The coyote listened well enough to the call projected by Daniel McCory and Steven Wynn, quelling its natural reluctance to approach within 300 yards in the night.

The hunters were downwind in the field, hoping to earn the animal’s trust to draw it nearer and then betray it. But something spooked the coyote, and it began to angle away from them.

It was not a perfect situation, but both men aimed their rifles and fired. The coyote dropped. Another pelt for the fur chest, another animal that in their minds would no longer prey upon and diminish the doe population of southern Indiana.

The shots in the dark, aided by night vision, were remarkable. The partners both scored near-perfect shots in the shoulder.

“He was starting to move,” Wynn said. “We thought we’d better take the chance.”

When they reached the coyote, lying dead on the ground, and examined it, the men were dumbfounded.

“Our bullet holes were probably 3 inches apart,” McCory said.

Short of an autopsy or ballistics report on a “Law and Order” spin-off, they would not know for sure who killed it.

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Coyotes do not have fan clubs. With the exception of Wile E. Coyote, the cartoon character, Americans do not appreciate them, revere them, try to protect their future or do much of anything but try to avoid them or hunt them.

Wolves have constituencies that support them, even if they have also been the object of attempted eradication. Government agencies, ranchers, and hunters who sell their pelts on the fur market are the coyote’s primary enemies.

Coyotes may resemble wolves, or the family dog, but it seems as if it is open season on them, even if that is technically not true. Indiana is in the midst of coyote hunting season now, which runs from October to March, though permission can be obtained to hunt them other times of the year.

Many dogs are bigger than coyotes, who if they grow large might weigh 44 pounds. Western coyotes tend to be bigger, with thicker fur.

It is possible to hunt turkey, deer and waterfowl and migratory birds in Indiana, but the Hoosier state is not a big-game state where elk, moose, or black bear are available. Hunters take challenges where they can find them and in the case of coyotes they feel there is a ripple effect of value.

Skill is required to hunt coyotes, especially since they are nocturnal and night hunting brings particular demands. Coyotes can indeed be wily. Pelts can be sold, though the fur market is fairly weak right now.

There also is a belief that by ridding the landscape of coyotes, hunters are protecting Bambi, or Bambi’s cousins, from being devoured, at a young age, or livestock, especially in the West where they are known to prey upon cattle, goats and sheep.

“I kind of like to help out our deer and rabbit populations,” Wynn said.

Indiana does not keep track of the coyote population and hunters do not have bag limits and do not have to report kills. Studies indicate the coyote has thrived and expanded its range from its original hauntings in the western United States and that despite an estimated annual kill of about 500,000 a few years ago, the population continues to grow.

“There have been efforts to eradicate them for 150 years,” said Geriann Albers, an Indiana Department of Natural Resources furbearer biologist. “It just doesn’t work.”

There are estimates the coyote has roamed the area that became the United States for a million years. In Native American folklore and mythological stories the coyotes sometimes have starring roles, if not complimentary ones. They have regularly been portrayed as trickster characters, not to be trusted.

But coyotes are smart and slick and adaptable creatures. When they go for the kill, they go for the throat. For all of this alleged viciousness, indications are such worries are blown out of proportion in terms of a threat to man unless the animals are cornered or have rabies. The number of attacks on humans is increasing, though there are only two recorded cases of coyotes killing people in the U.S. and Canada.

“It tends to be something the non-hunting public has a fear of,” Albers said.

Albers likes coyotes more than the average human throughout American history.

“I love coyotes,” she said. “They’re my favorite animal. They’re survivors.”

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It was the opening weekend of Christmas vacation when Tyler Goecker, a senior who is the high-scoring guard for the Trinity Lutheran basketball team, and his friend, Seymour junior Grainger Pollert, slipped into the night to chase coyotes.

They wore full camouflage outfits, packed rifles, night vision aids, an electronic call that allowed them to speak coyote, and prepared for a night that could last till dawn, depending on their luck.

They didn’t make it to their hunting ground until after 9 p.m. They were going to be stretching bed-time, but this was awake time for coyotes. Coyotes don’t mind darkness, nor frost. They prowl for food seeking to avoid people and they are sensitive to their smell and are wary of human movement.

Experience in the field pays. Electronic call boxes can mimic the sounds of a coyotes, rabbits or birds in distress, breeding sounds, whines, yelps and howls. The boxes, with handle, vaguely resemble a good-sized radio and have a wide price range. While many are more costly, $200 can buy a useful one.

The terrain of choice for Goecker and Pollert is usually farm fields.

“Thermal is hard to hunt with in the woods,” Goecker said.

Every hunt is experimental in terms of which sound might convince a coyote to move closer and check things out. This night there was a full moon, which helped to see farther.

“We heard coyotes everywhere,” Goecker said.

Goecker and Pollert felt they had to get within 200 yards for a decent shot and the history of their approximately three years of coyote hunting taught them that might not happen. They were fortunate this time.

“It took about 10 minutes and that dog came out right on top of us,” Pollert said. “When you call a coyote in it’s a whole different level. It’s so quick. You don’t usually sit there like when you’re waiting for a deer. Tyler heard something to his left. About 50 yards over to our left he started running past us.”

