Ramblings and Such From Hunting Coyote

Thank you HMR Johnny, I do as well the younger people that are interested in that type of work and want to can also post about their interest asking for some advice from other readers on here and I'm sure that some of the guys doing that work still will be so willing to help them out with it. All of the guys in the Casper office and close to where I worked have retired now but there are new people there and there is defiantly a need for people interested in doing that work. The three pilots that I ground crewed for have retired, most of the gunners have either retired or moved to other locations now. It was so interesting to visit with the pilots about how they got into their line of work one of them was an Air America pilot, another one flew B-17's crop dusting down south. A lot of the trappers just enjoyed trapping and being outdoors.
 
Dave, I just had to tell you that I finally got my nemesis. Went home to Eastern Montana for a couple of weeks and stayed at the farm. I don't just hunt but some days do farm work to help out, herd cows, wean cows, plow corn fields, etc. The farm where I stayed is getting a few coyotes back after the drought. They lost 20 chickens until the farmers wife got out the 22-250 and shot a big coyote bedded down behind one of their quonset buildings. They live in fairly good calling country. I call some badlands right next to the farm that extend for about 2 miles. the Missouri is about a half a mile away and up on the top of the breaks is pasture land. In the bottom are corn fields with lots of pheasants and rabbits. I have been after this one male coyote for at least 3 years maybe 4. I have a real good calling stand towards the top that I can sneak in to. This old boy doesn't leave that area of maybe 2 square miles. He knows the sounds of my caller. If I am set up on top of the coulees he will immediately start barking at me down below in the flats. If I try to call him down in that sagebrush in the flats he will immediately start barking at me up in the top of the coulees. And he doesn't waste any time doing it. At the first calling sequence he is immediately barking at me. I have tried just about every sound on him. I think he knows the frequency of my caller. This year I went to that favorite spot and as soon as I turned the caller on he just started screaming at me. His female was doing the same thing but she was about 100 yards from him and I couldn't see her. The hill he hangs around is 350 yards from my stand and I have planned to shoot him if he gets on the hill. Well, he just started screaming from that hill and he comes up on top for only about 5 seconds and then goes back behind the hill. Then he and his female walk off continuously barking as they walk away. They aren't 400 yards away but they are behind the hill. This old boy always stirs up the whole country and I gotta get rid of him. A week later I sneaked in to a good stand from the opposite direction about a mile away. As soon as I turned the caller on he started barking at me from up on top of the breaks. Strike two. I had saved my ace in the hole (hopefully) for one of the last days I was there. I went to my favorite spot where I had first tried to call him up towards the top of the coulee. This time I turned a coyote fight sound on. Him being the bully of the block I figured he couldn't resist that. As soon as he heard he just started screaming at me. He was only about 300 yards away on top of an adjoining coulee but I couldn't see him because off the ridgeline in between us. If I had been 20 yards more up the hill I could have seen him. I let the caller play for about 30 seconds and then turned it off. I waited for a minute and then turned it on for 30 seconds again. Then I turned it off and just shut up. I knew he couldn't resist and would have to come and investigate. No more barking at me, but a minute or so later I see him running across the coulee through the sage below. As he runs across the flat through the sage I remember a quick thought going through my mind that he even looked like a neurotic coyote. He had gotten across the flat as I was swinging my sticks and he started up the face of a pretty steep embankment. He would go up a ways and then stop and look back. As soon as I was getting on him he go up a ways and stop. I would try to get on him and he was getting to the top and stopped for one look back. The 6 creedmoor barked and he dropped straight of the bluff. 135 yards. Man am I glad that I got him out of the gene pool. It has been a battle for 3 years.
 
How many kids do think he left with his genes? He did teach his mate to be that way as well, didn't he? You did well by thinking differently then you had done in the past, changing up is what it takes so many times. I have in the past seen where I would kill an older one like that only to have its kids be the same way but that's what keeps it interesting isn't it.
 
My wife and I took a short road trip today and we noticed that the bald eagles are starting their north ward migration. We saw probably a dozen in 50 or 60 miles near the North Plate River. It's only around a month and a half till the meadow larks and western blue birds migrate back.
 
