Two weeks ago I was deer hunting when something absolutely crazy happened. The morning started out just like most of my other hunts. I had seen a few deer, a couple small bucks and that morning I even saw a pretty nice buck but he never came close enough. What made this morning different was something other than a deer though.
I was in my tree stand watching a small 8 point that was about 25 yards away. The 8 point wasn't quite big enough for me to shoot but I was enjoying watching him walk around near my stand. All of a sudden the deer got spooked. I know the deer had not seen me because I hadn’t made any large movements. I also knew the deer hadn’t smelled me because the wind wasn’t blowing in that direction. I was clueless as to why this deer had become scared and ran away.
That’s when I saw something small coming towards me. It was a coyote that had scared my little buck away. Where I am from coyotes are not good to have around. Coyotes will prey on rabbits, pheasants, and turkeys which I like to hunt. In our area we have a fairly large coyote problem. Almost every night you can hear packs of them howling in the woods around our houses. Recently though, the coyotes have been moving during daylight. My neighbor, Dr. Malik, shot one behind his house and my cousin who farms the area also shot one while he was harvesting a field nearby. The coyotes have been much braver recently and are moving during the morning and parts of day.
This coyote was coming right at my tree stand in broad daylight. It was around 8:30 A.M. and the sun was completely out. I was shocked to see one so close but I knew if I could get a shot at it with my bow I would definitely shoot it. Moving slowly, I stood up in my tree stand and got my bow ready. He kept walking right towards me and when he got to about 10 yards away I drew my bow. As soon as my bow string was fully drawn back I whistled at the coyote. Whistling at him made him stop walking just long enough for me to release my bow and send the arrow towards him.
After I shot my bow I realized I had forgotten to take into account that the coyote was only 10 yards away from me and my sight was set for 20 yards. Therefore, my arrow hit higher on the coyote than I had wanted it. The arrow missed most of its vitals but hit the coyote’s spine. A spine shot can be good in hunting because it will paralyze most of the animal’s body. In this case the back half of the coyote was paralyzed. This means he was unable to walk on all fours but he was still alive. The coyote dragged itself to a nearby tree and leaned against it. This whole time my arrow was stuck in his spine with most of the arrow sticking out. As you can imagine the coyote was very pissed off. While the coyote was propped against the tree he began to reach back towards my arrow with his mouth. I could not believe it but the coyote was actually trying to get the arrow out of his back. At first he was unable to pull the arrow out, so in his fury, he bit my arrow in half. The other half of the arrow was still stuck its spine though. The coyote continued to try and get it out. He reached back and ripped the rest of the arrow out of his spine including the Rage broad head that was at the tip of my arrow.
I was standing in my tree stand watching this from 10 yards away. I was in total shock. I could not believe that a coyote was so tough that it could pull out an arrow that was stuck in his spine. This whole time the coyote never yelped out once. The coyote was completely silent when it ripped the arrow out. After he got the arrow out he tried to get away. His back legs were still paralyzed though so he had to drag himself with his front paws. The coyote succeeded in dragging himself about 50 yards from my tree stand and just out of sight.
I stayed where I was for another hour and a half thinking that maybe a deer would come through and I would be able to shoot a buck. Once I got down from my stand I followed the blood trail towards the coyote. Unfortunately, the coyote was still barely alive. He had dragged himself into a small creek nearby and was just lying in the water. I knew I was going to have to put him out of his misery. This is where I started to feel bad for the coyote. He had lost a lot of blood and he was lying in freezing cold water. The coyote was shivering violently and obviously very cold and near death. When you get up close to a coyote it is weird how much they look like a normal dog. This made it that much harder for me to put him out of his misery. I knew I was going to have to stab him with my knife to kill him. I stood over him for almost ten minutes trying to bring myself to do it. Eventually, I pulled him out of the water by his back legs so that I could finish him off. As soon as I got him out of the water it gave him a burst of energy. The coyote tried to get up and move and that scared me. I did not want to be bitten so I stepped on his head and thrust my knife into his chest. It was almost sad to see this animal die because he looked like a normal dog but when he tried to get up, it brought me to my senses that this coyote would bite my leg off if he had the chance.
Two weeks later to my surprise I got another shot at a coyote in the same woods. I was hunting in a different tree stand but this coyote also came within 10 yards and I shot him with my bow. This coyote just ran off and died without all of the theatrics though. Three days after that, another coyote ran by my tree stand but this one I did not get a shot at. I had never shot any coyotes before in my life and I had definitely never gotten this close to any of them. This is why it is so crazy that in two weeks I was able to shoot two of them and see a third. The first time I ever shot a coyote was, by far, the wildest thing I have ever seen while hunting. The fact that he was tough enough to grab the arrow lodged in his spine and pull it out was total craziness! This story and that coyote show how deep the will to survive runs in wild animals.