Pollert had to react quickly or the coyote would dash away.

“I put him down at about 50 yards,” Pollert said, the shot piercing the animal’s shoulder. “That’s just the fun part. Then there’s the work.”

Although coyote meat is no delicacy to the human palate, they are skinned, cleaned and dried and sometimes hang in the garage until enough accumulate to be taken to a fur buyer.

Even though some money can be made from the pelts, this is not a reliable way to make a living in the 21st century. Trapping and shooting for fur was in its heyday in the 1800s, with mountain men figures of romance and hardiness in American history, perhaps no one more so to a modern throwback outdoorsman than Jeremiah Johnson because of Robert Redford’s portrayal of him in the movies.

An iconic film, the story mixed fact and fiction, representing a dangerous, dramatic and rich lifestyle.

“I’m not quite that extreme yet,” Goecker said of the Jeremiah Johnson way.

The mountain men lived off the land and not even Chad Goecker, 49, who has hunted for decades, though seriously for coyotes for only a half-decade, pretended to Tyler he knows it all.

“It’s pretty challenging to call in a coyote,” Chad Goecker said. “You’re in his world. It’s kind of rewarding to call one in. It’s a lot harder than it seems. A lot of the factor is luck. We’re still trying to figure out what the combination is. It’s not really a science. Different things can get them at different times.”

Compared to the more common pastime of deer hunting, Chad Goecker said, coyote hunting “is definitely more challenging.”

Hunters mention the word challenging often when discussing coyote hunting.

“I may go out seven or eight times and not see a coyote,” the older Goecker said.

But hunters are outdoorsmen who love being in the outdoors and there is an allure to being on a stalk in the dark.

“I’ve always felt the night is a great time to be out,” Chad Goecker said. “It’s great to be out under the stars.”

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The fur market in general has not been very lucrative in recent years — though it has been a tiny bit tilted in favor of coyote pelts.

Wynn, 36, who lives in Clearspring and has hunted coyotes for 18 years, says, “They really aren’t worth nothing.”

He lets partner McCory skin their bounty and said he last heard of them fetching $12.50 a hide. McCory said he did sell some pelts for as much as $20 each last year.

There has been a bigger return on coyotes in recently because a major company in Canada has been using the coyote fur in hoods.

“The last few years there has been a market,” Albers said, “because of high-end coats.”

For those who harbor strong dislikes, or are scared of coyotes, she said, it may be because those people look at the animal as “smaller wolves.”

Albers also believes the image of coyotes preying heavily on young deer and livestock is overblown.

“Research has shown again and again it is not true,” she said.

A non-hunter may even confuse wolves and coyotes. In the late spring of 2019, as the winter snows melted and animals that survived the harsher weather began moving about in Yellowstone National Park, a mini-traffic jam sprung up of camera-toting tourists on the park’s east side.

A hungry beast was gnawing on the carcass of a dead bison. The viewers snapping photos whispered again and again, “A wolf” as more people gathered to watch the rare scene perhaps 30 yards away.

By coincidence, on a day off, Corey Class, a regional wildlife coordinator for Wyoming Game and Fish out of Cody, was present and thought: “A hundred people are going to go home and tell their friends they saw a wolf.”

This was indeed a coyote, one large enough to confuse some, who in truth wanted it to be a wolf. There are several ways to tell the difference. A wolf may weigh twice as much, 100 pounds to 45 pounds, have a bigger and broader muzzle with more rounded heads and much larger feet.

“If you’ve seen enough wolves and seen enough coyotes,” Class said, “you know right away.”

Of course, those tourists from far away who thought they saw a wolf probably never saw a coyote before either.

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McCory, a heavy equipment operator from Brownstown, and Wynn, service manager of a Polaris dealership, have seen more coyotes than they can count, or call.

Coyote hunters hunt by night because that’s when coyotes are on the move. Their rifles, such as a Savage 6.5 creedmoor, have scopes and might use a .22-250 Remington cartridge. Their lights can penetrate the darkness and their electronic calls can emit eerie sounds that may provoke a coyote to overcome its natural suspicions and investigate.

“If it’s a brighter night you want to get into the darkness,” Wynn said. “They can see your silhouette.”

Guys like Wynn and McCory, 38, have hunted for a lifetime, for turkey, deer and squirrels, but coyote hunting is more exciting, and unlike deer, which may well be a harvest of one animal a year, the season does not cease in a day.

“It gets your blood going,” McCory said of the several elements that make up the hunt.

Coyotes are skittish and must be out-smarted. The call may woo and it may not. The wind must be gauged. The coyote may sniff you out and create a harder shot.

“It gets your blood boiling,” McCory said. “It has become one of my favorite things to do. It’s become a passion of mine.”

Wynn, initially a trapper, and McCory, invested time studying videos, figuring out calls, making mistakes and then correcting them.

And somehow, under a starry, moonlit night firing two shots simultaneously and perfectly to make a kill.

“It’s going to be hard to top that one,” McCory said.