The same is true here where I hunt. We have enormous amounts of voles, mice, rabbits, squirrels, turkeys, small pets like cats and dogs, fruits, cattle, deer, fish, etc etc. The coyotes here are definitely not starving either. On a stand a couple years back I called in a large male coyote that responded to the call from our rear side and I ended up shooting him at 30 yards with an AR15. The crazy thing was that this coyote was carrying half a rabbit in his mouth at the time of his death. It isn't always about the needing of the meal but the wanting of the meal. You can feed a kid to the point of being sick and then offer them a piece of candy and they will take it most every time.
Trust me, I know that there are times when you don't call in a coyote on a stand. I have been doing this an awful long time and have seen some crazy stuff. Last year we saw a coyote at about 400 yards mousing in the same field that we were going to call to. We snuck over and set up and I turned on our electronic caller to a bunny in distress and the coyote didn't even look our way. I upped the volume to high and it still wouldn't even look our way. I switched to a different bunny in distress with the same results. I was beginning to think the coyote was deaf. Then I thought, hey this coyote is mousing in the field so why not give him the sounds of what he is looking for so I turn on the caller to the vole sound. The coyote turned and ran as hard as it could straight at us and covered the 400 yards in just seconds. It was at the 50 yard mark before we could even get the thing to stop by woofing at it.
Keep after them and don't be afraid to change gears. To me coyote hunting is an active thing and the calling is the primary reason that I am going. If I am not going to call in the coyotes and get to travel around and hunt in different places during the day then I would choose to not hunt them with the possible exception of sitting up to intentionally take a very long range shot. Just my personality, I guess.
Greg
