I too have seen this and actually just yesterday. 2 does were running a single coyote hard. I also agree that it must be the protective mom thing. In the fall and winter our deer will usually freak out and run away from them at first sight.
Ramblings and Such From Hunting Coyote
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Straight Shooter
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I previously wrote about this incident last fall. Was calling a big coulee and had two does and a buck stand up about 500 yards away. They started moving my way and I thought, oh no, just what I need. As they got closer they went behind a little knoll, so I gave a short chirp just to let them know I was on the other side of the knoll. A doe walked to the top of the knoll and looked down at my caller. She walked down right towards it even though it wasn't turned on. She was about 5 yards away and I was going to give a blast from the caller and see how she would react. All of a sudden her ears came forward and she charged right past the caller. A coyote had come in from behind me and she was after him. I looked to my right and here is this coyote running right at me with the doe hot on its tail. Ran right by me at 5 yards like its tail was on fire back down the coulee. Happened so fast I never even got my gun up.
Do you carry any emergency gear in your hunting truck ? Where I live it can be a long ways to any help if something happens . I think that it's best to be prepared just in case . A blanket made of wool , a few first aid supplies , a jacket , tow strap , jack base plate ( small piece of 3/4 " plywood ) for muddy conditions , shovel , tire plugs , small air compressor , come along , T. P. , clean drinking water ect. ? My work truck was a crew cab but would only fit two people in it unless I emptied out the back seat area every thing had a use and it's own place . We didn't have cell phones , for most of my life , and still in many areas there is no service here . You may be 60 - 70 miles from town and several miles from any home around here . I was 20 miles from any home and slipped side ways on a small hillside , when the ground was frozen and the sun had thawed the surface just enough to make it really slick , and hit a rut popping the two down hill tires off of the rim one morning . I went twenty feet down to a flat spot and jacked the truck up got out my little air compressor , that plugs into a cigarette lighter for power , and got them aired back up . A tire snake can be made using a ratcheting tie down strap to help you get the tire bead back on the rim . When you are around old home steads there are so many big nails and spikes laying around that a flat tire is going to happen some time . A tire plug can get you to town for a fix on the tire . I and a friend were fishing in the mountains one day , we were only around 40 miles from any medical help , when Jim slipped on a wet rock and tried to catch himself but his hand landed on some ones broken beer bottle putting a gash to the bone in the heal of it . A good pressure bandage and we made it back to town with out any chance that he was going to bleed out . Several stiches and an hour or so in the ER and the Dr. saying it wasn't a bad job of getting his bleeding controlled and to town , the fishing trip was cancelled . So much can happen in the blink of an eye that you can't control it's best to have made some planning and a little preparation a head of time for me .
It has paid several times to have had some good training in first aid . As with any thing else in our world these types of things change over time .The training you got as combat corpsman , in the 60's and 70's has changed in todays world so it doesn't hurt to get refresher courses . Your brand new first aid kit you got 3 years ago and haven't opened (fortunately )has some things in it that may have expired by now so they do need to be checked out and things replaced that have expired . If you do have to use some thing out of it take note and get it refilled . Any thing that you carry for an emergency should be checked out now and then to make sure that they are still in good condition . Prepare for things that you don't want to happen and pray that you never need your preparations . In todays world as in yesterdays world we just never know if the preparations will or won't be used but if you don't have them you can't use them if they are needed can you . I truly hope that the only thing that will ever be used will be the drinking water and T.P. . I was out on the high way early one morning and saw a pick-up run off the road and roll over the driver was thrown from the truck , no one else was with him , he was setting on the ground when I got to him he didn't have a shirt on and it was a cold morning so I got my wool blanket out put it on his shoulders and checked him out quickly . I dialed 911 to get assistance coming , kept him setting and not moving around till the H.P. showed up turned over the info I had . And went on my way the H.P. brought me my blanket back latter that day . I was glad that I had some training and that I had some things with me , but the best thing was that the driver or no one else was badly injured . We never know what might happen when we are out hunting by ourselves and it's good to be ready if we are out there on our own .
What does all of this have to do with coyote control , hunting or fishing in general . We are often by our selves when we are out doing what we enjoy . Or there may be others out around us and at times they or ourselves may have problems of some kind even a bee sting may pose a serious problem to some .
That is one of my wife's biggest fears, me getting hurt while hunting or fishing. Most of my outdoor activities are done alone. I generally crappie fish all winter and with my work schedule do it alone.
justin61 , Are you ice fishing then ? My son was given a pair of ice spikes made from 1" dowels that have a screw in the end of them that extends enough to stick into the ice and help you to crawl out if you break through . They have an eye in the other end with a piece of para cord in them to allow you to wear them hanging down in front of you .
No sir, KY Lake and Lake Barkley seldom freeze enough to keep you off them.
