12 feet from 6 coyotes

[BAK]

How close have you been to  wild coyotes?  LOL I found a den yesterday and my wife and I snuck up on the back side of it and watched the little guys playing in the grass.  They look to be about 4 weeks old.  Don't know where mom was.

[LookMomNoSights]

Pretty cool......
You should check again in the near future.....be interesting to see if momma moved them pups,  sensing humans were so close to the den.   I've heard that they will do that.

[monterey]

She was probably sneaking up on your backside!

So, where are the pics?

[M60gunner]

We have yotes that walk down the middle of the street in broad day lite. The live on the golf courses and in the cemetery's. They have a rather good menu to choose from as well. There are Quail, Geese, Ducks, rabbits, and the occasional toy poodle size dogs we have around here. The buggers know I can not shoot them. To bad the pelts are prime, not mangy like the ones in Ca. Where we lived. Make great quivers.

[The Whittler]

You can bet she was watching you. They are one of the best hunters, they don't miss nothing.

I use to haul too our local landfill and there was always coyotes there. You could drive by them a few feet away and it didn't bother them. Had 6-8 of them walk down the road and they would separate to let you drive through.

They use to dump recycle stuff from all over and sometimes the dozier operators would dig through it and find money. One day I seen the operator digging and there was two coyotes one on each side of him laying down just watching him, it was crazy.

[Pine]

Had a similarly experience myself just a few weeks ago .
   

I saw what looked a rust ribbon slithering up a hill through long grass, the last day of turkey season. When it was about 50 yards away it hit some short grass.  The ribbon was a mama fox and all of her babies following nose to tail.

[Thumper Dunker]

Cool stuff. She most likely  already moved them.
And she and her sister, mom, daughter and Aunt Lizzy was watching you. Dad is out on patrol. Pups are way cute.

[Whitetail Addict]

Coyotes aren't my favorite critters, but I always get a kick out of seeing the little ones of any kind.

I watched a mother red fox teaching her pups to hunt mice one day, for what must have been an hour.

They were in a mowed hay field, and she was stalking the windrows with them in tow. Wish I had a video of it.

Thanks BAK.

Bob

[johnnyk71]

the last coyote that got within 20 yards of me ended up as a really nice rug!

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Back in the days of my first elk hunting adventures i was sitting on a main game trail on the edge of a steep hill side practicing my elk calling. I was making some ungodly squealing sounds with this reed and the next thing i know here comes a coyote on a dead run up the trail...... i was sitting flat on my butt when he came sliding to a halt 3 feet away from me nose to nose..... i was completely camouflaged & it took a second for both of us to react..... First thing that happened was he curled his lips up, showed me his fangs and started growling.... I was so startled i just growled right back at him.....

 Truthfully it was more like a scream than a growl that came out of me..... The coyote swapped ends and hit the afterburners, and i did a back flip from a sitting position trying to go the other way..... I'll bet it would have made a great video...... Needless to say i needed to head back to camp for a clean pair of shorts.... TOO CLOSE!

[Azwatasha]

I hear Ya M60gunner they are all over the place here. ( I'm just down the street from you) I've had them walk on top of the back fence, My old Tomcat came up missing one day hmmmm
Neighbors get mad when I drive through their front yards chasing them down.

[lovethehunt]

I have had them come to thirty feet or so while turkey hunting.  It fun to see them that close.   I called a bobcat to three short paces last February, that made me wonder how fast I could react if he still did not realize I was not a rabbit.

[Locosgrande]

Sorry Ya'll, mostly a lurker here.....

My first archery kill was a coyote. I was in the central Idaho mountains hunting elk and camo'd head to toe. I was standing on a game trail next to a dead fall trying to catch my breath while I was still hunting.

I saw the coyote head down the mountain about 40 yards down the trail with it's nose sniffing the ground. It turned and headed my direction while still oblivious to my presence. As it ducked under the dead fall, I came to draw and placed a cedar shafted Zwickey right between the shoulder blades.....at a distance of 2 feet.

The coyote swapped ends and had all 4 limbs just flailing as it ran off about 30 yards. Now I now know where the Wile-e-coyote running graphics come from. I will remember that moment for as long as I am still kicking around.

Dave

[KSshrewman]

Here's one for ya. At my shabin in SE KS last fall I was standing about 30 feet from the shabin and next to the outhouse on a little outdoor shower platform. Welp....there I was nekid' as a jay bird having just rinsed off. I picked up my razor and started to shave my neck. (no wise cracks about shaving while at hunting camp). The shower platform is next to a steep drop to a creek. Anyway....just as I was ready to lay the razor on my neck....I heard a stick snap. I looked up and about 6-10 feet from me was a big yote coming along the ledge right at me. Now that's uneasy! I looked at him...then he looked a me...and after a brief but what seemed like a long stare off...he decided to head back the other direction. Needless to say....I could have shaved the back of my neck pretty easy cause the hair on it was standing straight up.
 

