In June 2011 I was sent to New Mexico for my job. I lived and worked in a small town in south New Mexico called Hobbs, which is just a few clicks away from Texas.

I’m an avid hunter in my home countries Holland and Germany, so I started looking for hunting opportunities in New Mexico. It was the offseason and only predators and hogs were open, so I started focusing on those. I signed up on a forum called the Texas Predator Posse. After a quick introduction the administrator (Bob Connell) told me he had some members around Hobbs. A few days later I got a message from Fontaine Garrett, who said I could join him on his weekly predator hunts.

We met up very early in the morning before sunrise. This was my first predator hunt so Fontaine explained the dos and don’ts for calling coyotes. Fontaine set out his decoy and started calling, after a few minutes a group of does came running in, but no coyotes. Then we moved to another spot and Fontaine starts calling again, very quickly a coyote came in. I did what I was told to do: wait until the coyote was behind brush, and then quickly bring my gun to position. When the coyote stepped out from behind the brush I dropped him — my first coyote!

From the first day I was hooked on predator hunting and wanted to learn as much as possible. Then Bob had another surprise for me! Another moderator Doug Trott was in Iraan, Texas (not far from me) to night hunt for bobcat. He said I could join him. So that Saturday I met Doug and just after dark we hit the road. On the first stand Doug began calling and soon a pair of eyes came out of the dark. It was a gray fox! I put my crosshairs on him and got my first gray fox with the squeeze of the trigger!

That night we saw many eyes, mostly from deer. It started to get light so we called it a night.

During my remaining time in New Mexico I hunted a lot more for predators and doves. I really had a great time in New Mexico and Texas and want to thank Bob Connell, Fontaine Garret, Doug Trott and all the other people who helped me out with hunting while I was out there! Now that I’m back home, I’m using many of the same techniques for predators over here.

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