Hiking out of my deer hunting area in the dark early this month, I got that eerie feeling and turned around to see three sets of glowing eyes less than 100yds behind me. Coyotes following me down the mountain. I didn’t have a deer, so I’m not sure why. Weird.
I’ve shot at a few, hit fewer, and don’t really have a bone to pick with them, but that was odd.
Several years ago, my family and I lived in Las Cruces, NM. Our home was in the foothills of the Organ Mountains, and our property had a huge open expanse of high desert land behind our home. An old utility road ran directly behind the wall surrounding our back yard, and was part of our property.Originally Posted by GJM
One late fall morning, I was outside the back wall with a rake, shovel, and a wheelbarrow, and was raking and cleaning the old road for the entire length of our property outside the wall. I was wearing jeans and a white tee shirt, so I was certainly not camouflaged in any way.
I was bent over raking facing directly north and heard the footsteps of "something" approaching me rapidly I looked up in time to see a very large jackrabbit running very fast directly southward in the road on a direct collision course with me. Before I had time to even react, the rabbit made a last second evasive move and went around my left side, missing my left leg by no more than 3 or 4 inches, never slowing at all.
Obviously, I was very surprised. But not near as surprised as I was to see a large coyote about 10-12 yards behind the rabbit and in full pursuit. The coyote and I saw each other at exactly the same time, and he came to a sliding emergency stop! I would estimate that the coyote stopped less than five yards from me, in the sitting position, centered in the roadway I had been raking.
I just stood there and looked at him and he just sat there looking at me. After a few seconds, he leaned over in his sitting position as if trying to look around me to see where the rabbit had gone. Then he leaned back into a straight upright position and leaned the opposite way and looked around my other side, as if searching for the rabbit. I'm convinced that by this time, the rabbit was at least half a mile way, as he showed no intention of slowing down when he blew past me).
Then the coyote resumed sitting in an upright position and just stared at me. I starred at him while leaning on my rake handle. He stared. I stared. After a fairly significant amount of time, he got up, turned directly away from me and began to trot (not run) back up the road from the direction which he had come. He went about 15 yards and sat back down and stared at me for a few more seconds, then resumed his retreat up the road.
He repeated this behavior a couple more times, trotting 15-20 yards away from me, sitting down, staring at me, and retreating again. When he was 75-80 yards away, the road gained in elevation and turned eastward, and the coyote disappeared into the landscape.
I have had a LOT of experiences with coyotes in my life, and for many years spent a majority of my free time varmint calling and either shooting or entertaining coyotes using both mouth calls and electronic calls.
But that morning behind my house was among the most unusual behaviors I have ever witnessed.
We have been seeing a coyote in that same area nearly every day. Seems to be hunting and not too interested in us.
New subject. We were out helicopter flying in the desert this morning, and had an unusual experience. Three F35 jets were inbound for low passes, and orbited until we landed.
This was our view:
And someone at the airport took this video:
Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.
I was fortunate to attend the airshow at Eielson AFB (Fairbanks, AK) this summer, 7-31-21.
Stars that day were the Navy Blue Angels, rocking their F-18 Super Hornets, and the Alaska contingent of F-35's from Elmendorf AFB (Anchorage AK).
The Blue Angels stole the show with on the deck in concert precision maneuvers, which lasted approximately 45 minutes. Amazing.
The F35's however were jaw dropping in their display of agility at speed. This was punctuated by a simulated dogfight pitting 2 F35's vs two braces of F15's. No contest. The 35's turned inside the 15's, out climbed, and out distanced them. Ducks on the pond. Obviously the display had been rehearsed. However the F15's were in continual afterburner mode, and it was apparent they were giving it a really good go as best they could.
Fine Americans
We’re you near GBN, or at KGXF, by chance?
That’s just north of the Barry Goldwater ranges, and when I was flying F-16s at Luke, we would often drop in there for a pattern or to practice a Simulated Flame-Out (SFO) approach. I’d imagine the F-35 bros are doing that these days.
In my mis-spent youth I spent a fair amount of time (few hundred nights) camping out under the stars in Az, most often just a tarp, pad and sleeping bag on the ground out in the open. It was fairly common for my dog to wake me very low growling, looking off into the darkness. I had one of the old army angle head lights with red lens, Id generally see a pair of glowing eyes off in the grass and sage wondering what the heck we were and were doing there. Theyd often be 40-75 yards out, curious, bobbing about sometimes, trying to figure us out. Id usually go right back to sleep, the dog was satisfied she did her job until she noticed another one. She was good at her job.
Once I was camped in the mixed brush and cactus in the Verde Valley, about to attend to a personal matter, a coyote came trotting through into the small open area I was in, stopped abruptly in the moonlight with a yelp of surprise, looked at me a couple seconds, then took off. Still makes me laugh to think about it.
“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”
― Theodore Roosevelt
KHII
Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.
Your story reminds me of a time I was driving and saw an old man pulled over on the side of the road.
He told me he was driving along the highway, and saw a rabbit hopping across the middle of the road. He swerved to avoid hitting the rabbit, but unfortunately the rabbit jumped in front of the car and was hit. He was pretty shaken up cause he was a real big animal lover, so he pulled over to the side of the road and got out to see what had become of the rabbit.
Unfortunately the rabbit was dead and he felt so awful be began to cry. Made me feel bad for him.
So this lady pulls up behind us on the side of the road and gets out of her car. She stepped out of her car and asked the man what was wrong.
He starts to tell her about how he feels so bad that he’s hit and killed this rabbit, and the lady tells him not to worry she might be able to help.
She went to her car trunk and pulled out a spray can. She walked over to the dead rabbit, and sprayed the contents of the can onto the rabbit.
As God is my witness, the rabbit came to life, jumped up, waved its paw at the old man and hopped down the road. Fifty feet away the rabbit stopped, turned around, waved at the two again, hopped down the road another 50 feet, turned, waved, and hoped another 50 feet.
The old man couldn’t believe it (neither could I if we’re being honest) He couldn't figure out what could be in the woman's spray can! He ran over to the woman and asked her was was in that can. What was your spray can?
The woman turned the can around so that the man could read the label. It said: "Hare Spray Restores Life to Dead Hare. Adds Permanent Wave."
Perhaps the coyote was upwind of you? Strange things can happen when a predator can see but not smell you.
Certainly a possibility, but I can't remember.
But your point is valid. When I used to call coyotes, there were several instances in which they came in very, very close proximity to me (more than once it was well within3-4 feet), and I'm certain it was because the wind was interfering with their ability to smell me.
In those instances, I was well camouflaged, in a seated position and taking advantage of natural cover, and typically wearing scent spray.
In the Las Cruces encounter, I was standing up, wearing a white shirt, raking gravel with a rock rake, wearing no scent spray, and standing in a roadway nowhere near natural cover.
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