Author Topic: Saturday night fire tending  (Read 1458 times)

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Offline Alleyyooper

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Saturday night fire tending
« on: February 24, 2017, 06:30:43 pm »
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

 ;D  Al
your not fully dressed with out a smile.

Offline LazyBkpr

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Re: Saturday night fire tending
« Reply #1 on: February 25, 2017, 11:19:29 am »
Awesome time right there...  Been boiling as well.. I have a few pics but trying to get them from my phone to the computer is being a PAIN...    Don't do much calling, but have friends with yote dogs, so we do a lot of driving and tracking trying to get ahead of the coyotes.
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Offline Newbee

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Re: Saturday night fire tending
« Reply #2 on: February 25, 2017, 04:43:51 pm »
Thanks for sharing Alleyooper, sounds like a great weekend!

Offline neillsayers

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Re: Saturday night fire tending
« Reply #3 on: February 25, 2017, 04:57:51 pm »
Now that is an awesome way to spend a night. I'm a bit envious. :)
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Offline Bakersdozen

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Re: Saturday night fire tending
« Reply #4 on: February 25, 2017, 08:32:04 pm »
I don't know anything about sugar shacks, boilin' down sap, coyote huntin' or coyote skinnin'... but I can tell you had one heck of a good time.   :)  Thanks for sharing. 

Offline Alleyyooper

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Re: Saturday night fire tending
« Reply #5 on: February 26, 2017, 08:45:56 pm »
The 21st was a good day over all.

John came and picked me up Monday night about 8:00 PM. Drove back to his place the sugar shack and stoked up the fire good then sat around talking and emptying the coffee pot till about mid night when we filled the fire box again and went off to the lounge area to sleep. I hope my snoring didn’t bother John too much, I told him he might want to go up to the house to sleep. Any way we were both awake at 5:00 AM, got ready to tend the fire and stir the sap again and have breakfast. I had brought a dozen eggs some cheese and pan fried bisket dough for breakfast and my big griddle even though John said I didn’t need to be doing that. I just like contributing more than throwing a few logs on a fire. Cheryl came with the big coffee pot refill about 6:00 AM.

After a quick cup of coffee and Filling the thermoses we took off for the Jonas farm about a hour away so it would just be light enough when we walked in not to fall over anything. This has been a good productive coyote farm for us over the years. But this morning we got no response of any kind and only saw a few deer feeding out in a 2016 corn field as we walked back out. Once back at the truck we decide another farm about 15 20 minutes away should have better results. At one time back when farmers broke their backs with manual labor proved to be a real back breaker for a farmer who liked things neat. Every field had a 3 to 4 foot stone wall around them; I had seen farms like that in upstate New York when on vacation one year. I do believe every rock ever picked up was placed as a fence.


This was the Rice family farm, who raised beef about 500 head of Herford’s, many having won blue ribbons over the years for the family members at the county fair. We walk back to the edge of a big hay field near the woods and set up. About 10 minutes in we see movement thru the woods so we figured we had coyote coming in. As they broke out of the brushy woods edge we see it is 4 of them. I watch John to see him signal it is time to fire and at which I should try to take. They come to the wall where we cannot see them any longer then they are on the wall looking about and see the decoy. John signals I should take #1 and try for # 3, as his finger does the trigger twitch I squeeze off a shot and quickly swing to # 3 as it goes back over the wall out of sight. Turn back to where # 1 was and nothing there either.


John signals his coyote is down and thinks another fell over the wall. We keep the call going with a even lower volume for the remainder of the 2o minute set. We go and look at where the coyotes had been and find mine on the other side of the wall. It is a real nice colored female as is both of Johns. We are both surprised females showed up for the female in heat sound. Maybe wanting to defend their territory, don’t know. We drag them to the drive lane then gather our gear. John drives back and we load up the coyotes just after 8:00 AM.


We drive about 30 minutes to the Gillis dairy farm. I was telling John about Kare’s garage cats coming into heat during this warm spell and telling him I want to record that sound and put it on a SD card for my caller. We walk back across a hay field and set up along the fence line. There is a vacant farm next door starting to be very over grown with autumn olive and other brushy stuff. We call one coyote from that stuff which John got, this one a male.


Decide it was time to return to Johns and build the fire back up and collect the sap. John also figured it was time to check the boiled syrup and drain it off if it was OK. It turned out to be OK so it was drained off into a big vat waiting for bottling's. John said He had no idea how much syrup he would end up with from his trees being his first year but he was pushing 20 gallons since they had started just over a week ago. The warm days and cool nights sure had the sap a flowing to the point he had started collecting twice a day when he found some pails near over flowing. We skinned out the coyotes, fleshed and sewed them up. John took me home getting there about 2:30 PM. Said he would seem me at Sundays meeting for sure and knew where to call to get help again.

Skinning a coyote isn't hard if you have the right tool to do it with, We do since the 6 of us started doing this about 15 years ago. Our group jumped to 9 this year.


The maple syrup is good but I still prefer honey.

 ;D  Al

your not fully dressed with out a smile.

Offline LazyBkpr

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Re: Saturday night fire tending
« Reply #6 on: February 27, 2017, 01:53:51 am »
He has 20 gallons of finished syrup?   :o   Thats like....   800 ish gallons of sap!  I don't think I would have the wherewithall to manage all that boiling!

   Good job on the yotes...  You two need to come down this way and thin them out. I can hear three different groups around my house yapping at each other on many nights.
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Offline Alleyyooper

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Re: Saturday night fire tending
« Reply #7 on: February 27, 2017, 06:00:04 am »
Johns tank is 500 gallons I believe. I know I helped him fill it twice when we were setting the 7 record temps a week and a half ago thru last Friday.

There are 9 of us as this January who hunt coyotes every chance we get. there were 6 of us till then who have hunted varmints as partners for nearly 15 years now. We are approaching 40 farms where we have permission to hunt, most all are from one farmer who was having problems and john heard about it from him while at the grain elevator getting grain ground.

All nearly all the rest have are a result of that first farmer we took care of his coyote problem for word of mouth. So if you want the coyotes gone find some varmint hunters. local gun shops, sportsman clubs and of course the grain elevator.

May be trappers in the area also who would like to trap them on your place.

 ;D  Al 
your not fully dressed with out a smile.