Monday, January 20, 2014

Heat For Shooting Coyotes?


Caleb over at GunNuts, in a post about the .357 Magnum made a comment about using that cartridge on coyotes, and the gist of it was that he rather enjoyed seeing a coyote pile up when hit.  There were some negative comments about that, and when I offered support for shooting the nasty predators, I found out that I'm a Creep, or words to that effect.  Here's the deal with coyotes.  You have to fight them whenever you can, or they will take over the place.  If people enjoy hunting them with varmint calls, hound dogs, or quarter-mile varmint rifles, I'm all for it, because it helps me, and all my neighbors who have cats, dogs, and livestock.  Our little gray cat Snaggle was our first casualty in our neigborhood coyote war.  Snaggle liked to sleep on the back step instead of going to the barn at night, and one morning he was gone.


Scooter showed up as a dumped kitten who wasn't really old enough to be away from Mama, and he was a faithful companion for many years.


Petey was dumped on us as a young adult, and he and Scooter became fast friends.  They were always together, and the coyotes picked them both off in the same week.


Last year we lost Pansy, the little tuxedo cat on the left.  She had a bad eye, and that may be why she was caught. The rest of the cats in this group are pretty wary.


Donna, the black and white in front of the barn is still with us.  I saw the critter below making his move on her early one day, and I had a rifle beside the door.  I was just barely quick enough to save my cat.  We also have coons who carry distemper, rabies, and particularly nasty worms, skunks with rabies, possums who crap all over the barn, and snakes that have killed all our barn swallows.  Wild predators don't belong around your homesite, and I'm glad to shoot every one of them that comes near our house. 

6 comments:

skybill said...

Hi Sam,
'Know what ya' mean about coyotes. 'Lost my Ruggycat to a coyote back when I lived in L.A./West Pasadena. Doesn't matter where you live anymore, they're everywhere. On someone's website, I think Kenny Lanes??, was a short clip of about a dozen 'yotes "gettin' it!" 'Ya saw the coyote, there's a "pow!" and then the coyote does a back flip and no more!! 'Shoulda' tagged it, maybe someone else can post a clicky to it.
BSBD,
III%,
skybill-out

Anonymous said...

Bambi lovers will defend any creature - even rats! I'll bet they are all city dwellers who have NO idea about the natural world, and have not lost any of their pets to predators!

Merle

Anonymous said...

Yes they need to be controlled. I wonder how many folks that praised the reintroduction of wolves realized that they were also reintroducing tape worms?

winslow said...

Coyotes and wild dogs make bad neighbours. A well-placed bullet makes them much more neighbourly.

The Freeholder said...

Our ancestors hunted these critters out for good and valid reasons. One day I hope the treehuggers are on the receiving end of a lesson on them. The phrase."wolf at the door" didn't come about because it sounds good.

David aka True Blue Sam said...

I've killed three coyotes in our yard over the years. I almost shot a wolf, but paused when I thought maybe it was a dog. Then it was gone.

I have used my Ruger Blackhawk for shooting skunks for more than thirty years. One time I shot a skunk next to the road, and as I walked back to the family car a gust of wind carried a load of skunk scent over me. The heater was running on the car.....

One night I found three possums going hand over hand on the electric line going to our roof. .44 Redhawk did the honors.

We do have critters!