Aggressive coyotes

Don't get me started with camping encounters, geeze. Every single time I camp I end up with a pack in camp every single night. Even with a generator running they still come right into camp, as if they know we are fast asleep. " Hey Bob, the humans have gone to sleep, lets go sit by their fire, drinks a few brews, dig through their garbage".

Then there are bears. I've had some very, very close calls with those critters. I've had them fall out of trees in front of me, then get up and look at me, as if to say "Oh crap, I thought that branch was stronger than that". I've had them attack my truck, literally walking all over my truck and trying to get into the cab, and had them come running up to me while calling turkey. Fortunately I've never been attacked though, probably because they are blacks, not browns.

But yotes, well, they have always been on my hit list, as they have been the most annoying of predators where I live and hunt.

BTW, I lived in, and hunted in SD for about 6 years and never saw all that many yotes. Winters must be very hard on them, their mortality rate must be rather high.

GS

I agree with "armoredman" as to their intelligence, they are smart. That's exactly why I got concerned when I saw them trying to coral me, as it appeared. I'm a small man, 5'5" 120 lbs. with shoes and clothes on, so I may have looked doable?

Last night was no less interesting, as walks go, as I happened upon a good size herd of javelina. Now they can be some what aggressive, I've had a number of very close encounters, mostly when archery hunting them though. After having glassed and placed myself into an ambush position, I have had them so close, and so confused, that they would be running straight at me, into each other, and into just about everything else in their stupid blind paths. Seriously, during the day time they are just about 90% blind so if you keep yourself from getting winded, they will literally walk into to you if you stand still.

GS

I'm now slinging a 12 ga. over my shoulder, which I do sometimes, but I should be carrying it always during those late night walks. The time it takes to insert my hearing protection could be the one deciding factor between getting bit and having to go through the whole rabies vaccination process, or not.

Been there, done that nearly 30 yrs. ago when I managed to jam a coyote tooth into the palm of my hand while skinning it. I couldn't get the head into the county health dept quick enough to get a positive determination on the brain, so the result was an expensive, painful, and some what risky vaccination process. At the time, and this year is no exception, our county always has some level of a rabies epidemic in effect.

GS

I had a German Short Hair Pointer for 15 years that never once lost a fight with any animal. When he was alive, sure do miss him too, he had killed a number of coyotes over the years. When we first bought our land out in the boon docks, he would go out and roam each night, we knew the risk, but he had proven himself as being very capable in this respect. We had seen him in action against a badger, he didn't win that one, but both of them mutually gave up the fight, he ran deer down, got into a major scuffle with 5 Oryx and got tossed into the air about 10' or 15'', I had to pepper the Oryx with bird shot, I was quail hunting, to break up the fight, and he once killed a raccoon when he was out numbered 2 to 1, and a number of other similarly outrageous events.

I remember when we first moved in we heard a horrible commotion right out side our bedroom window, I grabbed my SG and ran outside to find 3 yotes trying to take him down. I couldn't get a shot off without risking hitting my dog, so I let it play out unless opportunity presented. When it ended one yote was down, his throat was ripped out and he was bleeding profusely, another was limping off and acting like he was chasing his tail, I shot him. The third yote ran off, nothing unusual indicating he was hurt. My dog continued to pursue the runner, to which I heard a lot of fighting several minutes later, obviously that was when "Duke" caught up to him. I found that one the next morning a couple hundred yards away, dead! The down yote was dead by the time everything ended. The one that acted like he was chasing his tail had a massive chunk of his hind leg pulled right off the bone.

That dog was the king of our land, nothing, and I mean nothing ever defeated him, he was my hero and will be so missed. Every time my boys and I get together around a camp fire, we tell stories of our wonderful "Duke". But I now know why those dogs were originally bred for hunting Red Deer, they know how to kill another animal efficiently and fast.

One of my Son's bought another that is of the same blood line, and he is almost a carbon copy of Duke, in personality and abilities, as he too has defended himself and his domain with the same type of no non sense methodology.

As for my condition, I do have a slight limp, and I stop walking every couple hundred yards to rest that leg, and I'm only a 120 lb. man. So I guess I looked like an easy meal.

GS

Well, although Duke came from champion stock, he was the absolute worst bird dog I have ever had. He weighed 55 lbs. during bird season, and would put on another 8-10 lbs. during the off season. He had an amazing ability to find and point birds, but it was after the shot that his apparent bird hunting skills took a nose dive. Some dogs have a hard mouth, some not enough hold, but Duke, well, lets just say any bird he brought back, and he did bring them all back, but the birds would always have the guts squirting out both ends. I spent nearly 3K trying to fix his mouth problem, to no avail. So Duke evolved into our family pet, to which he was the best, most loyal and protective dog I've ever had.

Buck460xvr, do a quick Google about the origin of the GSHP, and you'll see that they were, in fact, originally bred to hunt Red Deer, and they were much larger dogs, like 120+ lbs.. Apparently my Duke never got the right gene during the down breeding process, to remove that taste for deer hunting. But I didn't care, in the end he became my best friend, and a member of the family. BTW, he died hunting quail, his heart just quit on him.

GS