Ramblings and Such From Hunting Coyote

lotehunter ; a lot of it depends on where you are and what you are doing. I don't count coyotes taken from the helicopter because they are counted by the pilot as his kills, I normally don't count pups taken out of the den or a heavy female. I once called and shot a heavy female that had thirteen pups in her so if I count them that's 14 coyotes with one shot. If you are the gunner in the plane and are covering the ground crews of several different areas, you might get 100 coyotes in a day, but you are covering more miles than anyone person could in a week, on the ground. When you are doing coyote control in the same area year after year you hope that your daily average goes down with the years spent showing that you are doing your job well. I took 4 dens of pups in one day that had 26 pups in them but only counted the six adults from those dens. Yes, that was a onetime thing and a milestone for me! I did onetime call and kill nineteen adults in one day in a new area that nobody had hunted them in years, another milestone day for me and another once in a lifetime happening, and milestone moment. When we have those types of happenings, we deserve to feel proud of ourselves for it. For the most part it was part of doing coyote control work but still I had and have proud feelings from my accomplishments, as the average coyote caller and hunter doesn't get the opportunity to do them. Share some of your exciting moments with others please.
All my coyotes have been taken on the ground, average miles per trip is about a thousand. Between 4and5 hundred miles are getting to a hunting range that's round trip miles.
 
lyotehunter ; how often do you make this trip? That's a pretty good trip to make for hunting coyotes, but when you enjoy what you are doing that is what it is about. I have done that a time or two but normally I stayed pretty close to home as I had enough coyotes here to keep me busy. trapper1954 that was an interesting article on the golden eagle being rehabbed in Wyoming then it's travel to Texas, I wonder if it is still there. In the 90's here there were some biologists catching and putting radio transmitters on bald eagles so that they could track their movements. You could see the antenna sticking out from behind them as they glued it to their feathers on their backs with the antenna pointing down their backs, so the transmitter didn't interfere with their lives very much. Airdale56 I looked at both the Teton raptor rescue center's page and the Hondo Anvil Herald's page and couldn't find the article again this morning, but it was an interesting one, showing the route that it flew to get to Texas.
 
lyotehunter ; how often do you make this trip? That's a pretty good trip to make for hunting coyotes, but when you enjoy what you are doing that is what it is about. I have done that a time or two but normally I stayed pretty close to home as I had enough coyotes here to keep me busy. trapper1954 that was an interesting article on the golden eagle being rehabbed in Wyoming then it's travel to Texas, I wonder if it is still there. In the 90's here there were some biologists catching and putting radio transmitters on bald eagles so that they could track their movements. You could see the antenna sticking out from behind them as they glued it to their feathers on their backs with the antenna pointing down their backs, so the transmitter didn't interfere with their lives very much. Airdale56 I looked at both the Teton raptor rescue center's page and the Hondo Anvil Herald's page and couldn't find the article again this morning, but it was an interesting one, showing the route that it flew to get to Texas.
I live in northern Utah so as the years have gone by I have had to travel farther from home. And we did not only for fun but to make money. We would get a 100 a year plus between 10am 20 bobcats. In the early days gas was under a dollar. And a new GMC sierra grande 4x4 was 4200.00 out the door. Coyotes were around 50 and cats were 300 on average. And we hunted from October to December for coyotes and into February for cats. And we had 40hr jobs so we did okay. We kept quiet about it and there weren't many people doing it. and the laws were better our freedoms have gone down the drain. Plus we have all these experts making money off the sport. it's still fun to watch my sons do it and I love the desert but now I want a Wolf before I can't do it anymore
 
lyotehunter ; how often do you make this trip? That's a pretty good trip to make for hunting coyotes, but when you enjoy what you are doing that is what it is about. I have done that a time or two but normally I stayed pretty close to home as I had enough coyotes here to keep me busy. trapper1954 that was an interesting article on the golden eagle being rehabbed in Wyoming then it's travel to Texas, I wonder if it is still there. In the 90's here there were some biologists catching and putting radio transmitters on bald eagles so that they could track their movements. You could see the antenna sticking out from behind them as they glued it to their feathers on their backs with the antenna pointing down their backs, so the transmitter didn't interfere with their lives very much. Airdale56 I looked at both the Teton raptor rescue center's page and the Hondo Anvil Herald's page and couldn't find the article again this morning, but it was an interesting one, showing the route that it flew to get to Texas.
I guess i'm lucky to live in a preserve with no hunting allowed, unless you own property in the preserve, thousand of acres. and no shortages of target specie.;)
 
