A lot of the things that were done in the 50's, 60's and early 70's aren't allowed to be used today and mostly for good reasons. In 1972 the Nixon administration signed into law a ban on the use of a lot of toxic substances and other chemicals that were being used indiscreetly by civilians in the U.S., but the government was still allowed their use. In today's world we are still finding out and feeling the effects of things that have been done in the past that we at the time they were being done and used we didn't really know fully about. We still today are using things that we don't fully understand but hopefully that is how we will figure out about them and change what we need to so we can use things more to our advantage and our good. The laws and the way we trap, and snare predators has been changing, some of it because of learning how to better do it and some of it because people are people and don't always think things through to see what the outcome will be in the end. At this time a bunch of Veterans are being tested for exposure to chemicals like agent orange and substances like asbestos that were commonly used in the service as well as in civilian life in the future we might be seeing the same thing being done for other things like exposure to radioactive substances. As the world's population continues to increase, we will need to change our way of thinking and doing things so that our kids and grandkids can continue to enjoy doing what we enjoy doing it might be called showing consideration and respect for the future generations as well as ourselves. Some of my thoughts you are free to have your own as well because of where we live, we can be educated and not controlled as some of the other places in the world. My apologies I got way off track.
Ramblings and Such From Hunting Coyote
- Thread starter DSheetz
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There is so much to learn about the coyote. The coyote itself is the best teacher that you can find to learn about controlling their numbers. I have learned from them and people that have done control work for years and learned from those people also. If a person spends some time with the coyote really observing them and figuring out what they are doing in my way of thinking it will help them to do better at controlling them, calling them, trapping them, snaring them, and hunting them in general. I have noticed that just because you kill the adults with pups doesn't mean that you have killed the pups. If the pups are 4 weeks or older a lot of them will survive or be adopted by other adults as they are usually weaned by around 6 weeks. I have in the past killed the adult female and seen where the male would get another female to help him raise the young pups, then I have killed the adult male and had the female take those pups back to the area that she came from. I know this from tracking her and the pups. I have killed the adults from a den of pups and had another pair adopt and move the pups in with their own pups, again by observing, tracking and listening to them is how I found this out. I once killed two adult females and an old male from a den and ran out of time that day to take the pups, when I came back the next day the pups were out eating grass and hunting bugs. There were 10 pups in that litter, they were still brown and fuzzy, they wouldn't all have lived but some of them would have. I killed an old female coyote that showed 6 pups and didn't take the old male and the den he brought in a new female that I killed and again I didn't take him or the pups. Later in August I took 4 pups and the old male, that showed me that 4 out of 6 pups survived, they were an experiment just so I could learn more and were in an area where they weren't killing lambs and I found out a lot from doing it that way which I otherwise would have not known. There are times when it is to your advantage to observe and not kill, but there are times that you need to kill them before you can take the time to observe them for more than a few minutes. I have studied the same coyotes in an area where they weren't killing livestock just so that I could better learn about them for future use to do better at controlling them in areas where they were causing problems. I often had the time to observe them and learn from them during the time I was doing control work, tracking, watching, and listening to them, that was part of the job and I enjoyed it. I learned when to kill first and when to observe first there is a time for doing both.
Remember, 60% of the coyotes you call in are yearlings.
nealm66
Well-Known Member
Some of your stories kinda ruin my plan for road hunting over in eastern Washington in the mile squares. Like I'm causing more problems than I'd be solving. But shooting one at extreme long range has been on my bucket list for a couple years now so… My buddy says he's hardly seen any coyotes lately.
It depends on what type of calling you are doing and what area you are calling as to the average age of the coyotes you call. In the spring of the year when you are den hunting and howling the coyotes most of them will be older than a year old, in the fall when you are using rabbit sounds most of them will be the young of the year, around breeding season most of them will be the yearlings if you are using say female invitation sounds, or female challenge sounds, if you are using male interrogation, challenge or such sounds often the younger ones will stay out at a distance and the older ones will be looking for a fight . If you are in an area that hasn't been called much and by just a few people, you will get a mix of age groups but often it will be an older age average due to the fact that they have set up their territory and are probably keeping the younger except a helper or two out of it. If it's your bucket list to kill one at 1000 yards, then that's what you are looking to do, you just need to think it through and do it at the right time of the year so as not to cause yourself more work than you need to or others that are doing control work a lot of problems. I built a 6.5x284 to shoot one at 1000 yards myself. But I was the one doing the control work and figured out the best time and location for me to do it. I ended up killing one at 643 yards and with my 30-06 not my 6.5x284. It's mostly a matter of thinking about it and making your plan so that it works out for the best in the end.
