Ramblings and Such From Hunting Coyote
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Donneric
Well-Known Member
I had a peculiar trip feeding horses late last night. A coyote was clearly upset about something. I listened to it for 40 minutes straight. It was already upset when I first stepped outside. It repeated the same 5 part vocalization ten seconds apart for the entire 40 minutes. It was two ascending notes and three descending. Occasionally it would bark twice but not often. It initially sounded maybe 3/4's of a mile away, slowly moving closer. Then awhile maybe 4-500 yards away, then at the end of the 40 minutes it headed back north and the vocalizations broke into double barks. What was going on? I figure a couple of you here might be able to explain. We have had wolves that come thru. Two years ago this time of year I was calling coyotes 200-300 yards north of the house here and two black wolves responded from the timber and came out into a pasture a good half mile away. Would last night's coyote be responding to them intruding? And I know nobody is trapping or snaring on the ranch NE of me and I have exclusive permission on the ranch NW of here but my snares are 2 miles north of my 20 acres. I remember in Craig O'Gorman's Hoof Beats of a Wolfer the "insane moment" but this was no moment. No other coyotes were audible to my ears.
Whatever canine, wolf, coyote or dog it was that is a warning series. Another canine had intruded into its territory, and it was being told to leave. Was it deeper male tones? I have heard that before when another male was in the pairs home range, the male was the only one talking and the female just sat and watched I was fortunate enough that it was day light so that I could see what was going on. I heard it as I was driving in to do some calling, so I hid my truck, slipped into some timber and moved within a couple hundred yards. I sat and watched it doing the challenges to the other male for about an hour, as the intruder just sat on a little knoll and the female sat behind the talker while he was trying to get the other one to leave. I observed then shot so I could learn from the teachers.
Airedale56
Well-Known Member
They were given to me that way. No offense meant. I have cousins in TX , a son, DIL and granddaughters in Austin.
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Airedale56
Well-Known Member
Donneric,
Could it have been a coyote looking for a lost mate?
It's kind of a ghostly, quavering call.
I've killed several over the years at night that the surviving mate called and called and called for quite a while trying to locate its partner that disappeared.
Could it have been a coyote looking for a lost mate?
It's kind of a ghostly, quavering call.
I've killed several over the years at night that the surviving mate called and called and called for quite a while trying to locate its partner that disappeared.
Donneric
Well-Known Member
I snared a male without the tail fur I mentioned earlier in this thread and dragged it and another male and some coon carcasses to the north end of the twenty here. But it was about five days from going full pistolerò on it that I dumped the carcass. Mr. Sheetz it didn't necessarily sound like a male. It wasn't a deep vocal call compared to what I have heard here. Maybe young of the year? It didn't sound like a top dog fellow
trapper1954
Well-Known Member
Back in 98 I was trying to learn the language and I decided to jot down what I heard, compare it to Austins cassette.
this was my code: Bark *, Barks * **, Howl --, long howl----. You can transcribe Austins cassette of coyote language with this code and it was helpful for me (copy in my pocket).. btw if you get the round up from the wise ole male that down winded you,,games over. 10 4
I really need to learn the raven lango
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The sound made by the coyotes looking for their mate or pups that I have listened to here was two short quivering howls and then two quick barks. Similar to the wake up or round up howls made in the afternoon, by the male wanting to get together with the other coyote for a hunt. That is just the short howls without the barks. The barks here put a sense of urgency to the talking and locator calls. When I have answered them with the tone of the missing coyote male, or female the coyote would come readily to that calling.
This is the time of the year that you can hear a female in heat talking and asking for male companionship also. She will use higher pitched howls. with few barks. The pitch of the howls and barks mean a lot in their language. The quivering in a howl adds a different meaning, the length of the howl means yet something different. Barks added mean different things still, the type of bark has meaning to it with a female in heat the bark is a lot of times more like a chirp then a bark. When they are trying to decoy something out away from their area often the howls will nearly sound like a scream more than a howl. When they are just wanting to talk and see if anyone wants to talk the howls will be longer and lower pitched with few if any barks all non-threatening sounds. I have heard females talking a lot and moving around as they did more than males doing it. When they are marking their area with vocalizations it's more like Bill Austins sunrise serenade, no matter what time it is, a few howls and then kiyi's . They have a complex vocabulary but for our needs we don't have to be able to make a whole lot of it just a few at the right time and place will do what we need for the most part. The key being at the right time and place.
Donneric
Well-Known Member
I have probably ten hours added up with the Randy Anderson Ki-Yi call driving alone in the truck and I cannot get it right the ki-yi like he does it. I have had to wash the inside of my windshield more than the outside.
It's a versatile call, with or without the cover on the reed. you can make rabbits of all types, rodents, puppy sounds, bird sounds, ect. . I found that using both hands on the sound chamber helped me till I kind of figured it out as well as swallowing a lot more often to keep the reed dryer. It doesn't take nearly as much air as most people think it would, so many times people think they need to really put a lot of air through it trying to get more volume out of it, but it isn't really designed to be overly loud, using both hands as an extension on the sound chamber without gloves will do that for you with a lot less air. His hot dog and Thompsons red desert howler are the same they don't take a lot of air and I found that not using the longer tube on them made it easier to use them. When all of his callers first came out the hot dog and little dog calls had sound chamber tubes that you could change from one to the other calls so you could use the long tube on the little dog calls or their shorter tube on the hotdog. I mostly just use the mouthpiece and my hands at the end of them all. Then if I am in the need of sounding like I am farther from a coyote I can close my hands down more or use cloth gloves on my hands to mute the sound. Call me a cheap b347138 or whatever but I still like my hand calls the best, and enjoying figuring them out is just fun to me.
Donneric
Well-Known Member
Is the ki-yi easy for you on it? Or do you do it on another call? I haven't gone electric. I really like the mouth calls. I'm not a cheapo. I guess I just gravitate towards simplicity and old school.
I normally use his hotdog for kiyi's without the long sound chamber so it's just the mouthpiece making it shorter and easier to handle. The same with the little dogs or the crittercall standard. You can't really tell if you have the sound, you are wanting while you are making it because you can't hear what it really sounds like. Hand calls are only simple in some respects they are truly complex in others, the range of sounds, the variety of tones you can make. They can make more real sounding coyote vocalizations, and other animal sounds than any speakers that I have heard to date, because of the subtleties in their tones, you truly are making all of the frequencies and broad casting them, you can't tell it from the backside of the call but at a distance in front of you is where the difference is that counts. A good thing to think about is not to over try with them just relax and don't use as much air as you think you need, be gentle with them and they will repay the favor. You have to stand before you can walk and then you have to learn to take steps before you can run and not fall down, but when you fall down you have to learn how to stand back up and relax to try again.
Donneric
Well-Known Member
Thanks!
