Frontal Shots on a Coyote

This is a front view of a coyote’s vital areas. Shooting a coyote from the front can be difficult; the neck and head are smaller targets than you think and although a properly placed bullet in either place will kill a coyote, they are difficult to place because the target is only a few inches wide (under the fur).


Since the coyote’s skull has a slope to it, there is always the risk of bouncing the bullet off the coyote’s head. I know of cases where hunters have made frontal head shots and dropped the coyote hard.


Unfortunately for one hunter, the bullet grazed the coyote’s head and simply knocked him out for a few minutes. As the hunter was dragging the seemingly dead coyote back to his hunt rig, Ol’ Wiley came back to life….in a really bad mood. That encounter was not pretty and the human hunter learned a hard lesson. In a frontal situation, make sure you place your shot right to the chest and heart area as illustrated.  Check out WWW.RedHunterLLC.com for more coyote hunting tips.