5 Yotes In A Day

“Ouch!” This photo of Eric Haglund was taken with his cell phone so he could assess the damage to his face. While shooting a coyote way over his left shoulder, the scope busted him in the nose. Eric killed five coyotes on Nov. 20. His intentions were to shoot a good buck.

Dead coyotes everywhere, a busted nose and ammo fading fast was the situation for Eric Haglund while he was deer hunting in Terrell County on the afternoon of Nov. 20. The story began that morning.

Eric, of Snellvile, had seen a shooter buck that morning but didn’t have a shot. However, he did kill his first coyote.

“It was the first I had ever seen hunting, and I have been hunting for 30 years,” Eric wrote in an e- mail to GON.

For the evening hunt, while hunting a different stand, a coyote appeared over his left shoulder.

“I throw up the gun and crack him between the eyes. He falls on the spot,” said Eric.

The coyote didn’t get the only crack between the eyes.

“I shot him so far over my left shoulder that the gun wasn’t mounted in my shoulder,” said Eric. “The kick from the 7mm-mag caused the scope to scrape across my nose and take a good chunk of skin off. I was trying to take a picture of my nose with the cell phone to see how bad it was, and for some reason I decided to look back at my yote. I couldn’t believe it, but there was another yote standing over the first one.”

Not wanting to get scope bit again, Eric swung around in his chair and seated the rifle firmly in his shoulder.

Coyote No. 1 was taken the morning of Nov. 20, 2010.

“I flip off the safety and pull the trigger,” said Eric. “Whoops! In my pain, I forgot to reload. I quietly work the bolt, and by this time the yote had turned toward me. Thinking I am going to crack this one in the head, I must have hurried my shot. The yote was knocked down, but the shot didn’t kill it instantly. It started screaming and bouncing around.”

The coyote’s hollering rang the dinner bell, and before Eric could dispatch the yote, here came another one.

“Ten feet from the first yote, another pops out. I crack him in the left shoulder, and down he goes. The other one is still crying, so I reload, and another coyote runs right under my stand and into the bushes. I don’t get a shot—at first. He runs across a trail about 50 yards out. He was too quick, but he pops back out 90 yards away and stops in the trail. BANG! No. 4 for the afternoon goes down.”

The crying coyote died during the commotion, and Eric sat with his final bullet in the chamber. For the day, he’d killed five coyotes.

“My phone started buzzing as I was getting text messages from my two hunting buddies wondering what in the world was going on. I responded: Taking fire. Running low on ammo. Need fire support quick.”

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