http://www.register-herald.com/statenews/cnhinsall_story_161224633.html
I was browsing the local papers when I ran across the story above.
Coyotes must be smart as hell. I hear them at night all the time. I’ve seen numerous coyote tracks. But I have never seen one in the woods while hiking. I saw one while four wheeling once. It makes me wonder, how many have seen me?
While thinking about the coyotes I remembered a story about a red fox.
Once upon a lifetime ago… I really liked to squirrel hunt. One of my favorite places to hunt was in Rock Creek, West Virginia. Back then coyotes weren’t an issue. But packs of wild dogs were. I had heard some pretty scary stories about people and wild dogs. Rock Creek was one place where a lot of stories originated.
I was living in the last house in the hollow, literally. My closest neighbor was a mile back down the road. Looking out the front door you could see civilization, looking out the back and all you could see was West Virginia backwoods. If it lives in West Virginia’s mountains, then it was running around, or crawling, somewhere in the head of Rock Creek I’ll guarantee it.
I could hear the wild dogs from my house as they ran and barked on the strip roads. That is a scary sound when you live secluded. On first hearing the pack it was a habit to listen and determine which direction they were going. I would never go to the mountains without a firearm in those days.
One day I was out hunting a couple of hollows away from the house. I was at the top of the mountain sitting on the edge of a gaswell road with a full view of the hollow below me. It was about mid morning when I first heard the dogs. They were a long ways off. For a while I couldn’t tell which direction they were moving. And of course they were moving towards me. I was a little worried, the only way I knew they were coming in my direction is the barking was getting louder. Which meant they were coming right to the area I was in. Or at least that was the direction they were traveling. There was no place for me to go. They were between me and the house by the time I could discern which direction they were moving. So I sat there and waited. I had a Mossberg pump shotgun. I could hurt one or two of them if I had to. A little longer and I could tell they weren’t coming directly at me but would pass by somewhere in the hollow directly below me.
I’m sitting there a nervous wreck when a red fox comes over the ridge from the direction of the dogs. It sounded like every mutt in the county was chasing it. The fox came into the hollow and done something I’ve only seen either in cartoons or on National Geographic. There was a log lying there with the end pointing towards the oncoming pack right in the center of the hollow. This fox runs around it a couple times runs down it and is basically all over the thing in thirty seconds. Then he takes off running on around the mountain away from the dogs. A few minutes later this motley crew of mutts show up and have a great time sniffing around the log. Little dogs, big dogs, short dogs, tall dogs… The only thing this whole scene needed was bright colors and pencil drawn lines. It was a classic cartoon played out in real life. The difference being that this fox didn’t shake the pack but he did buy himself a few extra minutes.
