Coyote hunting

[flatsticks]

Been on the lookout for coyotes this season and only heard them once in the early stages after deer season was over .

Been scouting around and looking for tracks and finally found some scat along a well traveled trail , foot traffic only a few weeks ago .

Set up a trail cam with some meat scraps in front of it and left it sit for a week in a tiny field.

Saw some deer and had one image at night that looked like a coyote way off just out of range of the camera, looked like a dog shape in the pitch black .

Last week was out looking for more signs as we had fresh snow and found nice tracks and followed them up to a small 100 yard by 30 yard field right off the main trail.

Set up my trail cam in the opposite side of the field entrance .

Went back a few days later and swapped out the sd card and left some meat scraps in front of the camera . rained heavy so that should have helped cover my scent some .

Got home and checked the pictures and lots of deer and did end up seeing a coyote in the early morning in the field , it came in exactly as how the tracks lined up a few days before .

Torn on if i should get out to the spot tomorrow morning as it will be light wind , fresh snow on the ground and any wnd will be in a good direction to cover scent and can leave some scraps and exchange the sd card, if I dont see it

As the weather warm. up the wind will be coming from the south which is the wrong direction and next week wont be able to get more than likely.

I could keep throwing meat scraps there every couple of days but the run the risk or leaving your scent around and spooking it , and I have worked hard to find this one .

Other option might be if I went down the trail more and threw scraps on the other end of the field after going through the woods to get there and do that a few times in the next couple of weeks to keep it going into the field .

What do you all think ?

 

[Milt1]

Sounds like you're hunting a very small area hoping for success. I don't know if you've tried a coyote call? Seems like you may need more places to hunt and try calling them if you haven't already.

 

[flatsticks]

I have been looking around for a couple months, in the real cold weather , snow etc using an electronic call in a lot different areas .

No had any luck in the other areas , no sightings, response to calls, tracks or scat to be found .

Did hear them howling in one area one time in the evening a while back but with the wind they could have been a long distance away .

Hunted quite a few spots in and near that area , it is huge and called for weeks no responses and nothing on the trail cam either .

Pretty dense woods in my area so I have looked around and tried any fields near the thick stuff that I could find .

Was nice to finally see some proof of an area where at least one ( maybe more ) travel and stop by a field once in a while .

 

[buck460XVR]

It's coyote mating season(almost over), so the animals should be more active and less wary than normal. If you're calling from a bait area, and you suspect the songdog is used to coming to the bait, try coyote vocalizations instead of distress/prey calls.

 

[Aletheia]

I gave up trying to bait coyotes long ago. The odds of you being at the bait at the same time as a coyote decides to go to that spot he found some snacks a day ago are very small. A dead cow will act like a good bait to keep the coyotes "in the general area", but there is no way to predict when they will use the food source even when it is that large, and although they will tend to be in the area, they may well want to bed and digest over a kilometer away. If the food source is just a few scraps, the uncertainty of them returning at any specific time is just too high to make sitting and watching anything but boring. We use calling as the method. You still need to find an area with coyotes, and bait may help that process, but mostly you need to find fresh sign that they are around. Then you try to get them to come to you at your convenience. If I was the OP I would learn all I could about calling coyotes and move to that method rather than try to bait with scraps of meat.

 

[Chuck R.]

It's coyote mating season(almost over), so the animals should be more active and less wary than normal. If you're calling from a bait area, and you suspect the songdog is used to coming to the bait, try coyote vocalizations instead of distress/prey calls.

Agreed, the last one I popped came to single howls rather than distress calls.

 

[flatsticks]

Thanks for your thoughts everybody.

Was out this morning calling in the small field and another area a ways down the trail.

There were fresh coyote tracks along the trail ( not on it ) and into the field just like last time , right by the camera where the scraps were when I got there at 6:00am .

Easy to see the tracks as it snowed yesterday .

Followed the tracks around on the way back out when I was done hunting and I could see the tracks going right to where I had the camera set up previous to the current spot.

Not too far from the field you can see lots of prints where it was drinking as they were all around a small runoff area .