I'm lucky that I could do predator control work. I do remember a group that came down from Montana to the Red Desert a few times with two helicopters and a couple of trucks that would take a few hundred coyotes in a short time then move on. I remember the high rollers that ran through the country and took the easy ones and moved on also. Times have changed the fur prices aren't high now gone are the days of 50 - 80-dollar coyotes, 35-dollar fox, 25-dollar coons and 350–600-dollar bobcats. Today we have a lot more people that are out there calling for the enjoyment of it where in the past few people had even heard of calling. People that are out there trying to kill trouble making predators have their share of problems with other people as well. I can't count the number of destroyed traps, snares or stolen animals. When you pull up to a set that is torn up by a coyote there is a blood pool and no animal with truck tire tracks running over the trap or the trap shot with a high-powered rifle maybe even the trap stolen all on privet property where nobody else is supposed to be, it's frustrating. Fences cut and gates left open with livestock let out I don't wonder why the landowners are getting reluctant to allow others access to people they don't know. The access to public lands has been severely restricted and roads closed to them. Some of it caused by people that didn't show respect for the privilege of being allowed to use the lands, some of it by political people that don't know what they really are doing. I too worked night shift at least 40 hours a week so that I could support my family and afford to do predator control during the day for the ranchers and livestock producers, for more than 36 years. My control work was piece work paid per animal not a monthly paycheck, no matter who I was working for. I still go out for a few people and help them with problems. I wish you luck with your quest for a wolf lotehunter, I don't know where you plan on doing your hunting for them but there are several around this part of the world and I don't know how they are classified for licensing for hunting them and how the seasons are set up. I would think that the northern states like Idaho would be a good place to look at. I do remember at one time you could book a wolf hunt in Canada for 600.00 dollars but that was so many years ago maybe in the 80's.
 
In the mid 90's I had some coyotes killing lambs, I tracked them back under an interstate highway, then into some rough deep draws. I was setting up near the top of a ridge looking down into a deep rough juniper filled draw system. I howled my locator howls and barks and sat waiting several minutes then repeated it. Down in the draw a pair talked to me then stopped talking so I knew they were coming so I was getting ready for them to get close enough for the shots. Off behind me a bunch of coyote pups sounded off. I got the pair shot she showed 6 pups, so I spent a few hours down that draw looking for the den and found it. I took all of them. So, then I knew that I had another pair in another draw system that had been behind me. I went back the next morning; it was Memorial Day. I had heard them from a long distance it sounded like they would be at least 2 miles from where I had been setting when I heard them, so I figured out a good stand location and did my howls. I was setting below a tall rock bluff and looking into a nice grassy draw that had a spring in it. I started my second set, and a coyote ran around the end of the rocks then one jumped off the top of the rocks and landed beside me. I had messed up and miss judged where they were denned. I missed them both and they weren't stopping for any of my barks or injured coyote sounds. I took some time and then went to another set up toward where the adults had come from. As I was getting set up some of the puppies started running around and wrestling with each other, quick change of plans I sat and watched them, a coyote adult showed up out a way and laid down watching them. I made the shot the pups hit the hole I went and put my jacket over the hole and gathered up the coyote it was the female she showed 8 pups. I brought my truck and tools for taking the pups from the den. What could have been a mess ended up okay just by dumb luck.
 
Did I say something wrong?
I was trying to find another link to read the story…
I am confused.
For some reason the whole story has been jerked off the Internet. It was an interesting report on a young golden eagle that was rehabbed in Jackson, WY. It was released with telemetry on it, and its progress in a migration to TX was monitored. It moved around TX from ranch to ranch. The writeup showed the telemetry travel map. It was an unusual migration. It was out there and readable, but now all reference to the story is gone from the internet no matter how you try to look with key words. Maybe the release of the data was unauthorized or something and it was retracted.

Not sure what Trapper1954 meant...
 
Not anything wrong with what anyone said. It was just taken down and as has been said it was an interesting article. I looked for it on a few different places and haven't been able to find it or any mention of it.
 
This is the time of the year when anyone doing predator control is starting to get busy. There will be some long days ahead for them, as well as long weeks. March till mid June they will be doing their best to get the pairs and especially the heavy females then the pups or fox kits.
 
For some reason the whole story has been jerked off the Internet. It was an interesting report on a young golden eagle that was rehabbed in Jackson, WY. It was released with telemetry on it, and its progress in a migration to TX was monitored. It moved around TX from ranch to ranch. The writeup showed the telemetry travel map. It was an unusual migration. It was out there and readable, but now all reference to the story is gone from the internet no matter how you try to look with key words. Maybe the release of the data was unauthorized or something and it was retracted.

Not sure what Trapper1954 meant...
Thanks for that M77Fan.
 
If you have a knife that holds a good edge for a lot of work, it will take longer to put a good sharp edge back on it then one that doesn't hold an edge as long. It's a harder material so it doesn't dull as fast, and it doesn't sharpen as fast either. With my blades made out of 52-100 and even my AEB-L stainless steel blades I will use a 320-grit stone then go to progressively finer stones. I will be depending on what the blade is going to be used for stopping with different grits for a general use work knife stop with a 600-grit stone. It leaves a rougher edge on it so it's really like a fine-toothed saw blade. For cutting tomatoes, meat or skinning I will polish the edge with a hard fine stone of around 1200 or even finer grit, making the edge looked at under a magnifying glass appear to be an extremely fine saw blade. The angle is an important part of it as well too steep and it will cut better but be easily broken, too flat and it acts more like a wedge then a cutting edge. I normally go with around a 25-degree angle for cutting most things and blade materials. I have a good selection of stones some used with oil, and some used with water, the oil or water keeps the stone from clogging up with fine partials of metal being removed as well as lubricating the surface of both the stone and blade so that it glides better with less pressure. I don't put a lot of down pressure on my blade I like to let the stone do its job and not cause the edge roll over. This is all stuff that most of us know but there might be someone that doesn't or might find it interesting how I do it.
 

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