Coyote Hunt with the .25 Cricket

Marley and I packed Jeep and left the house by 3:00am Friday morning to meet Nick in the high desert of Southern California. As we made our turn off the highway onto the long dirt road we were already met by several Jackrabbits running across the road dodging our headlights, Marley was already excited although she had no idea we wouldn’t be after Jackrabbits today. We arrived to our location a bit early to set up the camera gear  etc, where we were soon met by Nick from Nielsen Specialty Ammo. Nick arrived and the plan was for us to hike in about a mile to an area I had previously scouted and had even taken a Coyote several years ago. This area had many fresh tracks along with several dens that are heavily secluded through the jungle of tall Joshua Trees. The morning was a bit warm and unusually calm as it frequently is very windy here. As we made our way East from the vehicles the sun was just coming up, absolutely stunning area to hunt.

Nick and I walked very slowly as we weaved through the thick jungle that can easily be disorienting if not familiar with the area. These Joshua trees are amazingly beautiful and are really the heart of this desert in providing cover for many animals including the Owls that haunt the area at night where they hunt Jackrabbits, Cottontail, Kangaroo field mice as well as other small rodents. Marley and I moved a bit ahead of Nick to video and photograph the hunt for some future video’s.

The area I chose for use to make our stand was surrounded by dens and areas where I have seen many Coyotes resting from the sun during the day. Nick set up his caller about 35 yards South of where we were sitting up against several thicker Joshua Trees and small sagebrush. Nick and I decided that a Jackrabbit distress was the most natural prey Coyote’s would encounter here so he set his caller for that at a medium/high volume. As soon as the caller started Marley’s ears perked up that obviously got her attention as an avid hunter herself, very realistic sounding. We all sat up against the thick backdrop of foliage and waited anxiously to spot some movement.

Within about 5 minutes a Coyote rushing in from our right, the problem was we had one short 4′ tall Joshua Tree in our line of sight not only from us but from the camera. These Coyote’s don’t stand still for very long, I was manning the camera and unfortunately Nick had no clear shot.

The Coyote soon ran off followed by another that I noticed was hiding behind some thick bushes. Wow was my heart pumping, I know Nicks was too because he had that look of excitement. We were both surprised as to how fast the Coyote’s came in as well as how close to us they were. This was Marley’s first Coyote hunt so she was a bit caught off guard seeing we were hunting dogs, not sure what she thought. As Nick and I sat a bit more attentive to another close encounter we continued the caller and within about 15 minutes we spotted another Coyote rush in from our right side, this time stopping just out of my line of sight leaving Nick with a good opportunity.

40 yards

Nick took the shot around the 35 to 40 yards with a mil dot hold under releasing a 38 grain HP swaged slug right behind it’s left shoulder. The hit was very solid and you could see the Coyote move its head back trying to bite the impacted area. It took off quick so we waited a few minutes before looking for a blood trail. As we searched the area we only found one small wet spot where the coyote was shot and started walking the direction it took off.  Around 60 or so yards we stopped to see if we could see any blood and then spotted the Coyote laying about 10 yards from us dead as a door nail.

This was a smaller healthy looking Coyote with a nice coat for this time of year in the super hot desert. This was Nick’s first Coyote taken with a .250 NSA slug, I was very impressed with performance of this ammo as well as his tuned KalibrGun Cricket. These are accurate slugs and a great choice for hunting with .25 cal PCP air rifles.  Swaged from pure lead to give excellent expansion for effective and responsible hunting.  This pellet is sized .250 with a 2S hollow point nose and flat base, 38.0 grains and the KalibrGun Cricket launches them at 880 fps. The gun has a larger plenum and the regulator is set to140 bar. Charlie at Georgia Air Guns sells the plenum that is a major upgrade in power to the rifle.

NSA .250 with a 2S hollow point nose

After we took several minutes calming down from the excitement, taking some video and photographs we headed back to our stand where we continued to call for another 20 minutes or so before heading back to the vehicles. The trip was a great success already and was very pleased with the experience and footage I gathered sofar. By this time it was approaching 8:00am so we decided to move to a different area to try calling in some more Coyote’s. We tried several different locations with no action at all, by this time it was already getting very hot and the sun was pushing down on us fairly hard. Marley, Nick and I continued for the next few hours and ultimately decided to call it quits as the heat was near unbearable, especially for Marley. This was a great successful hunt and am so glad Nick was able to get out and join me, I learned a little and was just happy to spend time with a friend. Here is a link to a short video I put together and have already planned for a full three day Coyote hunt coming up soon.

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