nealm66
Well-Known Member
Definitely not anyone doing control work where this is. 1000's and 1000's of square mile tracts of farmland. No livestock other than a lot of deer
Over time I noticed several things about coyotes during their pupping season. As breeding season was in full swing the paired coyotes would pick their territory and area that they wanted to have their pups in. They would set up home and run others out of it. At that time, use of coyote vocalizations works well, female challenge, female breeding whines and whimpers, male challenge, interrogation calls just asking who is around and is this area taken? Next comes the time that they are setting up their boundary lines and marking them, and howling to let the surrounding areas know that it is occupied. When you get in their territory and howl with challenge calls or simply use interrogation howls at this time, they will respond often by answering with their own howls, become quiet and at that time start coming in to investigate and run out the intruder if need be. Then comes the time that they are preparing for the pups to be born, they will be going around in their territory to find an appropriate den and will clean out several holes for the pups to be born in, they will be actively marking the boundary line of their area and telling others that they don't want them in their area, soon they will have the pups, at this time mom will be spending her time close to the den she has chosen, they will talk but not as much and at specific times of the day more so than at other times of the year. When the pups are born for the first few weeks' mom stays at home during the night with the pups, the male will be out hunting at night, and they will talk to each other as he is coming in near sunrise, he will give one howl and she will answer with one howl as he moves closer, he will give one more howl she will answer with one howl. Like humans they have different tones in their voices as a rule, the male will be a deeper tone then the female but also, she stays in one place near the den so then you now have a near location as to where the pups are. They will give their yips and yipes as a greeting when they get together then she will leave to go and hunt and drink. So, then you go to the den area because you heard them and start to howl with one howl and who shows up, the male because he is home alone with the pups at this time of the day, she won't be back till around noon. I want to take the female, so then it's a matter of having the patience to let them be for the day and come back earlier the next morning to call her when dads still out hunting, I get closer to the den and give a lone howl either male or female will work for this. She will often just show up and sit watching at this time not saying a word but will look in your direction and then back at the den, you make the shot so now what do you do, you go to where she was sitting and get down to her level and look at where she was glancing so you too can see the den from her perspective. Or you set tight and wait for him to say he is coming home, then you answer back with your own howl so then you can then have him come in to run you out and shoot him as he gets close, and you bark him to a stop. If you get to the den at, say 8:00 she will be out feeding and drinking, and the male will do the same as she did so now you have the male instead of the female. If you are serious about controlling the coyotes in your area, then you will be taking coyote after they have no fur value from January till June as well as taking the dens with the pups. The USDA Wildlife Services as well as Collage Station Texas and Southern California Collage age department have done a lot of studying coyotes and their findings are that in order to just stay at even numbers you need to take about 75% of the year's pups.
nealm66
Well-Known Member
Do they ever pack up and have multiple dens in a smaller area? Like where I'm at is fairly developed 5's and 20ish acre parcels but also large tree farms in the 1000's but I hear them fairly close and the tree farms are 5-10 miles away
Around here they only run in family groups, it depends on the time of the year, availability of food, and the weather. In the fall of the year before dispersal is normally when you will find them packed up, or if we are having a really cold longer duration winter and they are needing to hunt larger prey. During breeding season in my area, you will normally see just a pair or maybe three, running together, and then most of the time it's an older male and female with a younger female from last year's litter. I have seen where it was an older male and female with a younger male, as well as two younger unpaired males running together or a pair of dry females running together, the dry pair even if it's a male and female are the harder ones to call in. So much of the way that they behave depends on the available food base and what the weather is like over an extended period of time not just a few weeks or days. I suspect that in an area with plenty of prey base they will, rabbits, mice, squirrels and birds, or if they are needing to hunt larger prey animals, they will act differently about running in a larger family group as the wolves do. I have seen when I took out one of the pair even when they didn't have pups that they would get a new partner or even allow another pair into their territory and run with them, depending on the time of the year. Most of the time when there is a good prey base if I killed the denning pair there would be a void left till fall, if there isn't a good prey base, they will fill in the void and move in or travel longer distances to feed another litter of pups. I have tracked other pairs of coyotes with a litter of younger pups traveling up to 3 miles per night to a heard of sheep with lambs one way making a 6-mile round trip to kill and feed the young pups. I had an older female without pups adopt a litter of pups that the adults had been killed from when they were young, that would kill lambs eat the stomach full of milk and soft organs then carry that back for the pups that were still not old enough to be weaned. That was a call I got to come and clean up after a young inexperienced new control guy that thought by just flying and killing the adults, he was killing the pups too. A lot of tracking scratching my head and miles of walking latter I put it together called and killed the older dry female and located and killed the pups. That is one time that I was so very glad that he hadn't trained her not to come to a puppy in destress sound. there is a time and a place to use all of the sounds. If you are doing control work, you will teach yourself when and where to do what to best help yourself and not make your job harder as well.
