Coyote hunting tips

[APDDSN0864]

I have learned much from this thread, even though I have been doing predator control for years.

We should never close our minds to suggestions made by others, but take them, take a good look at them, and try them to see if it's a good tool for your toolbox.
I recently received a couple of new wood calls that are proving to be very useful since they make slightly different tones than anything else I have tried.
I have been trying these calls in places that I have called before, and have been hunted hard on the past.
Even the prey distress calls with one of them have been drawing coyotes in and, since we are still in breeding season (although it's right at the end) that's significant.
So, just like my new calls, new ideas and techniques should be considered.
I have predator hunted in Alaska, Washington state, East Texas, deep south Texas, and SE NM, and all required slightly different techniques.
I lived in the Piedmont area of NC while in college and the climate, terrain, and environment are much like East Texas, so I imagine that the coyote hunting conditions are also similar.
The other places required similar, but slightly different, techniques at slightly different times of the year.
Enough differences to make successful control difficult at times.
I am another one who doesn't use scent control products other than good personal hygiene, no scented laundry detergent or fabric softener, no scented deodorant (I use 99% anhydrous isopropyl alcohol as my deodorant), and don't wear my hunting boots when fueling my vehicles.
Wind direction, terrain, and speed are my best scent controls.

Ed

 

[VinceMule]

Forget the Wind will open your eyes real wide on what happens when you have no scent. Yearling coyotes come in from all directions. Remember, they do not always circle downwind.

We have had elk and deer within feet of us, as a bonus.

Forget the Wind is almost like discovering Girls! Hee Hee!

Everyone has to find their own way, it is a hobby, and you have to make it fun.

 

[APDDSN0864]

"Everyone has to find their own way, it is a hobby, and you have to make it fun."

Absolutely! For me, it's not a hobby, it's my profession.
I still have fun everyday.

Ed

 

[DSheetz]

Wooden calls tend to have a good mellow tone to them . When it's your profession we tend to take it more to heart and do the best we can . If I hadn't enjoyed it so much I wouldn't have done it for so long myself . Yes there were times that it got aggravating and frustrating but the good and pleasureful times , way out weighed those times . You need to let it be fun for you as well as interesting . The challenge and satisfaction of getting it done in a short amount of time meant a bunch to me when it was my profession and choice to specialize in coyote control . With coyote as with many other aspects of life the learning never ends there is so very much out there to see , hear and smell all of your senses come to life in the field ! We that are blessed to be there often take the time to realize how fortunate that we really are setting on a stand as the sun comes up and our world begins to come into focus , as a coyote talks to his mate to let her know he is coming home so that she can leave the kids for awhile to feed and get a drink what could you possibly want more then that ? When we get a call that there is a problem coyote and we go out and find that problem and take care of it the first morning the amount of satisfaction we derive from that is hard to describe to others that haven't experienced it . And yes I have also learned from the people here an open mind is so very much needed and appreciated when we are dealing with coyote and life in general . To all have a good , Good Friday and Easter .

 

[DSheetz]

At one time I had a friend that was a rifle maker . He gave me some scraps of French Walnut but I have ran out of that the tone that it carried was unbelievable . There is something about a fine piece of wood on a rifle or pistol grips that is just so satisfying to feel .

 

[VinceMule]

DSheetz, hand calling is a lost art, and I love it. My aunt has a stand of 100+ year old black walnut. I want to have some calls and howlers made from black walnut. Have you any idea how this wood sounds? My current howlers are made of 1/2" and 3/4" PVC.

 

[DSheetz]

American black walnut carries a good tone . If you put it in a good wood stabilizer so that the moisture content stays the same and it doesn't swell or shrink then work it , it has a mellower tone . Wood stabilizer works best when under a vacuum . I then let it stand for a week or two work it then use a good polyurethane finish on my walnut . Bill Austin made and sold howlers out of 1/2 " pvc pipe many years ago when he was in Rawlins Wyoming . I don't know how long he has been gone from this world sometime in the early 80's if I remember correctly . He was a wealth of knowledge on coyote language as was Vern Dorn who also was a coyote denning king . I was fortunate enough to be able to visit with both of these men for a little bit as well as Craig O'Gorman all legends in the world of coyote control in their own rights . You can get some walnut dowels on the internet that are already cured and ready to work by treating them with stabilizer then turning them on a lathe , just look at hard wood dowels . Cherry is also a good American wood for calls that can be bought as dowels .

