May 1, 2012
By Tom Walsh, BangorDailyNews.com
MACHIAS, Maine — Opening day of turkey season turned out to be a
bit more than Bill Robinson had in mind Monday when he set out his
decoy at dawn’s first light.
“I’ll never forget looking up
and seeing a jaw full of teeth coming at me,” Robinson said Tuesday,
the day after being attacked and bitten on the right arm by a
coyote. The wild canine sprang while the Maine Guide was hunkered
down in the brush, using a mouth-call to lure a turkey into the open
while hunting on private property near the Washington County
community of Cooper.
“I had placed my turkey decoy in a
field in front of me and then positioned myself in some cover,” said
Robinson, 39, who lives in Edmunds Township, near Dennysville. “It
was about 10 minutes after dawn, and right beside me was a short,
thick spruce tree that had grown so thick you couldn’t see through
it. That coyote came up the edge of the field and was one side of
that tree, with me on the other.
“The distance involved was
only about four feet,” Robinson said. “But that tree was so thick
that he couldn’t see me, and I couldn’t see him. He was determined
to have turkey for breakfast and was also determined that the sound
he heard was a hen turkey.”
Robinson said the coyote “came
in high,” a hunting maneuver designed to ensure his feathered prey
couldn’t fly off.
“When he bit down on my upper arm, he went
through four layers — a heavy jacket, a sweatshirt, a long-sleeve
shirt and a T-shirt,” he said. “As I peeled off each layer there
were two holes in each one. When I got to my arm, it was just
burning and bleeding out of two holes.”
Once the coyote
realized it had jumped a human, not a hen, it sprinted away.
“It turned and ran 100 miles an hour across that field,” Robinson
said. “It was as shocked and surprised to see me, as I was to see
it. I took a shot at it, but it was too far off by then. I turned it
around for a second when I hit him in the haunch with a few pellets
from my turkey load, just to say goodbye.”
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