When you are listening to coyotes talking and they are kiying with their heads down low swinging them back and forth it's hard to tell just how many coyotes are doing the talking. If you think about it, they might be doing that for a reason that they really don't do it on purpose, but it makes other groups of coyotes in the surrounding area think there are more coyotes then there really is and less likely to try and take over that area. When the coyotes are truly howling with their heads thrown back you can then hear the induvial coyotes' voices and tones tell that there are two females one older and lower in tone one younger and having a higher pitch, an older male with a really deep tone ect. . It's a complex world that they live in and a complex vocabulary that they use some of which is very subtle changes for a whole different meaning. If you get interested in listening to it and watching them to figure out some of it, you just might become addicted to doing it and get to where you are wanting to learn more about it.
Layton Perry
Member
I really enjoy this thread, my uncle worked for USDA in Montana for 40 years before he retired. He taught me alot about coyotes and bears. It is neat to see how you guys have the same approach to denning.
They always said he could trap and call coyotes where there weren't any. I get quite a few on the ranch but don't have time to really work on them. Snare a few and call and shoot alot when I am calving.
He loved dealing with problem bears, The last 10 or 15 years he dealt with problem grizzlies alot. Thanks for all the stories and insight. It's almost like listening to Uncle Bill
They always said he could trap and call coyotes where there weren't any. I get quite a few on the ranch but don't have time to really work on them. Snare a few and call and shoot alot when I am calving.
He loved dealing with problem bears, The last 10 or 15 years he dealt with problem grizzlies alot. Thanks for all the stories and insight. It's almost like listening to Uncle Bill
You are welcome and thank You. We all have the animals that we preferer to deal with and that we specialize in doing that type of control work but in the end, we have to learn to work around and with several different types of animals. In the end we still end up doing several things really similar to the ways that others do them because it's what works best for us and what others have taught us as well as what the animals themselves have taught us about themselves.
In today's world the young people have a whole world of opportunities to get started in working with wildlife. The world of the computer has made it so that they can search for jobs that weren't often known of when I was a kid. I only knew about there being government trappers because I met some of them in person. They were hard working and dedicated to doing their work well, they lived outdoors, studied the animals that they worked with and were there being a part of their world. No, they didn't live in the limelight often they lived a low-profile life, kept to themselves, worked by themselves or with other government people. They often didn't make a lot of money and put in long hard days because that is what they truly loved to do. In today's world they are furnished their vehicles and all of the supplies that they need to do the work, they get some specialized training such as being sent to arial gunners' school, m-44 training and other types of training, they will be working with other professionals in the field to learn from them as well. If they have served in the military that time is counted toward their years of service, they have good medical insurance and a retirement program. For me it was about the challenge of doing a job that needed done for the ranchers to survive and do what they loved doing, agricultural work in an industrialized world feeding the people of the United States. I took pride in getting the problem animals that others had already tried to and hadn't yet gotten. But I also enjoyed just being out with the livestock and other animals, seeing things and places that I otherwise would never know existed, no it wasn't all rosy peaches and cream there were bad days as with any other job but for me the good outweighed the bad by a ton. If you think that you might be interested in doing animal control work, it's pretty easy to look at the jobs available just by going to the USDA, or Wildlife Services web site and seeing what is posted there, they have jobs all over the United States and it's not always about controlling coyotes that's just one aspect of it, there are other aspects of it as well. I got involved in a rabies study for my area of the state that I live in back in the 90's I trapped skunks in live traps and the euthanized them well I knew how to kill them so that they didn't spray by gently setting the trap in my truck and driving to a water hole and drowning them then removed the heads and sent them in for study. It was found in that manner that my area of the state had way more rabid skunks then was previously known, and that information was shared with the state vet and the ranchers. Nope it's not all glorious work but it's rewarding in its own way. If it's something you might want to do give them a look and a chance to see if it's for you. You will never know if you don't try.
HRM Johnny
Well-Known Member
Great piece Dave. I hope that a lot of young people get to see that.
