Yesterday was the opening day of Alabama's bow season.
On my first mornin hunt, I heard something behind me. The gait
sounded a bit fast to be a deer, but I stood up and got ready with my
bow anyways.
As the source of the sound came into view, I noticed it wasn't a
deer. It was a coyote.
He stayed in thick brush and made a beeline around my tree avoiding
any possible shots I could have made with my bow.
My hunt ended, and that afternoon I sat in a different stand. I
watched two big doe and one fawn. The fawn belonged to one of the
doe, but the other had obviously lost her baby.
The fawnless doe's milk sack was abnormally too full and could be
seen easily from my elevated position. Without a fawn to nurse, she
had an excess amount of milk in her system.
It made me sad to know that she had lost her fawn, and it is a
problem we have often because of our increasing coyote population.
Right at dark that evening, the coyotes began their nightly howling
in the distance.
I tried to record a bit of it for y'all. I am attaching a SoundCloud link of an audio
file. I encourage y'all to have your volume all the way up when you
listen. The coyotes were a good ways away and I had to do a lot of
editing with Garage Band to get them where they could be heard at
all.
It doesn't do the sound justice, but it can give you an idea of
how eerie they sound when you're in the woods at night.
Me and my father have been working to decrease the overpopulation of
coyotes in our area, but it isn't easy. Dad has caught many in foot
traps he has set.
We have also killed very many while predator
hunting.
Predator control is a must in quality deer management.
Coyotes are one of deer's biggest threats, and they need to be
handled in whatever means possible, whether its trapping or hunting.
Here's the link to the audio file:
