Hi
I lived (and live AGAIN) in Indiana, and I worked summers on a 650 acre cattle ranch in the south-central part of the state. The boss leased another 400 acres or so from other farmers in the area, too, so we patroled (a much nicer concept than, "strung fence wire") over a thousand acres.
My second summer, the boss discovered that we had a pack of coyote in the area! You lose one calf, you say, "bad luck." You lose TWO, and you bite your lip and suck it up. You lose ALL the newborn spring and early summer calves and you start looking for reasons.
We came across them one particularly hot Indiana afternoon. There were a half dozen actual coyote laying down by a marshy spring run off, and a pack of about 18 wild dogs laying down nearby.
The next day, the boss was rummaging around in the house when I got to work (we were neighbors in town. I walked to his house and then we drove out from there.) He said that I should help him find a soft-side rifle case, and we both started rummaging.
He found it in a closet, layed it on the desk and opened it up.
Inside was a gorgeous set-trigger Mannlicher-Schönauer carbine chambered in the 6.5mm round that bears its name. (
This isn't the one, but it could be it's twin brother, but for the trigger. From:
mannlicherschoenauer.com.) After he explained the concept of set-triggers to me, he set me to servicing and cleaning it while he looked for some ammo.
We went to work that day well armed. The Mannlicher was in a brand new rifle rack in the rear window of the truck, and a Taurus .22 Mag revolver was in the glove compartment.
When we got to the farm, we pulled everyting out on the front porch of the old farm house and started loading up. I wondered how the Mannlicher shot and the boss said, "go find out, but you shoot it, you CLEAN it, and it's old ammo - corrosive primers and all."
Oooh - threaten me with having to spend MORE time with a firearm!
I boresighted it,
as I'd been taught at the Boy's Club, and found that the sights looked pretty close already.
Old Earl, the foreman (who had kind of adopted me in the middle of the first summer when I told him that I did not believe that he was 65 years old, because no one THAT ORNERY could LIVE that long), laughed at me and said, "ya kin tell he's a real shooter by th' way he squinches down his left eye!"
He was surprised when I put five rounds out of that fine carbine into a mossy patch about the size of the bottom of a coffee cup on a fencepost all the way across the big field by the house.
The boss said, "boy - we see coyote, YOU get the rifle!" Old Earl just grinned as proudly as if I were his own son.
By the end of summer, we were down to one gun-shy coyote and three dogs. The ground hogs were right skittish, too.
(Sorry: I'm one of THOSE guys. You get me started, and a story just naturally rolls out of my head.)