[Whitetail Addict]

Six or eight years ago during the spring turkey season, I looked out the kitchen window late one afternoon, and saw a couple hens and a real nice tom that had just crossed the road and were heading along a hedgerow, in back of my place.

The birds were hoofing it to get across a couple big fields, to one of two places I knew they'd roost that night.

I gave them a few minutes to get over a knoll, so they wouldn't see me, grabbed my binoculars and hurried to the to of the knoll, where I could watch where they went.

I spotted the birds, and was watching them as they headed toward a bunch of big maples on the far end of the fields.

I was crouched down behind some brush, watching the birds, when I heard something in the shin high grass behind me, in the direction we'd all come from.

When I turned to look, there was a coyote headed toward me at a trot, at about 10 yards. He saw me when I turned, spun around and made tracks in the other direction.

He was following the exact path the birds and I had used. The wind was right, so he hadn't scented me, but there's no way he didn't smell where I'd just walked through the grass on the turkey's path.

I know It's probably hard to believe, but It's true, and it wasn't a young coyote either.

I don't know if the prospect of a turkey dinner had him so fired up that he dropped his guard, or what. Not typical coyote behavior for sure.

Bob

[creekwood]

A number of years ago, my wife and I were driving in Yellowstone Park when this coyote appeared in front of us while we were rounding a sharp curve. It jumped up on the snow berm on the side of the road and I pulled up beside it and I told her to take a picture.  We rolled the window down and it posed while she snapped it's picture from a distance of about 6 feet.  We then rolled the window up and drove off.  Winter is a wonderful time to visit the park if you like viewing wildlife.

[bear bowman]

I was hunting in western Pa some years ago. I was perched in a tree and as it neared dark, I heard what I thought was a doe snorting way down in the valley below me. Well it got dark and this "doe" was still snorting her head off and heading towards me! I stared heading back to where my buddies truck was parked and this thing kept getting closer and it wasn't snorting it was more like hissing. Til I got to the bottom of the hill, I was pretty much at a dead run. I hit the road and shined a flashlight down the road and a yote crossed right below me. I never did figure why it followed me out or if it even had an interest in me but it scared the crap out of me.

[Whitetail Addict]

Originally posted by bear bowman:
I was hunting in western Pa some years ago. I was perched in a tree and as it neared dark, I heard what I thought was a doe snorting way down in the valley below me. Well it got dark and this "doe" was still snorting her head off and heading towards me! I stared heading back to where my buddies truck was parked and this thing kept getting closer and it wasn't snorting it was more like hissing. Til I got to the bottom of the hill, I was pretty much at a dead run. I hit the road and shined a flashlight down the road and a yote crossed right below me. I never did figure why it followed me out or if it even had an interest in me but it scared the crap out of me.

I had a similar experience ten or twelve years ago.

I was hunting from a tree stand, and it was getting late. I took one last look around, and started to reach for my quiver.

Just as I reached for it, I saw something move in front of me and to my left.

I realized it was legs, and the lower part of a brownish body moving away fast. It was in the shadows under the spruce trees, and my first thought was that a deer had come in unseen, and busted me.

I sat there for a couple minutes, mentally kicking myself for letting it happen, then started to climb down from my stand.

I got about halfway to the ground, when a coyote howled in the direction the "deer" had gone.

In the short time it took to get the rest of the way down, I had a line of coyotes howling, what sounded like a hundred yards in front of me.

I turned my back to them to head back to camp.

By now, it was getting pretty dark, and the coyotes were still lined up across my back, howling, and following me.

I hadn't gone far, when a line of them cut loose in front of me too, not far from camp.

I could hear one pass me some distance off in the dry leaves, headed for the ones in front of me. I shined my light in that direction, but couldn't see it.

I kept walking, with the coyotes carrying on in front of, and behind me, and as I got closer to "home" I could tell that the ones in front of me had crossed the road now, and were still howling and barking on the other side.

The ones that were behind me split up at this point, and passed me on my left and right, headed to where the rest were, howling the whole time.

I could hear some of them in the leaves again when they passed me, and they sounded close, but I still couldn't see them with my flashlight.

Once they all got to the other side of the road, they shut up, and I didn't hear another peep out of them.

I doubt I was in any danger at any time. I think their boldness was a probably combination of curiosity, and the fact that it was dark.

I actually thought it was a pretty cool experience once I got back to camp, and all the hair on my body laid back down.  :D  

Bob

[monterey]

Addict, pretty sure them was not coyotes.  They was Sasquatch!

I had a similar experience to BigJim when calling elk on a hillside covered with lodgepoles.  I was leaning o  the tree facing downhill and heard a ruckus behind me.  Looked around the tree and a very BIG yote came to a dirt throwing halt a few feet away.  It made an immediate right turn and ran down the hillside toward a bunch of thick short spruce trees.  I was muzzleloader hunting and sent a .54 ball after him just as he dove into the spruce patch.  A carefu look showed I had skinned a small patch of fur off his belly.  

It was not scary so much as surprising.