Well we went back out to try and eleminate some more coyotes. We blanked on the first stand. Had my youngest son on shotgun duty. We drove to another area we had seen a few on the antelope hunt. My oldest son and I began to glass as this is how we had seen most of coyotes in the area. About twenty seconds into glassing I found 5 all together. We grabbed our gear and snuck into the one bush we could find. A little cotton tail in distress and we had three of the five charging in. I told my oldest son to give his younger brother a chance with the shotgun, and let them come as close as they would come.
The lead dog came into 150 yards and checked up, caught our wind and left taking his two buddies with him. Upset we had three headed in and not a shot fired, my youngest said "dad you see the one by the rock?" I did a quick scan and found the one dog who was sure he was out of range. He was sitting in the middle of a rock pile and was looking back at the "bad bush". I asked my oldest for a range, to which he stated he had left the range finder back at the truck.
I figured I had nothing to loose, I got down behind my my rifle found Mr. Cocky sitting on his rump giving us the stink eye. I started my squeeze, (uncontrolled jerk). That's when I realized the safety was still on. Took the safety off, and really took my time on the trigger, utilizing the hold over hash marks in my scope, and guessing the range. After the shot I was able to see the coyote was down. My sons and I than realized just how far thie shot had been. We all started giving our guesses at the range, Gage 486, Gavin 385, me 400. We went and check the dog. I hit him just behind the left shoulder an the V-Max had done its job very effectively.
when we got back to the truck, Gage grabbed the range finder, and was back to the bad bush. As I walked back to him, I asked how far. Gage said 446. This was not my longest shot at a coyote, but it was the longest shot I had ever hit a coyote at. Was just lucky to have my two best hunting partners with me. The year has started off great, can't wait to see how the rest of the year go's!