My wife and I went up to our daughters yesterday evening it's 50 miles one way with a lot of open country in between there and here . About 15 miles from my daughters on the way home I saw a coyote out in a prairie dog town hunting . Then a few miles latter there were some pups setting on the den hole in the evening sun . The one hunting was at 6:12 and the pups were at 6:29 interesting I still make note of what the time is when I see them so I will know when they are being active . Habits we let our selves get into for our jobs isn't it .
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Ramblings and Such From Hunting Coyote
- Thread starter DSheetz
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Our world has been warming up since before the end of the last ice age around 12,000 years ago when the polar caps shifted due to the build up of ice on them according to some . And the sea levels have also been rising since then as well .
Here in my area the coyote will be taking their pups out of the den by late June and camping in the sage brush with them . So then it gets harder for the person doing control work to get them all gathered up . Missing a few of them will allow some to be adopted by other coyote , some will live on their own , some may be runts from not enough food but the vast majority of them will live after early to mid June here . From what I've seen in the south warmer areas where they are born earlier this may well be going on by now . My notes say that the older females bread earlier then the younger females most times and the pups over the years have a span of close to a months time being born here . I have noticed also that late spring storms will kill young pups like other young they are susceptible to cold and wet conditions as well as the lack of food . I have seen coyote pups live feeding on grass hoppers and cow dung then learning to hunt mice , birds and such . These coyote tend to be harder to get for the person doing control work as they are more cautious as well as smarter hunters . Gene was telling me of a coyote he is having problems getting that has a PHD in calls , dogs , traps and snares . This is one that I would have to study and figure out what it's weakness is , where does it go back to , where does it travel the same trails . Then I would probably end up just setting up and sniping it by going into it's home range where it goes back to to spent it's down time . These coyote are most times very aware of any changes in their environment so it will take a lot of caution to do .
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The coyote is such an impressive " surviver"
Yes they are . Most other animals persecuted as much as they have been would be extinct or very nearly so by now . I have to admire them in a lot of ways . The way that they are as a family is just one of the ways . The adults will often give their lives willingly to save the pups . Their ability to adapt to changing conditions and still survive is very impressive for me .
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I could not find Calvin Taylor's video, but I did find this, which clearly showed how cool this type of hunting is, the dog color needed and the size needed to get by! If you can point us to Calvin's video, please do so whenever convenient. cheersCO-Guy , sorry to hear about your friend and buddy being taken by coyotes . When their numbers are high or they have cross bread with dogs they do some strange things as do packs of feral dogs . I do the best that I can to respect life of all kinds but have been known to take life with indifference and remain calm all the while when doing it as it was just a job to be done at that time in my life . That is why some people have called me a heartless ba20-87 for being able to do control work but I can see both sides of that coin as can so many others here . When we go out into the world with the animals we see just how indifferent life can be and how crewel it is to us ,at times . With the advancements in communications from around the world we can see how crewel other people can be to their own kind as well . If memory serves me in the Bible these people are called natural man as they are so much like the beasts of the land . Just my thoughts . This is the time of the year that the control workers get busy as this is the time of the year that the predators are trying to raise their pups . The coyote will be killing other dogs that get too close to their pups in order to protect the pups they don't take into consideration the size of the other dogs they just view them as a threat to the pups . And that is one of the things that as a control worker I used to my advantage and had good dogs to use as live decoys to draw in the adult coyote . If you have never been exposed to the use of dogs on coyote there is a good video called Dogging Coyotes . There is a guy with his dogs in it from Gillet Wy. named Calvin Taylor . He has some good Mountain Curs that are light colored and work coyote well . He ended up with my last female cur when I decided I was too old to finish training her and that it wasn't fair to her for me to keep and not use her . I gave her to a friend of mine here that gave her to him to finish her training . A lot of the coyote dog decoys are curs and some Jack Russell Terriers that make good denning dogs as well . Most of the dogs that are smaller will have a good heavy collar made of layers of canvas or leather and know to come back to their friend with the rifle for help or they don't last at the job long and will be not used again . If you get the time and opportunity to watch Dogging Coyote it is worth it in my humble opinion . Again CO-Guy I am sorry for the loss of your friend and family member , your Rat Terrier .
The video is by E.L.K.INC. out door video series called dogging coyotes I and II . Another one is by powder river predators . Hazer Bulky is a gun smith out of Spotted Horse Wy . , his shop is Bisson Barrels , and built the rifles in this video , powder river predators , for long range hunting . He built a couple of rifles for me . The main guy in the video is Merv Griswold .
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the address is E.L.K. Inc. P.O.Box 59030Park Street Gardiner Mt. 59030 Ph. 1-800-272-4355 . You can see the type of country that I live in in these videos . This is the lower lands and I often worked them and the higher mountains up to over 8000 feet . It's kind of open country with a lot of draws and sage brush as well as buck brush , thorny brush that gets to 4 feet tall or so .
