JACKSON, Wyo. -- "There. Two coyotes just crossed the road," I said pointing to a spot 100 yards ahead.

Denny Myhre, my cousin, put the brakes to the SUV and, in the backseat, Fran and Audrey leaned forward to look.

"There they go," Audrey said and I watched through the lens of my 300 mm telephoto as the two 'yotes trotted slowly across this alpine meadow in Grand Teton National Park.

They dropped over a rise, out of view.

"If I get to that tree, I think I can call them in," I said pointing to a lone pine about 100 yards out.

Problem was my calls were buried in our luggage.

As I slid out of the truck and closed the door softly, I noticed a small compact car pull alongside of us.

"What did you see?" I heard a small voice ask.

"Coyotes," answered Denny. "Two of them just over that ridge."

And then I was in the grass, ducking small clumps of sagebrush. I made it to the tree and got behind it, resting my camera with the long lens on a convenient branch.

I waited a moment to try to catch my breath, and then did my best mouth imitation of a dying rabbit.

It sounded terrible. More like a fawn in distress. So I repeated that call, shorter this time just like a fawn.

It"s funny sometimes how a field can be empty and then suddenly you will see a coyote looking right at you.

That happened now. A movement 50 feet to the side of the coyote morphed into the second dog. Now each of them was staring right at my tree and right down my lens.

They were young coyotes. Probably siblings. A couple of lip squeaks should bring them charging in.

But it didn"t. They were just staring in my direction.

I tried it again, and now they appeared nervous and started to turn away.

Not a good thing.

Something was spooking them. Maybe the cars.

I turned and looked over my shoulder.

There, standing on a large rock just behind me, were four Japanese youths pointing excitedly at the coyotes.

They weren"t making any noise, which was a good thing, but jumping up and down on a rock and pointing at coyotes less than a hundred yards away is a huge "no, no."

I smiled and turned back to watch the coyotes disappear into the sagebrush.

I couldn"t keep from laughing as I walked back to the kids.

"Did you see them," I asked.

Excited nods answered my question.

"Were they wolves," one of them said.

"No, they were coyotes," I answered and brought up a photo on my digital SLR. They clustered around me.

"Very good. Very good," they agreed with huge smiles as we walked back to the road.

"Not nearly as good as it could have been," I thought as I opened the truck door.

A few days later found us out on the high plains sagebrush flats at a wide spot in the road southeast of Jackson called Farson.

There was a gas station here and one store which specialized in huge ice cream cones and an historical marker proclaiming this as one of the stops on the famed pony express.

Denny"s 32-foot motorhome was parked under an aged cottonwood tree behind the store, and would be our headquarters for a short coyote calling hunt on BLM land which stretched for miles in all directions.

The next morning we jumped into my truck and took a jeep trail consisting of two ruts across a sea of sagebrush.

It didn"t take long to encounter a coyote. It came out of nowhere and then stopped to look at us. It was less than a hundred yards away.

I got out the camera and got the photo published with this column.

Then the coyote trotted a few steps and pounced on a vole. I got a shot of him with the vole hanging out of his mouth just before he gulped and the rodent disappeared.

We let him go.

A few miles farther on we dropped into a dry creek bed and I stopped the truck.

"This looks good," I said and backed the truck out of there.

With the truck concealed, we hiked in over the next hill where the creek turned.

With our backs against a large clump of sagebrush, I began the first series of calls.

Denny held his rifle and a video camera at the ready.

I used the dying rabbit and did a series of screams for about 30 seconds and then stopped and waited.

After a couple of minutes, I raised the call again and was on the second scream when a coyote busted out of the sagebrush a mere 100 yards away.

"Here he comes," I whispered to Denny.

I stopped calling immediately and slowly lowered my hand to my .243.

The coyote was just charging in and I do mean charging.

I was starting to worry that he"d run right by us and pick up our scent, but he swung to the side less than 50 feet out still running hard.

"That"s too close," I thought.

I raised the rifle and picked up nothing but hair in the scope and squeezed the trigger.

The little rifle kicked against my shoulder and I raised off the scope far enough to see the coyote running away.

It had been a clean miss.

I jacked in another round and the dog disappeared into the brush before I could send another 58-grain ballistic tip its way.

"Wow, did you get that on video," I asked.

"Nope," Denny answered. "It all just happened too fast."

I picked up my brass and we began walking back to the truck.

"I don"t understand how I missed that shot," I said more to myself than anyone else.

However, stranger things have happened when I"ve been calling coyotes.

Having four Japanese students standing on a rock behind you has to rate right up there.

It just may be, in fact, the strangest thing I"ve ever had happen on a coyote set.