Sunday's TJ early shootout (++WARNING GRAPHIC++)

This time was different than other trips to the ranch.

First off.. because it was fathers day I had to be back at home early, so we left @ 3.30AM, arrived around 4.30, still dark, so we had a chat with the owner and waited for the first light to appear over the horizon as it was still very dark.

First time ever I go shooting with a borrowed gun and taking pictures with a camera that isn't mine. Freddy let me use his .22 cal RWS 350

The sun was just rising behind us when this picture was taken.
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Anyway... Freddy took his 9mm 201 and we headed for a great spot over some big rocks, watched a lot of big jack rabbits and rabbits all over.

Took a couple of shots at a distant jack rabbit but miscalculated holdover and ran away.

We were enjoying the early morning fresh air and talking about airguns (what else?) when we spotted several rabbits and jacks moving from ranges as close as 30 yards and as far as 80-90 yards.

Freddy was on the other side of the rock, lower than me and I was on top of it like a lizard in prone position when from the side I noticed movement.. I turned my head slowly and DAAAAAM.

It was a coyote about 30 yards from me, then to his right another, and to the right of that one another, all big, fat and fluffy, beautiful skin (fur?) and the strangest thing of all is that they didn't seem to spot me on top of that rock, I alerted Freddy who was on the other side, he made a small noise when trying to change position and the closes 'Yote stared at my direction but it wasn't looking at me, as if it didn't know I was there, and I was just 30 meters from it and prone on top of a big rock.

Anyway, they started to move and took off. Never seen a coyote so close, next time the 9mm might get lucky hehehe.

The worst thing of all is that I took my old Hi-8 camcorder and I recorded the coyotes, but the footage was lost when I rewinded the tape to watch the coyotes and later on Freddy taped some squirrels erasing the coyote footage.. bummer

So we stayed in the same place, Freddy spotted some movement and took a shot.. welll. this is all that was left of it.
Couldn't find the missing part .
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After a while a decent sized rabbit appeared, took a shot I was acting as spotter as targets were out of range for me, around 70-80 yards, this time I didn't feel confident in taking such shots even with the RWS350 as I don't have much practice with it, I saw as Freddy took the first shot and how it missed the rabbit's neck for 1 inch, he took another shot and same results, a near hit to the neck, a little adjustment on the 3rd shot while the rabbit was facing him and....

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Far tot he left the rock formation where we were when we spotted the 'Yotes and took the shots.
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Career 201s with "light" eun jin 57gr pellets @ ~940fps MV
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I cleaned the rabbit a few minutes later before it got stiff and assessed the damage.
While the pellet didn't hit much of the internal vital parts except for one of the lungs which practically evaporated it did massive damage to the bone and tissue, the rabbit just did some break dancing just to expire a few seconds after it was hit.
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It was amazing to watch those coyotes from so close and so bad that the footage was lost, the best thing is that we discovered another great spot and we are very likely to see more coyotes next time.

Hope you guys liked the pictures, taken with a cell phone. uhhgh...

Thanks
Joe Cortez...

Sick 'em Höf!!!