This time it was 3am. Tobie went on a veritable rampage, charging from window to window snarling horribly. Never heard him snarl before except during play. He wasn’t playing early this morning – in fact he was so serious I decided to see for myself what if anything was up.
So I put on my leg and went out on the porch with my rifle. A few years ago I upgraded to something that could mount a weapon light by some means less redneck than duct tape, and then I researched and acquired the brightest light I could (with some difficulty) afford. This is my “bump in the night” gun, and this wasn’t the first time I’d taken it outside in the dark ready to bump back.
Before I left the cabin I did hear coyotes howling again, and this was almost certainly what had gotten Tobie so stirred up. That being the case, the chances of any actual encounter were pretty much nil but that didn’t mean I didn’t have a round in the chamber. I’ve been wrong before, and I actively strive to ensure to the best of my poor ability that my last words aren’t “Oh shit.”
The moon is almost in the last quarter but it was high and bright in the cloudless sky. I didn’t need a light to see my way around, but that’s not what the gunlight is for. I lit up the front and side yards from the safety of the porch, and seeing nothing I went down the stairs and shined the slopes around the cabin and the approach to the wash. I saw nothing, which did not surprise me. Didn’t really doubt that there had indeed been something there: Tobie may overreact but he doesn’t lie to me about anything but food and who tipped over the trashcan.
This morning at first light we worked the perimeter together, and as if to say he told me so he pointed out one new pile of coyote scat after another around the far part of the driveway. Nothing closer than that, but they really did come out of the brushline and into the killzone, probably heading for the hills as soon as I opened the door. Not the first time and they did no harm, but I do consider it rude.
Got any silver bullets? Coulda been werewolves or werecougars.
Yikes
Maybe a light sedative for Tobie to keep him calm and quiet and spend a night on a rooftop shooting perch. Leave a couple carcasses lying for a day or so, the rest will get the message.
Good Boy Tobie
(I meant to post this here, but accidentally did so on the previous thread)
Yer gonna laugh at this, but it works:
Find a decent place to set a perimeter, maybe a brush line or something like that.
Drop trou and Mark Your Territory on the cabin side. Likely they will mark the other side of the line. If they do, they’ll respect it and stay outside that line.
It works to keep ’em out of areas here in Indiana. The ‘yotes go around my marked territory. Since I started many years ago I have not had shoot any in my yard.
Chances are, your coyotes will also recognize you as an apex predator and respect the line you mark.
Hint: you gotta refresh it about every 3 weeks.
You have a very good boy.
I don’t laugh at that, I used to do it all the time and clearly have to go back to doing it.
Funnily enough the coyotes clearly respect that on the main footpath between the Lair and Ian’s Cave. Tobie marks every square foot of that path up till the point where it intersects with the driveway halfway up the ridge: We’ve recently got a lot of coyote scat at or near the driveway but nowhere at all on the path between the driveway and the Lair, a space of maybe 100 steep yards. 🙂
So yeah, I need to start bottling my piss again and dumping it along the treeline in front of the Lair.
Wife picked up a little device in Mexico some years back that was used to lure jaguars into hunters at night. Consist of a good size hourglass gourd with one end covered with rawhide goat skin. There’s a narrow strip of tanned leather through the rawhide. Coat your thumb and finger with bees wax and gently pull on the tanned strip. Produces a sound like a big cat. Coyotes do not like that sound.
😀 That’s an interesting notion. I’d like to see more detail on that gadget.
Re jaguar caller: gourd is dried then both ends are cut off leaving openings six to seven inches across. Heavy gauge wire is put around the middle of gourd and is used to anchor rawhide over opening with lacing between wire and rawhide. Leather strip is threaded through center of rawhide with knot to cause rawhide to vibrate as the leather is lightly pulled with bees wax coated fingers. By the way, Tobie won’t like the sound either. Sorry, can’t send a series of pictures, as I do keep a low profile on the net.