So last week I got the pleasure of taking a twelve year old boy named Noble on on his first hunt. This was something that I felt quite honored to do honestly. It's also something that I viewed as a huge responsibility and I hope I did an alright job at it. Now Noble has never really showed any interest in hunting. If you were to ask him if he wanted to go the answer would be "No." Every single time. If you were to ask him why he wouldn't just give it a shot he would say that he just didn't want to, plain and simple. I was the same way when my Dad asked me the exact same question. But after enough asking he eventually got through me. But I had been asking Noble for a long time, probably years. He wouldn't budge. But that Saturday evening after taking his older sister home and returning to my house for dinner I thought about making the proposition. At this point there wasn't a reason to say no. If I were to go by myself he would be left at the house with absolutely nothing to do. So he decided to cave and finally tag along. The problem was that by the time I had thought about going out it was time to be sat down and hunting. The sun was starting to set and daylight was quickly escaping us.
It was around 6'oclock when we decided to go. The sun has usually set within half an hour of then and shooting light is completely gone by 6:50ish or so. So it was quite a rush to get the car loaded and go. On top of all that Noble was not dressed for the occasion and niether was I. But there was no time to worry about that. My dark gray hoodie, jeans and sneakers would have to work. I found an oversized camo coat that practically engulfed Noble and when he put the hood on he slightly resembled an Eskimo. They just don't make hunting clothes for that size. So oversized jackets and coveralls is just what you have to deal with for a couple years. But it is what it is.
The hunting spot in question was a wheat field about 500 yards or more from my grandpas house. It's my favorite spot. On the South end of the field where the wheat starts to thin out and the bermuda grass starts to take over there are three very large pecan trees. Not much farther to the south there is a row of hay bales that my grandpa has stockpiled for sell and such. These bales will be our shooting/observation point. The bales are in the very South West corner of the field. There is a road that runs parallel to the field about 70 yards from the bales. Across the road is another wheat field completely covered in a green carpet of newly growing wheat, much like the one we were at. We set up my electronic call at the pecan trees. The trees are standing in a line. We put the call by the middle tree and pointed it across the road. The idea was that the sound would carry all the way through the bottom and hopefully draw in the furry canines. After the call was in place we headed to the hay bales.
Noble had been surprisingly quiet so far. He seemed to be taking it all in, or something along those lines. I completely understood his quietness. It was the same quietness that I had shown on my first hunt. He only broke the silence every now and then to ask a question about what was gonna happen.
When we arrived at the hay bales we covered up with camo burlap that I had stuffed inside my backpack. Noble said that it smelled like his old Halloween costume. It was a curious observation but I completely agreed. I never liked the smell of the stuff but it kept me hidden. Thats all I cared about. When I had Noble covered up I proceeded to do the same for myself. Once I had finished covering up I unfolded my bipod on my rifle. I asked Noble for the five rounds we had brought with us. I had put him in charge with keeping up with the cartridges. After he had dug them out of his pocket I quietly loaded the rifle. It was a .243 caliber, a medium sized rifle that had actually been my Dads main hunting rifle. Once I figured out the accuracy and power of the weapon I quickly commandeered it for my own outings. It's deadly accurate and easy to shoot. A simple bolt action, that has to be one of my favorite guns to shoot. Noble refers to it as a "Sniper Rifle" which always makes me chuckle.
When I had finished loading the rifle I picked up the remote for my call and turned it on. The sound of a rabbit in distress echoed through the bottom. It was not a pleasant sound and Noble quickly told me his disliking to the sound. It's one of those sounds that I have heard so much while hunting that I completely block out. The calls batteries have died before and I didn't even notice just because I forget the thing was even playing. Noble would quickly do the same to the sound, I hoped.
We patiently sat with are backs against the hay bales for only about five minutes or so before we heard the sound of a vehicle creeping down the hill behind us. It was my grandpa in "The Old Blue Truck" as the family referred to it. The suspension squeaked and whined as it came down the bumpy slope. He pulled up beside us and rolled down the window. "Have you seen anything?" He said. It was a rudundent question in my mind, for we had only pulled in ten minutes earlier but I replied with a no and that it might have to get closer to dark before we were to see anything. He told us how there had been a large number of dogs in the area the past couple of nights. Maybe due to the warmer weather. We weren't sure why there were so many but mid sentence we heard a distant howl. Noble looked at me and I smiled. It would be an eventful sundown. I just knew it. My grandpa said good luck and drove back up the slope. But halfway up he turned back around and pulled back beside us. "You need to make howling noises and those wolves will come a running. That's what you have to do when your "Hunting Wolves" I said that we might try it out and he continued on back to the house. I've always found it funny that he refers to them as wolves. They may look like wolves but they behave very differently. Instead of being pack oriented they are mainly solitary hunters. That or they will hunt in pairs. They don't hunt like wolves either. They mainly scavenge. I don't know, it's just one of those things that makes me smile when my grandpa says it for some reason.
By now howls were echoing throughout the bottom from all directions. It's hard to tell how many coyotes were around. Two dogs sounds like five. But my guess is that it was ten or so. A ridiculous amount to have in one area of three or four square miles. Let alone just this bottom. We countinued to sit and observe. Noble's patience and silence was diminishing slowly. We started talking about school, gaming, hunting and anything else that came to mind really. It was nice just getting to talk to him. I havent been around hilaws much lately as I have in previous years so the talking was nice. Just the time with him was worth sitting out in the cold and trust me. It got cold. It wasn't cold when we first arrived but when the sun started to sink behind the horizon we started feeling the wind hit our faces and realized just how cold it was.
