I wasn’t trying to call anything. I was just sitting there.
It was late January, one of those gray flat days where the temperature never decides if it’s above or below freezing. I’d been out since five-thirty trying to find deer sign. Found nothing worth following. By ten I was tired, kind of annoyed, and had made peace with the idea that this was just a long cold walk with a rifle.
So I sat down at the edge of a draw and pulled out my phone.
I had downloaded a predator call app months ago — one of those free ones with three sounds and fifty ads. I opened it mostly out of boredom. Scrolled past “Distressed Rabbit” and “Fawn Bleat.” Picked “Cottontail Distress” because it was the first one. Hit play. Volume maybe two-thirds up.
I wasn’t even holding the rifle. It was leaning against a log three feet away.
The call played for maybe four minutes. I was reading a text from my brother about a truck part. Somewhere around minute five I looked up — not because I heard anything, just one of those gut checks you do in the woods — and there was a coyote standing thirty yards to my left.
Not running. Not sneaking. Just standing there, head tilted, ears forward, looking at me like I had just told a joke he didn’t understand.
I froze. Phone still in my hand, the rabbit scream still playing from the speaker.
The coyote took one step closer. Then another. I could see the yellow in his eyes. I could see the frost on his whiskers. I could see exactly how far away my rifle was and exactly how slowly I’d have to move to reach it.
I didn’t move.
He stood there for what felt like a long time. Maybe twenty seconds. Maybe a minute. I honestly don’t know. Then he turned, trotted back down into the draw, and disappeared into the brush like he’d never been there.
I sat there for another five minutes with the phone still playing the rabbit loop. Didn’t turn it off. Didn’t move. Just stared at the spot where he’d been.
What I Learned (Against My Will)
I didn’t learn anything about calling coyotes. If anything, I learned that I don’t know how to call coyotes and that a free app with three sounds can apparently work well enough to call one into thirty yards without you even trying.
What I learned was this: the woods don’t care if you’re paying attention. Something is always happening out there whether you’re ready or not. And when it happens — when that animal materializes out of nowhere — you learn something about yourself that a thousand range trips won’t teach you.
I learned that when a predator looks at me from thirty yards, my instinct isn’t to grab the gun. It’s to freeze. Not fear, exactly. Something closer to respect. Like my body understood before my brain did that this wasn’t a target. It was a wild animal doing what wild animals do, and I was the idiot who invited it over without thinking it through.
I didn’t shoot the coyote. I could have. Had every right to — open season, legal method, the whole thing. But by the time my brain caught up to my body, the moment was gone. And honestly? I don’t regret it.
Some days in the field are about filling tags. Some are about walking around in the cold with a rifle. And some — the ones you don’t see coming — are about a coyote looking at you like you’re the dumbest rabbit he’s ever heard.
I’ll take all three.
