinda walked out a little from behind the bush, still partially obscured, head still down, eating away. This went on for a good 15 minutes. Then I see another heat signature, smaller, slowly moving towards them, still obscured by another bush on the other side of me. Ah-Ha! Maybe that's one! So I watch it and keep moving back to see if the deer get spooked, then all the sudden the potential "coyote I was watching comes out from being broken up by the bush in full view. It's a cat! It jumps in the tree and one of the "deer" bolts into clear view running to the tree and jump up putting 2 paws on the tree. Oh hell, the "deer" I was watching to see if they were spooked were the dang coyotes I was watching for. Doh!

Now my heart is racing. I know which cat it is. The one that can't stand being locked up. I'm pretty sure she's street smart and will stay in the tree, but what if she panics and jumps to make a run for it? Where did the other coyote go? It's still standing where it was, partially obscured by the bush. The one on the tree gets down off it as I'm trying to line up a shot and starts walking back to the other one. I can't see the cat in the tree anymore. One coyote looks like it sees something and starts back from behind the bush. I can't chance it. Gotta take the shot. Missed. Of course. I'm panicked that I'm about to lose another cat. Coyotes run off. I grabbed my light and went out to look for blood (Did I injure it?) and get my cat. No blood that I can see. Did I miss it? I'm zero'ed in at 50 yards and this was a 125 yard shot with a .223 hollow point. Bullet might hit a little high but not that high. Cross hairs were lined up when the trigger was pulled. Either I hit it or with my heart racing I pulled the trigger I figure.

Cat saw me and ran to me, followed me back to the house. Hopefully she stays put. I doubt the coyotes are coming back tonight. I'll call it a win.

 

[TonyR]

Do you write fiction when not hunting coyotes? I was really getting into your story and drama. Good write up, man.

 

[Travis798]

Ha! I'm not that creative. I was just writing while it was still fresh in my mind while I was trying to work out how the heck I missed!

 

[bigredfish]

Good story

FYI typically .223/556 will be 1.5-2” high at 100 with a 50yd zero. Comes back to zero at about 200 yds.

 

[Travis798]

I'm back to entertain ya'll some more. So I had walked outside to just kinda play with my monocular, leaving my rifle in the bedroom and a pistol on my hip, when I looked over and thought dang, there's something over there where I saw the coyotes the other night. So I grabbed my gun, but at that distance I'm not really experienced enough yet with thermal to tell the difference between deer and coyote without everything lining up just perfect. So I thought I'll slip out and get closer. I head out the front door, not thinking to grab a flashlight on my way out because hey, I have thermal. Big mistake.

I ease up towards this white blob on my scope, stopping to make a little whistle and see if I can get it to lift it's head up so I can see what it is, which doesn't work. It does ease back towards the back of the property, and I dutifully follow. I get all the way to the south fence line, almost walking into it, rest the rifle on a post and determine that I was, in fact, stalking a deer. At this point, I say, OUT LOUD, "You're just a deer, you're okay" and turn around to start walking back. Now it's pitch black out there, and I had just walked through so I don't know why I did, but I stopped and raised the scope to just do a little quick scan. Probably 8-10 yards ahead of me, in the path I'd just walked, stood a very canine looking creature.

I thought no way is this a coyote, they are way too skittish for that. But I do have a border collie, roughly coyote size that I'd left in the house. As I'm sizing up the situation I thought I'll talk to it, if it runs it's probably not a dog, and definitely not MY dog. Now keep in mind this is all within 10 seconds of me talking out loud to the deer. I have this thing in my sights, that seems blissfully unaware of my presence at all, and say "you're not a deer". It stops and looks at me, but doesn't move. So I continue with my talking to it plan by saying "you're not very smart for a coyote if you are one" and then it takes off. Now I know for a fact it's NOT my dog, but I still have it in my head that it could be SOMEONE'S dog, but could also be a coyote. I'm torn. If it's not a dog it needs to go away forever, especially if it's that brazen. If it is a dog, I don't want to kill it.

With time ticking by and the "thing" heading towards my west fence line, I decide to take a warning shot close to it, but not kill it, because I'm a brain dead idiot that doesn't think about the fact that even if it is a dog, it could kill my cats too. So I fire a shot near it, safely into the ground. This makes it turn. Now it's running full speed towards my house, and my cats. Crap. I take another shot and it just finds another gear, running faster. But my brain is working overtime. I know my dog wouldn't have ran from me like that, so I know it's not him. But did the door latch behind me? It didn't run off very fast when it first took off until my warning shot. My dog hates loud noises of any kind. Even if it's a .0001% chance it could be him, I mean, it would kill me if I killed my dog in some tragic mistake. Now this thing is fast, like a coyote. But my Border collie is really dang quick too. I know it's not him, but it COULD be. So I lead it, enough I know I won't hit it, and send a round into the dirt in front of it. That does the trick. It turns and high tails it into the pasture while I high tail it to the house to be double, triple sure my dog is there, where I find him laying on the floor in front of the door happy to see me.

Long story short, I gotta get better at reading thermal images, and if that coyote would have came towards me I probably would have thought it was my dog and welcomed it to me with open arms. From now on, I'm taking a flashlight. And hopefully the coyotes at least figure out to leave this place alone or one of these days I'll actually KNOW hey, I'm looking at a coyote with a clear and open shot, and I'll get my retribution.

 

[Travis798]

I can't believe it's going on 3 weeks since I've posted about this. After some growing pains, temporarily adding a T2231T-ZS that's intended for my shop, to a tree with about 300' of cat 6 just running along the ground so I can monitor the coyote heavy area of my property, and another change in scopes (more money spent) to a pretty awesome digital night vision scope, I've now removed 4 coyotes from the property. That number includes the one in the original post that I thought I'd missed. I found it just a few feet past my south fence line in the pasture, where it had expired. Camera caught 3 out there yesterday before one of them permanently left, so there's still work to do. Neighbors have told me they had been losing cattle to coyotes and I was welcome to remove all I saw from their property, so I feel I'm doing a public service. Every day there has been at least 3-4 piles of scat just on the road around here, so it would probably scare me to know exactly how many coyotes are in the area. If I'm seeing that many just on my little 4 acre yard, I'm sure we are overrun completely. In talking with others, it's become apparent that my last encounter was not unique. They are showing no fear of going very near people in the hunt for food. Pups are weaned by this time, parents are working overtime I guess.

My remaining barn cats are still here, but even the independent explorer has really stopped traveling, instead opting for the safety of staying either in a tree, or on top of my polaris ranger for the nights.

And on the camera part of this forum, I will say that this ATN X-Sight 4k pro scope is pretty impressive, near as I can tell basically being a camera inside a scope with a screen and digital zoom. It will record 1080p at 30fps to memory card, I might have to make and post a video. The low light abilities of this thing is awesome, and the digital zoom isn't really a slouch either.

 

[mat200]

Especially now with high gasoline prices ..