Checked the cam pics and the snow was blocking the lens so I had some clear white pictures as the lens was covered .

Have to say the coyote ( maybe more than one ? ) has a pattern of using this area and how they are getting into the fields and followng the trail .

Like others have said have not been there when it is on the hunt .

Today was nice , no wind and we had a fog hovering for a while after the sun came up , no response to the calls .

So do I keep going to the field calling once a week and hope this dog is in the area , this is the only area with positive prooff the area is being used .

 

[Chuck R.]

There's a chance he's been given an "education" and is call shy.

Happened to me on a couple last year that frequented my place. I invited a couple guys down to hunt, two ran in (siblings?) and one of the guys missed. I could not get them to respond to a call after that. They stayed in the area, and I'd see them occasionally. I had to pattern them as best I could and wait for a tgt of opportunity.

 

[BigBlue 94]

Coyotes are funny. Ive had traps set on fresh deer gut piles get zero attention. Ive seen a pic of my buddy's with one eating some deer bait, nose to nose with a doe.

They are everywhere around here. Maybe you just dont have a big population. How is the rabbit and squirrel population?

 

[Aletheia]

This is an old email I sent to a young hunter who was "getting into" coyote hunting and wanted some advice. I have posted it on hunting forums before on occasion when someone was asking about advice. It summarizes our "standard operating procedures" for hunting our coyotes, in our territory, so some may not apply to your situation. Some will. It works for us and it's some of the most entertaining hunting we do, and we have the luxury of lots of territory that is not hunted heavily, but some of the farmland around here gets a lot of attention at times. They are smart, so you need to respect their ability to learn how humans behave, and they also never seem to forget anything. Take from this what you find useful.

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The first rule of coyote hunting is to hunt where there are coyotes.

We call coyotes that have been called before and not killed "educated" coyotes. If yours are educated, and hunting pressure will educate many for sure, they will be very hard to call. You may have to try something "different" to get their curiosity aroused. That is a very wide topic, so I will stick to generalities we use as SOP.

If they know you are there, they will not come. No sky lining; no walking across open areas if possible; stick to edges; use depressions; do not be easily visible from far away at any time.

No noise. You are going to call an animal with a sound, so don't make any that sound like coyote hunters. No talking; no slamming truck doors; no noise you can avoid; approaching the area while keeping a ridge between you and the area masks sound well.

Control your scent plume so it does not enter the area you intend to call to. We do not use any scent masking soaps, sprays, clothing, or whatever, because we believe they are useless and the only way to avoid a coyote's nose is to not let him smell you. One exception is we will often deliberately allow our scent into an open area down wind. Often coyotes will circle down wind to get a smell of what's making the noise. If the open area is large enough, they must expose themselves to do so. Often, in that moment they get your scent, they will stop to think it over for a few seconds. THAT is a good time to shoot, because they will likely leave after they decide what you are.

Break up your outline somehow. Brush in front (as long as you have a shooting lane) or behind you will do that. Do not move around any more than you must. We like to hunt in pairs. One guy gets fairly hidden, sometimes giving up long range vision, and does the calling. The other sets up to cover the approaches from an angle that allows him to see well, but the animal will be looking elsewhere for the source of the sounds. Decoys can work for this distraction too, if you are alone.

We use mouth calls exclusively. We walk lots and we hate carrying crap. That's the only reason to avoid the electronics that we can think of; that and the cost, and cold batteries. We have howlers, but use them mostly for "location" calls and then move in and use "dying prey" type calls (and they all seem to work). We believe only dominant animals will really approach a stranger in their territory, so howlers are less productive than prey type calls. We want the insecure ones too. Maybe we just don't speak "coyote" well enough.

Call "softly" the first time in case they are close; you don't want to scare them. We call for 30 seconds to a minute and then sit for 5 and watch. The next set of calls can be louder. Watch very, very carefully. Binoculars are a real help, even in the bush. You cannot pay too much attention. Around here, if you see a magpie or raven coming to the call, pay close attention to that direction. Coyotes and magpies hang out a lot together. Pay attention to the really unexpected directions too. Make head movements slow and steady rather than quick glances. Move nothing more than you have to.

