John called me Saturday (18th) afternoon and asked if I wanted to do some coyote hunting and fire tending at the sugar shack. Told him I could do that but I am grounded for a bit till I am able to look into my truck I think it had spun a main bearing. He said he would come get me so get my gear ready. I was picked up at 2:00 PM drove straight to the sugar shack and stowed my gear in the lounge room. We got his 5000 Ford hooked to the wagon with a balk tank, then went around and drained all the pails and vats of sap. Got back to the shack just as Cheryl finished cleaning the boil pan, from the Friday night boil, John and I set it back over the fire pit then filled it with sap, and built the fire up from the remaining coals. Once we had that going John says lets go and see if we can call up a coyote or two across the road. Said no one has hunted there for at least 2 months and he had been hearing them jawing at each other for a few days now.
We drive back to the house then grab our gear out of the truck and walk across the road. Then we walk down an access road for about 250 yards to a spot where there are 4 roads coming together and a big clearing. This at one time was a Christmas tree farm that belonged to an over the road trucker and family. It had not been harvested enough so the trees were all 40 to 50 feet tall and 8 to12 inches on the stump. The owner had passed away about 5 years ago and his widow had sold the place. We go and set the decoy out up wind of us at the edge of the clearing so it was about 120 yards away. Set the call nearby in a clump of brush, walk to where we are going to back into some branches to counsel us some. Start the call with a horny female coyote looking for a lover. I am over dressed and start wishing I had just worn my light weight jacket I wear in Nov. while squirrel hunting.
Isn’t long and we have a coyote somewhere near by send out a challenge Bark a couple times. John gives the caller a return challenge and that Horney female call again. Those challenge barks are going on a good 15 minutes with the real barking coyote getting a little closer each time. I am thinking it is going to hang up when I suddenly see a head peak from under a branch about 10 yards down the trail from the decoy. It is in Johns zone, he seen it but waits a little longer to see if it would stick more than its head out. It never did show its total body just it’s head and neck watching that decoy flopping around. Johns shot caught me unaware and I jumped about out of my skin. It disappeared from sight, I knew at that range john had not missed so it had to be there close. We walk down and pick up the caller and decoy then walk to where we last seen the coyote. It lay one more row back a nice big male with thick fur we figured a fairly young one.
John says we will leave it walk back across the road to his truck (temp was 64F) then pick it up. We loaded it in the truck then drove back to the sugar shack in time to fill it up with wood again and give the sap a good stirring, keeping it evaporating but under a true boil. It is nearly dark when we finished with the sap reducing chores. I tell john it isn’t real dark yet so if he wants we can skin his coyote. As we finished that up Cheryl comes back with a big old fashion coffee pot she sets hear the fire to keep warm, She also has some foil wrapped meals she had fixed for us to cook at the shack. She had cut squares of foil then cut up root veggies, along with some venison stew meat added a couple teaspoons of butter along with spices. She said this was the first time of using the sugar shack fire pit to cook the meal it is normally done on the grill. She said we should pull one away from the coals in about 10 minutes and check it for doneness. We found that it was the way we all liked at 15 to 18 minutes and tasted so great. We had shaved ice she had done and some of the syrup they had boiled down Friday night. After we cleaned up we sat around the fire talking about past hunts and gatherings.
When it got late John and I filled the fire box back up with wood then he lead me back to the lounge room where he folded down bunks from the wall. Now that was a surprise, our group had spent a week and some helping build this building to reduce sap to syrup. John had did the bunks on his own even having the foam cut to fit them. He said that someday he hoped to have water and electric ran back to it and we would stop having our bi weekly meetings at a restaurant then have our meeting there. I asked about the meals we get at the restaurant and he said our wives could do the cooking right there.
We got up at 3:00 AM and filled the fire box back up poured coffee and talked some more. Decided we would go hunt a farm about a half hour away right at day break. Filled the fire box again and headed out at 6:00 AM. Drive to the farm walk about 350 yards back to a hay field near a heavy over grown drainage ditch with thick woods on the other side. Once again we use that Horney female to call a mate to her, this time a pair of coyotes come sneaking out of the woods to the edge of the drainage ditch. They stand there for a bit then see the decoy, would have thought it had goosed them as they charged across that ditch without even a splash.
As they came over the top I shot the first one to appear and john got the second one. Both are males one was clearly the alpha a good healthy heaver male than the other. We put them on our slides and head back for the truck. At the truck we decide to go back and the syrup should be ready or near ready. The trucks temp reading had it at 47F at 7:30 am.
Back at the sugar shack Cheryl had breakfast all about ready for us Flap jacks and fresh maple syrup. John checked the viscosity of the sap, decided it was ready so we drained it off into a bottler for later bottling. Once that was finished we went and gathered sap once again It was really flowing in the warm weather. Once back we skinned coyotes before John took me home. We plan on getting to gather again on Tuesday
Al
