COYOTES

[oosik]

There is one area - north of me - 50 to75 miles. Up around Chewelah and Colville - south of Kettle Falls. You best be on your toes - deer aplenty and they like challenging cars and pickups.

I ALWAYS slow down thru this area. And I go this way quite often. Either the Kettle Falls loop or the Inchelium/Gifford loop. I've gone this way for 40+ years and haven't hit anything yet.

Kind of spooky when a deer will charge out and run alongside your vehicle for a short ways.

Makes me think - coyotes must be banned from this area. OR, at least, have plenty of alternate food sources.

 

[Rockbadchild]

I worked with a guy who's wife swerved to miss a squirrel and hit another car head on. I think it killed the other driver and messed his wife up really bad. I've never forgotten that and told my kids about it and told them never swerve to miss an animal.

Very good advice,
That's always on my mind and would be the ultimate nightmare... It is one thing to say I will not swerve but it is something else to not do it when the time comes, sometimes it is a reflex or habits that can be hard to break but if you start doing it for squirrel and rabbits that are easy to swerve around, it will become a habit and an automatic reflex. Obviously not saying to run them over on purpose but training the mind to not swerve carelessly.

There is one area - north of me - 50 to75 miles. Up around Chewelah and Colville - south of Kettle Falls. You best be on your toes - deer aplenty and they like challenging cars and pickups.

I ALWAYS slow down thru this area. And I go this way quite often. Either the Kettle Falls loop or the Inchelium/Gifford loop. I've gone this way for 40+ years and haven't hit anything yet.

Kind of spooky when a deer will charge out and run alongside your vehicle for a short ways.

I heard many stories of moose or bear sprinting for it to cross the road and hitting the side of vehicles or the trailer of haul trucks. A bear did that to me once, he got out of the bush full sprint with his head down and cross the road, I lost sight of him under the hood, but he came out the other side. I was hauling a horse trailer I did break but never had time to stop.

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

Animals must be smarter in your neck of the woods. I think some whitetails get sick of being hunted, or nagging does and fawns and just commit suicide by car. I don't think many people intend to hit a deer with their car.

Small critters? Not going to risk damage to avoid them or to hit them. I remember one time we were driving along a gravel road between Rapid and Sturgis. I think in a 20 mile stretch dad must have clipped 6-8 birds that had had enough of this life. There is no avoiding them. You just hope they don't break your windshield (or anything else expensive).

Reminds me of the Friday afternoon I was returning to Bismarck from NW of Kenmare (far north west corner of ND) and I had a flock of Pheasants fly up into my service van from the side of the road.

I hit at least 5 of them. Had to throw those undies away. I drove it the remaining 5 hours back to Bismarck. I was expecting to get pulled over, at least when going through Minot, but it didn't happen. Not much else I could do about it when it happened in the middle of nowhere on a Friday afternoon.

On the next Monday, I asked our fleet manager if he could get his glass guy to come out and fix a chip in my windshield...

 

[Yander]

Wow, 5 pheasants, what kind of pheasants? We have ringneck around here and after the blizzard of 78 put the hurt on them they are a rare sight in Ohio. Love to see them though.

 

[BnRidge]

We had a deer trying out to be a gymnast. Ran out, jumped up, over the hood rolled over the roof, landed off the back and took off. Perfect 10.
I was out taking photos with a tripod at night once. Must have sounded odd, crunching around in the snow, that it attracted one of the locals (coyote). Came bounding down the lane like a horse from 300yrds away to within 20ft of me, in the dark. I couldn't see a thing. It let out a howl, I let out my best warrior scream and got ready to rumble. Makes the enemy pause if they think your nuts. At least it all made him take off.

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

Wow, 5 pheasants, what kind of pheasants? We have ringneck around here and after the blizzard of 78 put the hurt on them they are a rare sight in Ohio. Love to see them though.

They were ring necks. All were hens that I remember. The flock in question were all sitting there nice as you please on the side of the highway until right as I was going to drive past them. They popped up, but didn't have time to gain any flight speed before I drove through them. I'm sure I "got" at least 5, maybe more.

They are vulnerable to die offs in hard winter seasons (they are also vulnerable to van windshields), but they usually come back after a couple of years.

 

[YanmarFever]

I use to hunt Yotes at our last place we lived, they ate our cat, killed the neighbors dog, attacked my chickens, and killed 3 fawns behind our house.
I bought a nice .223 and a caller after taking a few classes from a friend who hunted them. Every time I harvested a deer, I would have a gut pile to work with as bait.
Between the bait and the caller I put 27 of those killing machines down in a few years, then I would hang them on the back fence for their pals as a warning.

It did thin them down because after a while even the neighbors noticed a huge difference in sheep and calf losses.

 

[Jstpssng]

Animals must be smarter in your neck of the woods. I think some whitetails get sick of being hunted, or nagging does and fawns and just commit suicide by car. I don't think many people intend to hit a deer with their car.

Small critters? Not going to risk damage to avoid them or to hit them. I remember one time we were driving along a gravel road between Rapid and Sturgis. I think in a 20 mile stretch dad must have clipped 6-8 birds that had had enough of this life. There is no avoiding them. You just hope they don't break your windshield (or anything else expensive).

You and others are right. I should have said I never intentionally run over an animal… unlike some people I know.

 

[Torvy]

They were ring necks. All were hens that I remember. The flock in question were all sitting there nice as you please on the side of the highway until right as I was going to drive past them. They popped up, but didn't have time to gain any flight speed before I drove through them. I'm sure I "got" at least 5, maybe more.

They are vulnerable to die offs in hard winter seasons (they are also vulnerable to van windshields), but they usually come back after a couple of years.

Oh, for corns' sakes, Slim. You prolly killed half 'dem peasants in Nort' Dakohta.

The upped the limit in South Dakota since I was a kid. We could only take 2 rosters a day. I hear they let you take three nowadays.

 

[MossRoad]

About 15 years ago we were driving west on I90 across South Dakota, and turned north on US83 to go up to Pierre. We drove through the Fort Pierre National Grassland. I've never seen so many pheasants in one place in my life. There were thousands of round bales scattered around the fields for miles, and darn near every bale had a couple/three pheasants on them or around them. We kept having to dodge them as they rose from the roadsides right across our windshield. Then, the next day, we had to drive south and do it all over again. It was something to see.