Here most of the coyote control is done for the protection of sheep in the county that I live in . In the last several years the number of sheep has gone down by 2/3 of what we had . The economics and difficulty of raising them has made it not worth while to raise them . At one time people were trying different ways to protect the sheep , lamas , dogs ect. . I have had some interesting things happen with these animals at times . One day I met a rancher who took me out to his lambing grounds and showed me where he was loosing lambs . He was running lamas . I did some tracking and figured out where the coyote were coming from then got set up in a rock pile to do some calling . I let out a series of howls . The lamas gathered the sheep and lambs up herded them off then came running back and tried to keep me in the pile of rocks I had set up in . No wonder that the coyote didn't howl back . The female did show up but just set down out about 200 yards and watched from the fence line in another pasture . I got her and the den was over in the other pasture around 1/2 mile away . I hauled them all off , so the male didn't know where they had gone to , and came back the next morning to take the old male . They had learned not to howl or they would be chased by the lamas .
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I have seen some interesting things done by the guard dogs at times as well . The dogs will go to where the coyote or fox are they don't always stay with the sheep they are put with but tend to roam around looking for other canines that might cause trouble , but they will gather with dogs of their own kind most of the time . Great Pyrenees were the most used around here , and still are . being large and white in color they tend to stand out except when we have snow on the ground . We have what are called sheep herders monuments they are a pile of rocks set up on the ridge lines and hill tops as wind breaks so that people could set and look out over the lower lands being protected from the wind and kind of out of sight blended in with the back ground and not sky lined . I was set up by one of these one morning getting ready to do some howling when I noticed a large white dog trotting over from another ranch . I sat and watched it as it worked it's way toward some thing hidden down on a cut bank in one of the draws . It had caught the sent of a red fox and was tracking it down . when it got close enough it made a dash for the fox . A short chase and the dog had the fox killing it . I have noticed that where there are guard animals in use the coyote don't howl . Even I'm smart enough to figure out that if every time I say some thing I get my butt kicked or chased not to talk . I think it would be the same on the eastern farms that have dogs on them as well . I worked a ranch up on the mountain that had lamas and guard dogs both on it . one evening I was up there watching the sheep and lambs when I saw a pair of coyote come out of the timber a mile off heading toward the main body of sheep . When they got maybe an 1/8 mile from the sheep they split up . One of them went into stealth mode while the other just kind of kept trotting at an angle to the sheep but about 100 yards away from them . The lamas and dogs went into alert mode and started to watch that one . It made a short dash toward the sheep and all of the guard animals went toward it . It kept drawing the attention of the guard animals as the other one crept in then grabbed a lamb and drug it off . toward where they had came from . Even the sheep had turned their attention toward the decoy coyote . The coyote had given me the answer that I was looking for and paid the price the next morning . So often with control work it's a matter of just taking your time and letting the predators tell you what you need to know about their weaknesses and how to take care of the problem . They are smart and adaptable but if they don't know you are there they will do what they normally do and you can then figure them out . That is the challenge that kept me doing it for so many years .
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I too am mostly a lone ranger when hunting and working for that matter. I do keep a few whatnots in my truck and depending on what time of year depends on what all I have. I've used the ratchet strap trick on tires many times lol. While I'm not usually too far from home within a few miles anyway when hunting or working I do ALWAYS let my wife or someone know where I will be and or what I may be doing at the time. Most everything I do has some level of hazard with it and you just never know when something unintentional can happen. If I have to do something less than intelligent I always will get a spotter.
74honker , that is the smart way to do what you do for a living . I have ran pumps and repaired them for years and spent most of my life working by my self . We learn not to take unneeded chances . It gives me a good feeling when others have learned to do things as safely as they can . Coyote control was my main passion in life but it's hard to support a family doing piece work at that so I worked two jobs one to support the family and the one that I truly loved to do . And that way I didn't have to over charge for my services .
One such circumstance is at least once a year a beaver will find its way into our drainage canals. They love to build dams INSIDE of big culverts in crossings. Once in a great while I can get a trackhoe to either dig it out if its right at the end of the culvert or maybe drag a large homemade grappel through it to clear it out but most of the time it's done by hand. You put the waders and a lifejacket on and you have to go in to manually dig it out. You dig till you can't hardly stand up in the current blowing through then get the heck out of the way. Usually takes 2 to 3 times/days of this before you get it all out. One wrong pull of something and the whole thing can break loose all at once and you're in deep xxxx. We are talking 6' culverts. The chance of getting hung up and or blown out with the wad are pretty high. Not to me but another person got blown a couple hundred feet out of one before he could get his bearings and out of the water when he pulled on the wrong log. It sucks lol. Always have a spotter when doing stupid stuff like this lol.
Waders full of water and swift moving water are both very dangerous by them selves let along combined . Not any thing for an old person . I have had to set and snip beaver for doing the dam thing in irrigation ditches and canals .
