On a winter day long past, I had my fill of cabin fever so despite the wind and cold temperatures I went out to glass the snow frosted fields on public land from an elevated observation site. In a matter of minutes I was able to witness a coyote approach and ensnare a small rodent from beneath stiff tufts of frozen grasses with tenacity and agility that rewarded him with a mouthful of fresh meat. I have seen a few other coyotes and most are well on their way in the opposite direction before I get a good look, but this fellow was unmoved from pursuing his meal and only cast casual glances toward me in between burrowing his snout among golden strands of dense grass. His dark spots and quick movements caught my eye despite his natural camouflage against the buff colored field. Only after catching the small animal in his mouth did he trot off into the wheat stalks without looking back and then disappeared from my sight. This chance encounter although thrilling was at a distance of about 400 yards and could only be seen clearly by my eyes through the camera lens at about a 10X zoom.

Another coyote sighting on an afternoon in the last days of summer gave me enough time to snap off a candid coyote photo. It was a thrilling moment of the hunt with nothing but a camera in hand. I shot that predator with my digital camera at a distance of less than 75 yards. Sometimes the best day hunting does not involve a projectile.

Missouri history is painted with the stories of pursuing this animal and a long past fur trade that did little to diminish their numbers even so; the size of the coyote population does rise and fall directly with those rabbit and rodent populations that help sustain them. In Missouri coyotes prefer to scavenge and stalk most of their food sources in prairies and brushy grasslands additionally they eat grasshoppers and the like or ripe produce from wild fruit trees.

One Missouri farmer remembers years back when the coyotes casually moved out of the way as he plowed a field with his tractor. His dog chased the coyotes until they left the field and then ran back in the other direction with the coyotes in pursuit of him. This escalating horse play continued for about an hour until the dog and the coyotes were exhausted from the back and forth chase. At one point the dog appeared to have been caught between the two and only escaped from them at the last moment by dashing off in an unexpected sprint away from them.

The meaning of the word coyote has its origins in Mexico’s Nahuatl Aztec’s and from their word coyotl which means ‘barking dog’. Their persistent evening communications of yapping and howling, no doubt, so named them. Their habitat preferences also lend them other common names such as brush or prairie wolves among others. The color and size of these fur bearers vary throughout the United states according to what is available to eat and sometimes due to interbreeding with dogs or wolves.

This roving predator may cover an average four-mile range from his den to find an opportune morsel of carrion or hunt prey which could be much more or less depending on the opportunity of the season to find food and whether or not there are pups to be fed. The reproductive season begins in February and continues through the first few days of March. After mating, gestation lasts roughly 63 days and then any number of pups up to eleven are born and stay close to the den until weaned at about six weeks.

I have previously attempted to lure this predatory creature with a rabbit in distress call. The wary nature of Canis latrans is an advantage he uses well in disclosing the exact location of those sounds and that’s why he is such a wile coyote. On an unusually warm winter day I set up a natural blind, centered beneath the arched branches of a limb-tangled bush. Seating myself on a tripod saddle chair I draped a burlap cloth into a blind enclosure by making use of some of the heavier branches to hold it in place. I sat with the breeze in my face and waited in the brush listening to the birds and watching pairs of blue birds overhead, but keeping careful watch toward this same field where this coyote had been spotted many times in the few weeks previous. Not long after calling I heard soft steps and then realizing that the birds stopped singing I released the safety on my gun and waited for any movement to catch my eye. The intense moments of waiting silently brought no new motion into view. Nothing presented for a shot after a long afternoon of waiting. I packed up my gear and headed out to the road where I left my truck, wondering if he had seen me first or if it had not even been the coyote in the area that day.

The behavior of a coyote is as unpredictable as any other predator. It still amazes me that when I hunt the dogs they never come into view but when I call turkey or sit for hours deer hunting from a tree stand they will appear fleetingly across the game trail or out of the tall brush.

That might just be the appeal of hunting such a wary predator.