A few years back a friend of mine ask me if I could make muzzle brakes . I told him I could but I hadn't made any for any one but myself . He had bought a carbon fiber wrapped barreled rifle to keep the weight down and liked the grouping he was getting but not the recoil . I told him I would make an exception for him and build one that was ported on top and the sides but not the bottom so he could lay prone and not get a face full of debris when shooting . The barrel was already threaded so I took an old barrel I had taken off of another rifle when it stopped grouping to start with . I reamed it and put internal threads in it screwed it on to the barrel marked for it timing ,cut it to length then bored it out for bullet clearance turned the diameter and set it up to bore the holes in the top and sides at the desired angles for the ports all in all it took me the better part of the morning to make this brake . I even took it out and put a few rounds down range with it . It slowed the muzzle raise and tamed the recoil some what . He used it till the barrel stopped grouping then when he put a new barrel on he shimmed it to time it to his new barrel guess he liked it also as much as I did when I tried it for him . He said that it didn't change the grouping any for him as some brakes had . I don't know for sure but I think I do things like this for the challenge more then any thing else because I seldom charge anything for doing any of it .
The sign of a true gentleman, DSheetz. I'm in awe of the seemingly endless knowledge you have on so many different subjects. So many things are just second nature to you and for a guy like me while I do study hard on alot of things that interest me I still struggle somewhat on most of it lol.
74honker , I have found that over the years it has caused me problems with other people . So many people tend to get quite mad at me because things seem to come easy to me in mechanical ways . As far as control work goes I learned a lot of that when I was a kid and was on farms and ranches . Back before Nixon banned the use of many of the toxins in 1972 . About the only time I went to town was for school or to buy new clothes and such . I have areas that I struggle with the same as does every one . I was being taught to mechanic on things when I was very young and knew that was one of the things I wanted in life so I studied and got older people to teach me . I left home at 13 and knew that I wanted to finish high school but wouldn't be able to afford higher education without going into the service to help me with that . There was also the draft at that time so I enlisted in the U.S. Navy on the deferment program then they stopped the draft , my number was 65 when I graduated , so I was glad I had already signed up . I got some good schooling there and some OJT that I could have done without but all in all I learned a lot about life that has stayed with me met some good people kind of went what some called native and learned so much from the little people . I got out and came back state side and didn't hang out much with people just what I needed to . So control work was a natural choice but I got married and also had a family so I went to work at two jobs one in maintenance working as a millwright , mechanic machinist and high pressure welder , that my uncle Sam schooled me for , to support my family and passion of coyote control . I spent a lot of years just sleeping 2 to 4 hours a day working two jobs most of my life . When I was in the service I worked 16 hr days when deployed . I spent 1 year 10 months and 27 days deployed I learned to catch cat napes and go on . I also learned not to sleep on metal as it sucks the body heat out of you or will make you too hot if it's hot , you can sleep in the rain and any change in noise will wake you up . I don't mind sleeping on the ground in the mountains just the soles of your feet and one cheek touching the ground is enough your not going to stay there more then an hr. or so anyway . I have lived a good life and one that I wanted to and with the teachings from my Grand Parents on my Mom's side learned to have a respect for others . Them and the little people taught me respect for the earth and animals on it
I suppose you are correct as we all probably have things second nature and those that we have to work at. We all learn best what we're exposed to the most and earliest. I guess for me its waterfowl, turkeys, and whitetails that are second nature to me for fun and as for work probably running all sorts of machinery and trucks. I operate and drive by feel and I'm told that's hard to do lol. I don't know I just do it. I also know what you mean about sleeping and waking up to the odd noise. When I'm running my big pumps I'm never more than 100yds from them including sleeping with them at night. I grease packings, check the babbits, and monitor my gauges in 2 hour intervals. I can be out like a light and 1 wrong sound and he awake like a bolt. Too late in life now but really wish I would've learned gunsmithing. I caught all this LR shooting and handloading bug just about 5 years ago. My dear wife says I'm more OCD on this stuff than anything wnd that's saying something coming from her as I can be terribly picky when it comes to how I do most things lol. This site and this particular thread has been the worst best thing for me. I just read and try absorb as much as I can.
You are correct we do our best learning when we are young for sure . I can drive equipment in a straight line and that's about it . Learn about the rifles , shotguns and handguns that you have . Find what info you can on them and study them one at a time your still breathing and think about things I've seen some of the wood work you do so it's not too late to learn some gun smiting there are some good training aids out there that don't cost an arm and leg so you can learn some for your own use mostly what you would need is keeping them in good condition for your self . Take your time put things in the order in which they were removed study on it take a picture every now and then if your not sure on any thing study up on it before going farther with it . Numrich Gun Parts has some good exploded views of most guns to look at be cautious of what you see on youtube but there are some good people on it as there are some good people on here as well .
There are some really good armorer's around and some fine training courses for learning to be an armorer . Armorer's are kind of like a gun smith in training they don't normally have quite the amount of training that a gun smith has in working with metals and machining but none the less they do repair work and assembly of fire arms . Often the training they get crosses over to several makes of fire arms .
