Eaton County, MI – 10/5/09
Until last night I had never really had the desire to coyote hunt. I suspect it has to do with my desire to eat what I kill. It’s a personal opinion, nothing more, nothing less. But last night I observed a coyote/deer interaction that I found interesting if not slightly disturbing and it prompted me to take a shot at my first coyote.
I’ll briefly explain my morning hunt as it contains some important backstory. Around 7:30 a.m. a coyote moved south to north across a bean field my treestands are stituated by. I enjoyed watching him as he trotted out of sight and returned my focus to whitetails. At about 8 a.m. three bucks ran full tilt towards my stand situated in the southeast corner of a bean field where the beans meet a small woodlot. The first two bucks crashed past my treestand and disappeared into the woodlot and the last buck, a forkhorn, stopped 10 yards in front of me. He was breathing heavily from the run and anxiously checked his back trail before bounding into the woods. Following the forkhorn’s cue, I searched for whatever had spooked the bucks. The usual suspects, walkers, farm equipment, etc. were not seen and I wondered, but didn’t think there could be, a connection between the coyote and the spooked bucks.
Fast forward to the evening of the same day, in a treestand 150 yards or so from the stand I hunted in the morning….
By 7 p.m. I had seen several small bucks and a few does but no deer were close enough to consider a shot. At 7:10 a small buck, obviously alarmed, ran through the beans towards my treestand and stopped at the edge of the woods. Like this morning, the buck was breathing heavily and watching his back trail. Seconds later he jumped into the woods and followed a well-worn trail, stopping 15 yards from my stand and presenting a perfect quartering away shot. I briefly contemplated taking the shot but passed thinking a larger buck may have chased him into the woods. 10 or 15 seconds later he walked deeper into the woods but stopped in view at around 40 yards. Within a minute I heard something in the beans…..you guessed it, the coyote. He trotted into the woods following in the buck’s footsteps. I quickly glanced at the buck and he took off, crashing into the heavy cover south of my stand. The coyote continued after the buck until my arrow, launched from about 20 yards, caught him. It was a poor (I didn’t follow through) but lethal hit. The coyote stumbled a bit and expired a few seconds later, only 30 yards from where the arrow had passed through him.
I’ve seen several coyotes in the wild but had never observed one trailing a whitetail. But in the span of a few seconds it became clear that the coyote was pursing the buck and the same coyote, or another, had probably been responsible for spooking the bucks I observed running wild in the morning. And the buck, probably 130-140 lbs. on the hoof, was disturbed enough by the coyote’s pursuit to devote attention and expend energy on the varmit that was less than a quarter the size of the deer. This smallish coyote was not going to take down the buck. I’m not saying that and don’t think that for a second. But the coyote sure had it’s attention. My guess is that the fright of coyotes is ingrained in whitetails just as the “pursuit” of basically everything is ingrained in the coyote. I have no evidence to back that up nor have I done any research. It’s just my gut feeling.
Maybe what I have described isn’t very interesting to all but it sure was to me. Observing the interaction between predator and prey is fascinating and is one of the many reasons I hunt.
Thanks for reading, and I welcome any coyote stories you might have. Good luck in the woods.
Interesting. I’ve watched them “pouncing” for mice, and just running along “minding their own business”, but never chasing down deer. In the movie, “Primal Dreams”, you’ll actually see a deer closely following a coyote! Pretty crazy.