Coyote hunting tips

[geo4061]

Dave, Reemty, and anyone who does a lot of glassing. Glassing tips would be greatly appreciated. Perhaps most of us should do more spotting.
I use to never use a decoy. Now I always use one. No doubt it gets and holds their attention. They run right up to it without knowing you are 25 yards away. Sometimes they just stop and stare. Others will quickly realize they have been duped. They do a double back flip and hit sixth gear in the blink of an eye. I have used the Primos, Fox Pro, a crow, a woodpecker, a feather, and one that looks like a cottontail rabbits head. I use the cottontail one most of the time. I place it 25 yards in front of me( towards the direction I think they will be coming from, by a small bush.
I wish I could take all of you with me. However, I can't so I thought doing a set as you requested would give you some skin in the hunt. So give me those ideas. I will try them and report back.

 

[Reemty J]

Rock solid rest for glassing is a plus, whether it's your pickup window, trigger stick or elbows on knees, when the glass is steady you pick up a lot more of what is there. Magnification is for detail, but I can take 8 power with good conditions spot a coyote head 2 miles away, your eyes pick out the shapes it is used to seeing. Just have to be steady to see them. GOD gifted me with 20/10 visions and after years of spotting game I can usually spot coyotes where hunting buddies miss. After a while to get a feel what they like and you can look at new country and know where they more than likely will be... they like higher ground for day time bedding, ridges, hills and hump. The farther you are away the less they will be bothered by your pickup as they are used to seeing and gearing then on the county roads. when looking thru your glasses the tendency is to move them, it's better to keep them still and move your eyes, more detail is realized rather way. Look for pieces, the ears, a back line, part of a head and then you will see the whole coyote. When they bed they will have their back to the wind side, so you can visualize what you are looking for depending on how your position is to the wind........the more time spent glassing the better you become at spotting them

 

[DSheetz]

I mostly look for some thing that blends in but doesn't really belong where it's at . I will often see the out line of the ears and head even when they are at ground level . I was gunning from the chopper one morning . I had located with some howls then after the old dog had answered I moved and got him to answer again so knew pretty close where he was . I called the chopper he came in picked me up . It wasn't real good for flying to hunt as we had partly cloudy skies and you really like good sun light . We flew for quite a while looking where I had heard him howl back at me . there was a patch of grass about 10 feet in diameter that was maybe three feet tall and right in the middle of it all I saw was his head looking at us . The pilot said he didn't see him so I told him to get closer so I could shoot him as he moved closer the coyote broke and ran . then the pilot could see him . Often you will see them shine in the sun if they aren't moving . Their ears give them away often because they aren't like the rest of what is out there they are the right color but not the right shape and stand out . They may be setting and the white of their chest will show up , When they are standing the form of them stands out as does the white of their bellies and where it changes to the darker sides of them . If they move for some reason that is a sure give away but they are so good at just not even blinking so as your calling and see them move keep an eye on them and watch to see what they look like when they stop and stand or set down don't get in too much of a hurry to kill them let them teach you what to look for when they aren't moving . You most likely aren't having to stop them from killing so it's ok if you learn from them instead of killing them all the time so if you loose one but it taught you some thing for latter use on several other coyote it paid it's way to live another day . Another good tip is to go out during the off season and just observe them in their habitat and what they do when they aren't being messed with you now know where they like to be as you've found that out by calling them as you have . Your opponent is your best teacher if you let them be so . I am a firm believer that a lot of coyote are called that never are seen as they don't move after they get to where they can just observe you the caller until you learn to spot them not moving .

 

[DSheetz]

Guy's in the last couple of weeks and day's we have put on one heck of a good coyote seminar here on Tips and over on Ramblings . My hat is off to you all as well as hand shakes , elbow bumps and pats on the back . It is such a good thing that we all can share with others what we have learned . As much as some of us might want to be no man is an island we all learned from others and are now teaching others giving back to them what was given to us . WELL DONE !

 

[Deleted member 115360]

I'm off the egg. The 6arc is blooded. I had 4 of them at less than 100y in a dead sprint this morning. Unfortunately I could only tag one of them.

Used a group yip and the woods lit up. I torqued them up for about 5 minutes and went pup distress. Within 2 minutes I had 4 of them trying to run me over. This was a huge male, over 40lbs. He looked to be double the size of the other 3.

This is the same group that winded me last week, so do what you will with that information..

 

[DSheetz]

Glad you got one . It's a good thing you don't need to stop them from killing live stock you trained three not to come to that sound again . Do what you want with that info .

