Setting an M1A/M14/M1 for hunting.

[badwolf]

Did you get the bear op?

[405grain]

Larry: Nice picture. Question - The speaker on the front of your jeep; are you using your jeep as your predator call? That's such an awesome set up, but I'd get in so much trouble with something like that. I'd have it hooked up to a PA system so that when I'm at an intersection in town I can say "The light's green Bozo!"

I only went pig hunting twice with my M1. It was heavy + I didn't see any pigs on those 2 hunts.

[Larry Gibson]

Yes, the speaker was connected to an old last century (it was still last century) tape deck caller. When going through high sage I'd put the jeep in 1st gear low range and let it idle along. You could actually walk faster than the jeep was moving. The sage off my left shoulder in the background ran 4 - 5' tall. There was another road through it and that's' where we first saw that coyote. The passenger, Jack, would stand in the back and watch for coyote to come out onto the road or into clearings or shorter sage areas. If a coyote came out or was seen I would pop the jeep out of gear and stop. We would exit the jeep to shoot. That way we avoided the "hunting with the aid of a motor vehicle or shooting from a vehicle" regs. Sometimes, if there were 3 of us in the jeep, and the coyote appeared off the either side, the passenger would just step out and crouch. The coyote's attention would be focused on the jeep still moving which most often gave the dismount a good opportunity for a good shot. It proved to be an effective method. However, one thing I've learned calling coyote is when you think you've got the answer to the question, they change the question......

TAnd so, that particular coyote changed the question as he had come out of the sage on the left onto the road, stopped and looked at us less than 50 feet right in front of us. He gave us the oh-oh look, went 3 feet straight up, spun around and hit the ground already in 6th gear over drive. Jack (my partner in the photo) yelled he was running hard for the open area on the left of the arroyo. I gunned the jeep, and we made it to the high ground which wasn't far away, stopped the jeep, dismounted and immediately hit a kneeling position. Jack had to get out of the back of the jeep, so I was maybe one second quicker on the trigger when the coyote cleared the high sage and then stopped at about 200 yards....mistake. The 130 gr Speer HP took him clean and he was DRT.