Coyote hunting tips

[Deleted member 115360]

Ahhh. You must be using a call that projects in one direction. My call has a speaker on each end and projects in 360° pretty evenly. I have the ability to run them one at a time, but I rarely do, so I've got a pretty even 360° sound cone almost all the time..

 

[APDDSN0864]

Because when it's too loud they don't have to get very close to satisfy their curiosity it's not natural to them so they are suspicious of the sound to begin with when they are behind you it's not as loud so they stay curious and investigate . Coyote that have been called and not killed are more cautious to begin with so they are going to be sneaky any way . But when the call is too loud they don't have to come close to it but from the back side it's not nearly as loud . Send you partner 338 dude out with your call a couple hundred yards have him set up with the call facing you and turn it on full volume for a few minutes then turn it off and turn it around facing away from you and turn it on again with the volume turned up all the way again . You will be able to notice the difference and that will help you to understand why it works the way it does and why the coyote with better hearing then us comes to you from behind when it's too loud and bob cats are even more prone to coming from behind you with loud volume . Sound tends to travel in a cone louder in the center but as it comes from the back side of your caller it starts at a lower volume in the center of that cone and as they can't hear it as well as when it's louder they are more curious and tend to want to investigate more .

I use a Lucky Duck Revolt which allows me to rotate the e-caller as it broadcasts, which changes the volume from any given position, making it sound as if it is moving around like a predator-prey struggle.

Ed

 

[DSheetz]

For years I used a Johnny Stewart MS512 that had only one speaker , I have used the fox pros as well that had a speaker on each end one that had a wider low frequency range . But it still will make a difference if you have your volume turned up too loud as to the way animals react to your caller . Yes if your call is projecting one direction and turned too loud they often will come from behind you to the lower volume sound . Animals hear differently then humans because of the location of their ears on their heads as well as the range of frequencies that they hear . If you are using hand calls it's almost always directional sound from your call . if you are calling into a draw or drainage ,tree line , fence row ect. don't you want your sound to be directional so that they respond from that direction ? I much prefer my calling to pretty much be directional so that I mostly know where they will be coming from so that I don't have them to my side or from behind and educating them as to what I'm doing with out me knowing that's what I'm doing but that's just me .

 

[Deleted member 115360]

I can see your point about using a directional speaker to have a better chance of controlling their direction of approach, and I've complained on this very forum about having numerous dogs come in directly behind me and bust me, but the trend in caller construction is going to 360° degree calls, and even rotating calls like the better calls from lucky duck mentioned above. I think foxpro sells a rotating mount for their calls too, if they don't have a model that spins by itself, (I can't remember). I've read that when they hear vocalizations that seem to be coming from the same spot, they are very leary, because as a coyote is howling, they swing their heads around back and forth to project into a wider area. These calls are designed to mimic that activity. I play with my volume constantly with vocalizations, going up and down in volume to help simulate that concept. I hope that it sounds like a coyote moving it's head around and calling towards their direction and away, towards and away. Not while I have one communicating, but when they aren't. I can't swear it is making my calling more effective, but I don't think it hurts anything. I guess if I could get exactly what I wanted, I'd probably project my sound in 270° away from my position. The foxpro Shockwave and a few others give you that option with their folding speakers, or some of the removable speaker calls. I have killed quite a few that came in from behind though. It's not optimal, but sometimes it works out too.

 

[DSheetz]

Using calls directionally is part of being able to kind of control the speed that they come to your calling and being able to chose which coyote to shoot first , I prefer to kill the female first when she's heavy with pups . I for some reason don't much like animals jumping on me when they are looking for a meal or landing beside of me when I'm not ready for it . Nor do I much care for a close run by from the side or from behind me . Yes it's very exciting when it happens but my preference is to be able to get set for a shot and figure where they will most likely be and be ready calm and collected make my kill shot then be ready for another one to take the second animal if need be , and that is only some of the reasons that I like my calls to be directional and not 360 . I also liked the fact that if I used the one standard speaker then I had different tones to use at another time in a few days in the same area . Yep I'm a little different myself but I didn't get paid by the hour , week or month I got paid per coyote killed so I had to figure out how to get as many as I could with as few survivors as posable in the least amount of time that I could .

