kirsch
01-03-2011, 09:06 AM
Let it snow, let it snow, NO DON'T LET IT SNOW! I was teasing my 7 year old daughter before winter in ND, saying it wasn't going to snow this year. I was hoping my statement would be true as we have had a number of brutal winters in a row. She said, "Like that is ever going to happen" and boy was she right.
My area of ND has already had 50" of snow by Dec 31st. The big issue is, it never melts in ND until April, so I am stuck with all this stinkin snow for a few more months, and winter has just begun. This is more than a year's worth for ND in just 1.5 months. Side roads are not even a consideration as they are under many feet of snow, walking is darn near impossible, and coyotes cannot get around at all.
Before the last storm dumped another foot+, I set up in a spot where the coyotes could get to me on a large frozen lake because the wind had blown many large lakes clean and this works well on tough snow years. It worked but the wind switched on me during the stand and I got busted big time by 3 coming hard. One coyote came the other direction and I watched this coyote work for 15 minutes to get the last 300 yards as it was breaking through the snow. I finally felt sorry for the coyote and killed it at 150 yards. This was an anomoly because what I have found when the snow gets deep, it becomes increasingly hard to call in coyotes as I believe to a coyote it isn't worth the energy to cross any substantial distance. The typical set up is near cattle yards, or deer herds that have trampled the snow down to make travel easier. Until the snow firms up (if it ever does) hunting is going to be really tough. This is my whinning for the day as I sit at my keyboard vs killing coyotes. Hope the rest of you have better conditions and let's get some posts going as it is slow around here lately.
My area of ND has already had 50" of snow by Dec 31st. The big issue is, it never melts in ND until April, so I am stuck with all this stinkin snow for a few more months, and winter has just begun. This is more than a year's worth for ND in just 1.5 months. Side roads are not even a consideration as they are under many feet of snow, walking is darn near impossible, and coyotes cannot get around at all.
Before the last storm dumped another foot+, I set up in a spot where the coyotes could get to me on a large frozen lake because the wind had blown many large lakes clean and this works well on tough snow years. It worked but the wind switched on me during the stand and I got busted big time by 3 coming hard. One coyote came the other direction and I watched this coyote work for 15 minutes to get the last 300 yards as it was breaking through the snow. I finally felt sorry for the coyote and killed it at 150 yards. This was an anomoly because what I have found when the snow gets deep, it becomes increasingly hard to call in coyotes as I believe to a coyote it isn't worth the energy to cross any substantial distance. The typical set up is near cattle yards, or deer herds that have trampled the snow down to make travel easier. Until the snow firms up (if it ever does) hunting is going to be really tough. This is my whinning for the day as I sit at my keyboard vs killing coyotes. Hope the rest of you have better conditions and let's get some posts going as it is slow around here lately.