I used to think there was nothing worse than calling in a coyote and then missing. That was until I was being filmed calling in a coyote and missing — several times on multiple coyotes on multiple stands, all in one day. That was much worse. 

At the end of the fourth unsuccessful stand of the morning, my hunting companion and cameraman, Torry Cook, said, “Well, it’s either your gun or it’s you. If it’s your gun, we can fix it. If it’s you, that will be harder to remedy.” 

“Let’s hope it’s the gun,” I responded. “My wife’s been trying to fix me for years to no avail.” 

A few hours later, I patterned several shells through my gun at some paper and came to the painful conclusion: It wasn’t the gun, it was me. We determined that I was flinching when I pulled the trigger. I then spent an hour shooting again and again, trying to break the habit. I didn’t know if this strategy was going to work, but I was desperate to recover from this bad shooting streak.  

The next morning, I did break something — a new personal record. My first triple on one stand. As I hauled the third coyote up to where Torry was filming, I told him, “Don’t tell my wife it was this easy to fix me. After 33 years of marriage, she’s still trying to get me to put down the toilet seat!”