 

[Austin351]

Edit

 

[VinceMule]

WOW! I spend a week with Bill! Those are his howlers I am speaking of! I was living in S. Ca at the time. We drank liquor, hunted, and slept!

The Black Walnut I have access to is from limbs broke off laying on the ground.

Keith

 

[DSheetz]

As long as they are cured well they will work . When I was younger and just home from the service I was given some black walnut from Iowa that was from a barn . The timbers in the barn were made of it here in Wyoming and had been freighted in by wagon . They were a rich dark nearly black brown . That wood was beautiful but was so old that it was brittle and you needed to treat it to keep it from cracking when you worked it . It made some very fine howlers and calls . With the hand calls I feel it's slightly more of a challenge . As you first need to learn how to get the sounds that you want from them consistently and repeatably . Open or closed reed calls you can make a ton of different sounds with just a couple of them . When you have made your own call or been given one by someone and get the coyote to come to your efforts there is some reward to it that is hard to explain . People being people we do tend to get set in a rut and do the some things over and over again . I have noticed that the people who do coyote control work for a living and are really good at it pay attention to details and often keep good notes as to what was really going on from day to day paying particular attention to the smaller details that are in a constant state of change . But they also tend to know why a coyote is where it is at this time because of this or that reason from doing the note keeping and paying attention to the little things over a period of time . As an example in the dry hot of summer the coyote won't be out in the open with out water or food base in the area they most likely will be in and area where there is shade , food and a source of water the same as the prey animals will be . I called here and got coyote before but it's not quite the same today the spring dried up last week in the bottom of the draw with the brush in it and the prey animals left so did the coyote fox and bobcats , not any thing stays constant so as they say the devil is actually in the small details . In the winter when there is snow on the ground , the wind has been blowing mostly from the west but the sun has been shining every day and the temperatures haven't been above freezing for a week , the prey animals will mostly migrated to the south hill sides . There will be some brushy draws low places to get out of the wind and sun themselves . Snow has drifted but out of the wind on the sunny side of the hill in the low places even thought the temperature didn't get above freezing in most places , it did there so now we have water ,warm sun shine and a food source for the rabbits and birds , deer ect. . The predators know this and so to they move to these areas it's in the small details .

 

[VinceMule]

I never had those conditions to deal with in my life, that would be a challenge for me for sure. You are a wealth of knowledge.

Bill made a series of cassette tapes on howling, you would not happen to have those sets would you?

 

[DSheetz]

I do or did some place . I looked for them last year and was unable to find them . It is posable that my wife got rid of them . An instructional tape on the use of his howlers and an explanation of some of the coyote language plus his sun raise serenade .

 

[VinceMule]

I think that he had at least 4. They would be priceless to a new guy today!

Keith

 

[SWHandldr]

Wooden calls tend to have a good mellow tone to them . When it's your profession we tend to take it more to heart and do the best we can . If I hadn't enjoyed it so much I wouldn't have done it for so long myself . Yes there were times that it got aggravating and frustrating but the good and pleasureful times , way out weighed those times . You need to let it be fun for you as well as interesting . The challenge and satisfaction of getting it done in a short amount of time meant a bunch to me when it was my profession and choice to specialize in coyote control . With coyote as with many other aspects of life the learning never ends there is so very much out there to see , hear and smell all of your senses come to life in the field ! We that are blessed to be there often take the time to realize how fortunate that we really are setting on a stand as the sun comes up and our world begins to come into focus , as a coyote talks to his mate to let her know he is coming home so that she can leave the kids for awhile to feed and get a drink what could you possibly want more then that ? When we get a call that there is a problem coyote and we go out and find that problem and take care of it the first morning the amount of satisfaction we derive from that is hard to describe to others that haven't experienced it . And yes I have also learned from the people here an open mind is so very much needed and appreciated when we are dealing with coyote and life in general . To all have a good , Good Friday and Easter .

Lotta wisdom in this post. The kind gained by someone who actually learns from experience. Instead of living the same year 50+ times...