 

[geo4061]

Congrats, "I could only get one." Tell us the rest of the story.

 

[DSheetz]

bark to stop them .

 

[Deleted member 115360]

I tried everything. 2 of them shot under the fencing that I was sitting in. They were maybe 5 feet from it when I shot the first one. The only other opportunity that I had was at the remaining dog running as fast and low as possible perpendicular to my location. I had time to shoot 3 times at it, and they were all very close. I actually think I hit it, but couldn't find any blood. It had about 75y of field to cover before it was out of sight, so maybe 2 seconds.

 

[Deleted member 115360]

Glad you got one . It's a good thing you don't need to stop them from killing live stock you trained three not to come to that sound again . Do what you want with that info .

So what would you have done differently? You act like I've done a bad thing here. I'm not saying that someone else couldn't have hit the runner, given another opportunity I might hit it too, but I don't care who you are, running coyotes aren't a guaranteed hit for anyone. With the other 2, there was no chance. They disappeared the second I touched the trigger. So I find your criticism odd. I don't live out west where you guys have miles of open ground, I live in West TN where there is a place for them to dissappear into every 50y in every direction.

 

[DSheetz]

When you have to stop them from killing you use your calling with desecration . Only use what you have to and you want to try to attract only one at a time . That is why you only use a single howl not the group ( sun rise serenade ) . Yes the puppy distress sounds will work to get them all to charge you but you want to be able to kill them so you don't want to be over run by them all at the same time . I would have done pretty much what I talked about with GEO for that reason . Where you are it most likely doesn't make much difference weather or not you will need to kill the rest you are doing pleasure hunting where I'm at I need to kill them so for me training them is a bad thing . I have had to kill way to many trained coyote in my life time some trained by me but most trained by others . When they are killing 100.00 a piece lambs it's a totally different story and they may get ****ed and kill 10-30 lambs in one night because you killed one of their buddies and left three females to raise the pups it is a very different thing . Not a real bad thing in your world but in mine it is .

 

[Deleted member 115360]

When you have to stop them from killing you use your calling with desecration . Only use what you have to and you want to try to attract only one at a time . That is why you only use a single howl not the group ( sun rise serenade ) . Yes the puppy distress sounds will work to get them all to charge you but you want to be able to kill them so you don't want to be over run by them all at the same time . I would have done pretty much what I talked about with GEO for that reason . Where you are it most likely doesn't make much difference weather or not you will need to kill the rest you are doing pleasure hunting where I'm at I need to kill them so for me training them is a bad thing . I have had to kill way to many trained coyote in my life time some trained by me but most trained by others . When they are killing 100.00 a piece lambs it's a totally different story and they may get ****ed and kill 10-30 lambs in one night because you killed one of their buddies and left three females to raise the pups it is a very different thing . Not a real bad thing in your world but in mine it is .

Well, there isn't a lamb within 50 miles of where I'm hunting, and the neighbor has a ditch in it with about 20 dead calves a half mile away, (which I just secured access to, all 1,400 acres of it), so they don't care about food. I have tried every individual coyote sound that I know of, and they don't care. The only responses I've gotten in 2021 at all were to group noises. I decided to try that after watching AL Morris cone to TN and kill a half dozen coyotes, and the group yip followed by pup distress was the only thing he had any luck with. Coyotes aren't all the same. If you came here to hunt, you would undoubtedly have to alter your methods. Different food sources, terrain, pack dynamics, literally genetic variations in the form of sub species. But hey, you might walk in and do the same thing you do there and kill them all, I sure don't have this stuff figured out.

 

[DSheetz]

For me in close quarters I would forgo my center fire and maybe go with a nice simi-auto loading 12 ga. running 3" # 4 buck shot like used out of the aircraft . Shooting a left handed shotgun right handed so you don't hit the pilot with hot spent cases

 

[Deleted member 115360]

For me in close quarters I would forgo my center fire and maybe go with a nice simi-auto loading 12 ga. running 3" # 4 buck shot like used out of the aircraft . Shooting a left handed shotgun right handed so you don't hit the pilot with hot spent cases

Now, if I had known how they were going to come at me and how close they would get, I wouldn't have left my shotgun in the truck. It is loaded with #4 3-1/2" copper plated turkey loads, and it holds 4, so with it I may have been able to get them all. However, if they hung up at the edge of that field I would have just been staring at them at 150y until they spotted me and ran away. Maybe I should carry both, but I've been trying to lighten my load. I'm walking 10+ miles a day or so, and I've been trying to lighten my load, not add to it.