Outdoorsmen Adventures.com

Reprinted from the Sioux City Journal

MULLEN, Neb. — Gary Howey spotted the coyote first. It was so far away it looked like a black spot moving across the snow.

Andy Glidden stopped the truck and we watched the dog cross the flat and disappear into the hills.

“We have permission to hunt that ranch,” Andy said.

We drove on, found a gate and entered the property.

We drove in about a quarter mile then parked the truck in a depression and began walking.

We were looking for a good place to set up, but that wasn’t happening.

We walked on.

Suddenly two doe mulies popped up on a hillside one hundred yards away.

We froze. If those deer spooked, our chances at the coyote would diminish. After looking us over for several minutes, the does trotted off, unalarmed.

Then we found the spot. The hillside dropped away onto a flatland and we set up the Fox Pro electronic caller and went to work.

“Coyote at 11 o’clock,” Andy said a few moments later. “200 yards.”

He had come in from our left side and managed to almost get downwind before we saw him.

I settled the crosshairs on him and squeezed the trigger. Down he went.

That’s how our coyote hunt in the Sandhills near Mullen, Neb., began.

We had hunted here last year with Andy, who is a Nebraska Game and Parks fisheries biologist stationed in Ainsworth. Our headquarters was Andy’s brother’s motel in Mullen.

Mitch and Patty Glidden, owners of the Sandhills Motel, also maintain blinds for viewing and photographing sharptail grouse and prairie chickens during the spring mating ritual. Gary and I were there last year to photograph the spectacle. They also operate canoe rentals and stock tank floats on the Dismal and Middle Loup rivers

Contact them at (308) 546-2206 or www.sandhills motel.com

The next day found us on a more than 20-square mile ranch south of town along the Dismal River.

We had been calling no more than five minutes when I saw a big coyote come in at a run no more than 50 feet in front of Gary. We were filming for his Outdoorsmen Adventures television show and I was on the camera.

The coyote ran right up to the caller and Gary shot and away the coyote went on a dead run.

“My bipod slipped,” Gary said.

But it turned out he was not aiming at that coyote another was sitting in front of him less than 50 feet away. It escaped.

Andy draped over a soapweed for a steady rest and fired at the first coyote which was now nearly 300 yards away. We heard the bullet hit and the coyote went down.

We shot another coyote that morning, but the most exiting action occurred at mid afternoon.

We spotted bobcat tracks where we were going to make a set. Bobcats have small territories, so I was confident we had a good chance of calling in that cat.

Sure enough. Ten minutes later, Andy whispered, “Cat.”

I saw him and looked through the scope. It was a big tom and beautifully marked. But you must have a fur harvester’s license to take a bobcat.

Andy had one so he took the shot and the big cat went down.

It was a fitting end to a good hunt in the Nebraska Sandhills.