I countinued to scan the area and so did Noble. Then I noticed something. One small black dot in the field across from us. This did not get me very excited however because there are almost always geese on that field that look just the same as this dot did. But I thought it was worth a look with my scope. I told Noble I had spotted something across the road. He got a little more into the experience then. We were still hearing howls every minute or so but the dim light was leaving us fast. When I dialed up the zoom on the scope and found the dot in the field I instantly got butterflies. Excitement and adrenalin rushed throughout me. There were two full grown coyotes just sitting in the middle of the field about ten yards apart. I quickly handed Noble my phone and told him what I saw. I told him to dial my Dad. That land is not my grandpas and there wasn't enough time to wait the dogs out. So we were gonna have to make a move towards the dogs and I wanted to make sure we were allowed to. My Dad said it was ok and I hung up before he had finished his goodbye.
I sprung up into a stand, my legs being stiff from all the sitting. Noble did the same. I told him to stick to my right side so I wouldn't have to worry about whether the rifle was pointed in a safe direction or not while I was walking. I was so ecstatic. It was the first time I had seen a coyote in ten hunts or so and I wanted to give Noble at least an eventful experience even if we didn't kill anything.
We slowly arrived at the road. We tried to stay low while still moving at a reasonable pace. We went through the already open gate. Now all that stood between us and a shot was a barbed wire fence and a deep channel where the creek flows. We crossed the dirt road and found the loosest part of the barbed wire fence in the area. It was too low to the ground to crawl under and it was too dark to try and go over. I also wasn't sure if Noble had ever went over a fence like this. There is a technique to it and if you have never done it. Well it's pretty nerve racking. So we were gonna have to go through it. I placed my foot on the bottom wire and my hands on the wire above that. I then pushed down my foot and pulled open a gap in the wire with my hands for Noble to go through. He carefully slipped through. The hole that Noble provided for me was not the size it needed to be. But a few snags later and I was through.
All that separated us from a shot now was some trees and the creek. The remaining daylight was almost completely gone now and it was evident that getting a shot in this light was close to impossible. We decided to not cross the creek and just find a gap in the sparse trees to scan the field. We saw absolutely nothing. "We must have spooked them." I told Noble. It was decided that we should pack up and head home. When all of the sudden a huge loud howl let out not a hundred yards from us. Noble looked at me his eyes wide like marbles. Howls and barks echoed through the night and Noble admitted that he was quite scared. I told him there was no reason to be. They would not hurt us. More and more howls echoed throughout the bottom from all directions. There was so many. I had never heard so many at once. The howls, no matter how much you hear them almost always send chills up your spine and give you goose bumps. I told Noble to stay put and I crossed the dried up creek bottom. It was about four feet deep and required some effort to crawl up the opposite side. A barbed wire fence was a few feet away from the channel so I crawled under it and deployed the bipod of my rifle and turned off the safety. Just in case I saw a dog. I began to scan the field with my scope. The dogs were still howling. I scanned for five minutes or more until I was satisfied that I had tried my hardest to find a dog and that there would be no opportunity to shoot. I whispered to Noble to come across the creek channel and come over to me. When I looked back he was covering his ears as if I was about to shoot. This obviously showed his youth a bit. He was scared but at the same time he liked it. I don't think he could make up his mind on his feelings. I had told him to stay there because I knew it would be hard for him to cross the creek quietly and I didn't want to spoil a shot opportunity if I was to get one. But that never happened. He crossed quickly and sat down beside me. He was still scared but he was getting used to everything. He asked if the coyotes had any idea we were here. I thought about it for a second and came to the conclusion that yes in fact they did know we were there. There was absolutely no way that we had snuck up on them. We were sitting at the very edge of the field in bright starlight. They were no doubt watching us. They must have just not seen us as a threat. That or they knew that they were completely hidden. It was kind of humbling actually. Knowing that this wild animal was not scared of you at all in that moment. It was humbling to know that for once you were not the apex predator. We just sat there listening to the howls and whispering to each other about the experience for about five minutes or so. We decided that we had done all we could and that it was finally time to head to the car.
We went back the way we had came. Through the creek, across the small pasture, over the fence, across the road, through the gate and through the wheat field. When we returned to the hay bales the call was still going. As I thought that maybe it would have made the coyotes on the other field move across the road. But that hadn't worked either. We grabbed our backpack and camo burlap at the bales. After retrieving the call at the three trees it was time to leave. The hunt was over.
Why we may have not killed a thing it's still one of the most memorable hunts I've ever been on and I don't think I will ever forget it. The whole experience was brilliant. Some of the best times I've had hunting have been the times that I left the area without a single thing to show for it. That's the beauty of it all really. Maybe there were some things we could have done different. I'm sure we made some mistakes but in the end it didn't matter and we didn't care. I think I will end it there. There may be no real lesson I learned from the experience but I still took a lot away from it. But I can't put what I took away in words. Maybe you can get something out of it or maybe this entertained you for a while. Either way, thanks for reading(:
-Willis
