By Glen Wunderlich Outdoor Columnist Member Professional Outdoor Media Association
When I stepped outside last week and heard the eerie calls of coyotes, little did they know they weren’t only signaling their brethren, but me, too. Those early-evening, high-pitched yelps and barks might have communicated a fresh kill to the nearby pack; to me, they were flaunting their very existence in my territory.
Which of us arrived in the neighborhood first is a moot point. Whether humans have encroached on varmint homeland or vice versa matters not. No doubt animal rightists have helped with the expansion of coyotes and foxes into areas of the country, as never before, through their use of campaigns against fur. So be it; that’s today’s reality. But, that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
Let nature take its course; it’ll all balance out, they claim. Fine. But, as a human animal, I am part of nature, too, and with God-given abilities, I have the capacity to be a factor in the natural selection process.
That power would manifest itself in a manner the varmints would least suspect it. My friend, Joe, was on his way from the big city for a little “balancing act.” First we purchased fur takers licenses to go along with our small game tags, just in case foxes fell for our clever ruse. Joe would be the rifleman and I would manage calling operations. As our boots noisily crunched the snow on the way to our blind, we discussed strategy. Joe would wait for any target to become motionless. There’d be no running shots, unless our prey had busted us and were running away.
To minimize noise, we split up, and I snuck to a position some 100 yards upwind of our deer-converted, varmint blind. While Joe was setting set up his Ruger .300 Winchester magnum in the shack, I set out a Flambeau Lone Howler coyote decoy with a battery-powered motion rabbit at its feet,. Flambeau’s coyote copy is a life-like, full-bodied replica complete with an imitation fur tail and collapsible legs. It can be positioned in 3 ways: lying, sitting, or standing. The wire tail can be adjusted for the desired effect, too.
It has worked for us in the past and we were confident our first set this season would trick the local killers this time out, too. After the wireless Fox Pro game caller was hung from the branch of a nearby white pine some 90 yards from our ambush position, I joined Joe in the shack.
We sat. We chatted. We waited.
After things settled down for a while, I punched up a rabbit distress cry on the caller and ran it for about a minute and then stopped. At the far corner of the field two forms appeared – red foxes!
Joe dialed in one of the stationary predators and launched a rocket-like, 110- grain missile. At 146 yards, in less than .14 of a second after the muzzle blast, fox number one was down. Fox number two escaped into the woods, but out of nowhere, another one appeared in front of us. Surprised, Joe wasn’t able to gather himself until it was doing the fox trot at a 90-degree angle from us. Bullet number two traveling at 2454 miles-per-hour won the race at 111 yards and the pair of foxes had been officially outfoxed.
The more I hunt, the more I appreciate good decoying techniques. The Lone Howler decoy far downwind, permits undetected hunter movement, which is vital to the pretense. Additionally, when the predators approach, the realistic nature of the deception tends to cause them to ignore potential danger. They proceed on a beeline to the fast- food foolery.
Varmint season had begun with a bang – two, in fact. And, the local population of turkeys, pheasant, and rabbits will be better for it.
