An Outdoorsman’s Journal: After-dark coyote hunt

Hello friends, I spent three nights chasing coyote in Fond du Lac, Columbia, Dodge, and Winnebago counties with two very avid outdoorsmen, Brian Ball andTom Hoinacki, both ofWaupun. Sunday, Feb. 23 — High 40 , low 25 We actually started our adventure fishing walleye on Lake Butte des Morts, but that’s another story, and while fishing I had plenty of time to shoot the bull with Brian and Tom and started to learn a lot about what lifelong, hardcore, and very successful outdoorsmen both of them are.

Brian and Tom made sure we had all of their gear loaded in the truck for tonight’s hunt, as we would be huntingWinnebago and Dodge counties on night one. I would be an observer all three nights and learned from minute one about the importance of not slamming truck doors, making sure your phone is off, and not talking or moving while on a setup.

After hiking anywhere from 75 to 300 yards, a FoxPro electronic call is set up and in each hunt, wind direction is always a major factor. Brian shoots a Daniel Defense M4 with a Griffin suppressor and an ATN night vision scope.

Tom uses a Colt AR 223 with a Banish suppressor and a Pulsar scope. Both Tom and Brian also use thermal scanners that, in short, make it so you can see anything with heat like a deer, cow, raccoon, etc. in the dark.

I might add that tonight, there was deep snow and it was very windy. One is work, the other is not good for hunting. So, here is the scoop: I also learned how to use a scanner and from my first look on night one, to my last look on night three, I saw raccoons and it was literally unbelievable how many there were. Seemed like they were either roaming fields or hanging out in trees.

Monday, Feb. 24 — High 48, low 29 We have gone from deep snow to plenty of mud in 24 hours, and tonight we are hunting in Columbia County near Columbus and Randolph. A bit about Brian and Tom: They are both retired and from 1990 to 2010, they fished the Masters Walleye Circuit and the Midwest Walleye Series as a team and these guys kicked hiney. It was very cool to listen to their stories, like last night. Not only did we see at least one raccoon on each of our seven setups, we saw deer almost constantly and it is really neat to watch them through the thermal optics. We only saw one coyote; I was the only one to see it and it was about a five-second experience. The drive time from Waupun to my house is exactly two hours. Thursday, March 6 — High 49, low 26 I am starting to get the hang of this and let me tell you, any direction from Waupun for at least 40 miles is loaded with deer and raccoon. Here are some interesting facts. Tom and Brian actually have farmers request that they hunt their land at times, as they have problems with coyote stressing out their calves that are sometimes in pasture or in calf hutches, as well as chasing cattle that then bust through fences. Brian makes mittens, wall hangings, and does taxidermy and until the fur market fell apart, a coyote hide brought a healthy dollar.

Tonight we would hunt within 20 miles of Waupun and on our first setup, as soon as Brian started working the call, Tom spotted two coyotes that gave us a great show but did not get close enough. We kept doing hunt after hunt and as usual, the coon and deer were everywhere and we had a very close call on another coyote, then watched a large coon attack the call, which was pretty cool as we could see it stalking the call across the field.

On our last hunt we had one final experience with a fox or small‘yote and before I knew it, I was driving home with some excellent memories while watching a couple of top-notch outdoorsmen do what they love to do.

Hunt till you can’t! Sunset

Mark Walters