The length of time we call a particular set up depends on how long we think a coyote would take to come from the farthest ranges we think the call is reaching. Wind knocks down calls really quickly, so your range is short. Calling from a ridge on a calm evening will reach a long way. Experience is likely the only teacher here. We have had coyotes over half an hour into the set, but most of the time 15 minutes will tell you what you need to know. Be very careful once you decide the set is done. Stand up slowly and have a long look around. The new angle will reveal all those coyotes you called but have not yet seen (and there will be a depressingly large number of them). You may get a shot if you don't create too much of a spectacle so that the dog has to figure out what the H*** just moved. But chances will not last long.

If you are going to just move and try again, don't talk, don't make noise, don't expose yourselves any more than you must. They may be watching. We move far enough to enter a "new" area that we think holds animals that have not heard us. In a big wind that may not be far; on a calm day that may be half a mile or more. We avoid calling the same area more than a couple of times a winter. Educated coyotes and all that.

Shooting sticks or tripods are essential. We use .22-250s or .243 and one 6mm Rem as dedicated coyote rifles. Coyotes are, pound for pound, a very tough animal. They are also small targets. You need to be able to shoot well, and shoot quickly at times with some honest power too. Multiples get really interesting. We agree before hand about left side/right side etc. and who will shoot first.

 

[flatsticks]

Thanks for the information , lots of good advice fom you all really ppreciate it .


Put a lot of miles in this winter and elimated some areas for sure and found some great looking areas .

Early season I chalked up to not hunting in spots where they were hanging out.

Think I will pick up a couple more trail cams and set them in a few different places and leave them there for a while .

The area I am in now is great cover for rabbits and I see some rabbit tracks and mice tracks as well but not seen too many squirrels around.

Lots of deer in the small fields as well .

Started the season when our deer season ended as you do see a lot of people in the woods before then and that has me thinking another reason for them to be more wary.

The one area where I heard them ( only one so far and just the one time ) seems real promising, big area and heavy woods for them to hide , lots of cliffs to have a den and not too far from an area people dump deer carcass all the time during the season.

The big downside to that area is is so large and will take me a while to narrow it down , just need to find the route/ routes they are using in there.

 

[entropy]

Get a Quiver Critter. Sparingly use rabbit distress calls. Camo yourself well physically and scent wise. Be ready, they will circle for a while. I've had them dodge from cover (the edge of a field) to the decoy, one actually pulled the rabbit "body" (a brown fur like cover that goes over the motion rod) off in a dead run. I had to shoot him on the run to get my decoy back!

I usually hunt farmland, as permission is not hard to get. I like to set up on the edge of a field, ideally on a small salient sticking out from one, then I can hear them in the woods behind me (sometimes, but better than in an open field behind me that I can't cover visually) but I have more area to the side that I can visually cover.

As for routes; think like a coyote. You have the advantage of being able to bring up Google Earth satellite view for the area you'll be hunting. Kinda like having your own spy satellite.

 

[flatsticks]

Good call on using Google Earth is has helped me find some small fields that would have taken a long time to find walking around .

I am always in camo head to toe and sit incover , trying to think ambush .

Been really working on keeping my scent down and really watching the wind .

Like the decoy idea , the visual makes sesne that they will loose thier cool and attack it .

Glad you got that one shot before it made off with your decoy !

Trying to think like they do will sure help me figure out what they are up to .

 

[Fyrstyk]

This time of year I use a full sized coyote decoy along with the caller. Coyotes are very territorial during the breeding and welping season, so any strange coyote in anothers territory is going to get challenged.

 

[JFrank]

We have a few coyotes hanging around the area feeding on rabbits , rodents, neighbors chicken etc. maybe even small /slow white tail deer but’ they follow the food source much like the wolves above my place follow the deer and elk.

Find the food you find the predator

 

[Coyote3855]

I don't kill coyotes these days, but if you are into that sort of things, Aletheia gives good advice. When I was calling, if no results in 20 minutes, I moved on.