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Coyote HuntI had arrived at our property in the morning and retrieved the memory cards and batteries. Our neighbor, Rocky, was in the house with me and we were talking while I was downloading. Rocky had looked out the window when he thought he saw something in the hayfield about 500 yards out so he called me over to take a look. At first I couldn't see anything but then the coyote cleared the trees and I got a good look at it through binoculars. We walked outside to try to get a better look when we saw it coming in our direction through the field. We had just looked at the pictures of coyotes under the apple trees so we thought that this one might come in for an apple as well. I had a choice between a .22 rifle and a 20 gage shotgun so I readied the .22 and we waited to see if it came to the apple trees. Within only a couple of minutes I saw the coyote getting closer so I tried to get into a position where I could see under the apple tree that we had seen them under in the pictures. I wanted to use a large apple tree to steady the gun, but couldn't see the coyote from that position so I had to slide out in a sitting position where I could see. I finally took a shot but cleanly missed and then missed the follow-up shot as well. The coyote ran to the right so I scooted on my rear to the left and was surprised to see it standing and looking around. I took another seated shot and heard the tell-tale thump that you hear when you connect, but it took off over the hill where it seemed to make quite a bit of noise crashing into the woods. I, of course, missed another follow-up shot. We headed into the woods to see if we could find it when Rocky spotted the coyote about thirty yards over the hill. Although the shot sounded good I'll have to admit I was shocked. The coyote was a young female and weighed 23 pounds. Here we are below after a very hard hunt. 
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