When you are calling there are so many things that come into play that will cause them to hang up at greater distances. Too high of volume with your call, too much movement at your stand, your odor being carried in the wind toward them, you're clothing not blending in well. what detergent did you use does it cause reelections in the light band widths that they see? Does it have loud smelling perfumy odors? They might have been called before and missed or maybe they just weren't seen as you shot another coyote before you saw them. It could be that their numbers are lower this time of the year and they are just being more cautious, or it might just be that the not so cautious ones are already dead and what is left is more cautious by their nature, so they are left to stand and make you think you're doing something wrong when you aren't it's just the way they are. With all of the calls, hand calls and e-calls the biggest mistake I have made was to call too loudly and for too long before giving it a break and just sitting for a couple of minutes before starting to call again. As I have said before think about how the real animal does it. So very often we haven't ever really heard what the real animals actually sound like just due to the fact of the way we live life in today's world. How loud and long does a fawn blat, or what does a jack rabbit sound like when it's scared or injured, what does a mouse sound like when it's scared or injured, how loud are they, how long do they scream, how often do they scream, do they stop and then start again? What time of the year are we most likely to hear the sounds that we are using? Would it be natural to hear these sounds at this time of the year or will they be out of place now? Just a few thoughts to ponder!
 
Most people want to go coyote shooting, not hunting. There is an art to hunting predators or tricking them to hunt you.

Dsheetz is right on the money with his advise.

If it is legal, dilute your scent cone with a Bait, I use Sardines in Oil.

The use of e callers and night vision has taken over the sport of Predator Calling.

If you live in Black Bear country, use a very coarse gravely sounding hand call, I like the Weems Duo Tone and the Lohman/Cierce MVP-4 set on long range.


Will be the hunt of a lifetime to trick in a bruin to come hunting you!
Remington 12ga 11/87 with factory extra full choke, 000 buckshot will serve you very well. Mine patterns 100% at 40 yards in a 20" circle, and the stock fit is so poor, I use a burris speed beade on it.

I had a Retired Navy Capt of a troop transport from WWII and the Korean war tell me that the bear coming in to us was more frightening than a MIG attack! Globe, Az. It is pretty exciting to watch one with his breath coming out like a Steam engine, him clacking his teeth, trying to make up his mind to charge. About the most fun, you can have with your clothes on! Sardines in Oil, hung in two socks, 10 yards on each side of the hunter, spritzer bottle with diluted fish oil from the grocery store sprayed in the air at the beginning of the stand to test wind direction. You had better set up to see downwind, and the bears sound like a Volkswagon coming through the woods. Two-year-old bears are easy to call.

Pard called on in up on the Arizona Rim with a Tally Ho, also we did not shoot him because we had no tag & out of season. Pard did not tie his mule up real well, and he had to walk 6 miles back to the truck, mule was standing at the horse trailer when we got there.
 
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Twenty-five or thirty years ago I was slipping up a trail in the dark to get to my set up area before day light. I was up in the mountains a little over 9000 feet in altitude, there were a lot of small pine trees, and I was on a nice clear trail stepping softly and getting near the place that I wanted to call for coyote. I heard something softly walking in the woods slightly behind me. Then I heard a woof and grunt my quite walking was done I now made loud noise and went back to my truck. After daylight I went back up the trail with my bigger rifle, near to where I had intended to make my stand, I located a bear bait station that had been placed on privet property complete with tree stand without the landowner's permission.
 
Are they ariel hunting them as well? If you have good snow cover, you can get several in a day's hunting that way. If you get to hunt that way, it's interesting to say the least. We were out in the helicopter one day, there was a little over a foot of fresh snow on the ground, I was gunning and made a bad shot only wounding an old dog, I racked another shell in, but he had turned an was charging at the helicopter by that time. He ran for all he was worth then leapt up at the skid. we were only about 5 or 6 feet off of the ground, he nearly made it before I got another round off. There was a group that came down from Montana once when the fur was higher priced, they brough two little birds and a skinning trailer to the red desert area of Wyoming. for the first few days they averaged 100 coyotes per day. They were averaging $75.00 a coyote.
 

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