 

[Deleted member 115360]

I can understand your situation was different than most of us. None of us want to educate a coyote, and my ranchers want dead coyotes, but it's not the end of the world for me if one gets away. I do it for my own entertainment. If I screw it up and let one slip by, (which definitely happens to me), I do my best to learn from it and go on. I'm glad I don't have that kind of pressure in my coyote hunting, and can keep it fun. I take people out like my 9 year old nephew, and we let 2 of them sniff the call because he had no idea how fast it would all happen and even though I watched them come in for 300y and could have killed them both, I never touched my trigger, in the hopes that I could get him his first coyote. It didn't work out, but he will never forget that morning. Hunting is the most enjoyable thing that I do in my life, and while I wish someone would pay me to kill them, on the other hand, I'm glad they don't because I have enough stress and pressure in other areas of my life. It's just a different mentality I guess, and it leads to a different hunting style. I still kill more than anyone I've ever known in person. I go through dry spells like anyone else, and I basically went the first month of this year without seeing a coyote, but then I calmed down, locked up some new ground, and started figuring out new spots, and bam, I'm somewhere between 20 and 30 for the year, not including the dozen+ I snared. I appreciate the knowledge you share here though, and I apply what I can to my own hunts.

 

[DSheetz]

When you get to watch a coyote or coyotes howling they do so in one direction most often you will see them set down to howl and tip their head sky ward their mouth opens and makes a small funnel to increase the volume and it is kind of directional at the same time . What most people take for them moving their heads from side to side is actually the wavering sounds they make , maybe quivering sound would be a better way to say it their throat will vibrate as well as move up and down as they howl and they vary the amount of air flow thus it sounds as if they are swinging their heads from side to side . A coyote voice box is about 5/8 " square and 1 " long with two thick lipped flexible flaps of tissue covered by a triangular flap valve to close it off while eating or drinking . The size varies with the age and sex of the animal as does the mouth opening making the tonal differences .

 

[DSheetz]

It for sure is a good thing to not have pressure to kill them and makes it more of a pleasure hunting experience . Keep it fun and don't turn it into a job but still learn more about how to not make ones that you can't kill if you can keep from it as down the road they will make you scratch your head and kick dirt say some thing that you wouldn't want your kids to hear from you .

 

[Deleted member 115360]

While all coyotes behave differently, I just went to YouTube and looked at the first 5 or 6 videos of coyotes howling and in every one of them, they are constantly swinging their heads back and forth while they howl. They are turning almost 360° in many cases. As we've discussed before, coyote behavior is very regional, and this may not be what they do where you live, but when I've seen them howl, they are never still. They spin their heads and their bodies, and are often even moving a little bit in one direction or another.

 

[DSheetz]

I have had to kill so many coyote that others had well trained and I sure did teach several myself in learning what I did . It would have been nice to have had a sight like this when I was learning I did get to visit with others at times and learned from them but a lot of people at that time wouldn't talk to a new coyote hunter as they felt that it may endanger their lively hood .

 

[DSheetz]

We don't have the trees and brush here that a lot of areas have , that tends to block sounds and muffle it .

 

[DSheetz]

Here a lot of what they do has to do with what they are trying to convey to others . When they are trying to draw you away from pups or a den they move around a lot . When they are trying to get others to come to them they don't move around much . When they are doing a morning serenade they don't move around much either . The older ones and the pups pretty much just stand or set and howl during the morning and evening serenades here . If they are mad or upset they do more barking and short howls and move around a lot .

 

[DSheetz]

We have kindly been provided a video of coyote howls and ki-yi's . We will break it down when do they decide to do this where do they do this and why do they do this , to the best of my ability . Ok we start out by the coyote marking their territory you see a male making his mark then 2 females marking their area as well so we can figure that they are near the boundary line of their territory . Then you hear one howl and see him throw his head back not moving it around much and he howls . You see one that does ki-yi's and is moving it's head around while doing so . The howls are meant to do at least two things tell others that they are still in their territory and get a response from others so they know that other territories are still occupied . Then we have the ki-yi's they also are meant to do at least two things they make it sound as if there are more coyote then there are and also help to make it hard to pin point the exact location of the group . They are using the serenade of the group to also mark their area as they approach the edge of it . They will in the mornings and evenings do this to let the neighboring coyote know their area is still occupied as well as to make sure that the neighboring area is still occupied by getting a response from them . Howls and ki-yi's aren't the same but in this case they are combined in their serenade . We have several types of coyote vocalizations , howls, ki-yi's and barks are just three that they commonly use in differing combinations to say different things . They have and use whines , whimpers , growls , yips and squeals also . Ki-yi's are typically done with the serenades when they are at home and yet not really comfortable with letting other groups know how many and exactly where they are . Long lone howls are to talk to family members as are two half length howls , To get the pups to tell them where they are in my area . Two howls of medium length then two barks and another howl is just asking others if you are home and want to visit . I tried this in Indiana this spring and they replied to me with the same howls and barks and then came in to me , Bill Austen called it the interrogation call . Ki-yi's are often done here by coyote that aren't fully comfortable but not so much as to use barks and threats .

 

[Reemty J]

Dave you are a well of coyote knowledge thru your experience, wow, have I learned from you!