Another line that I may or may not have came up with is one of my former employers dad told me he sure missed me cause the new guy just wasn't the same. I said to him "well if you don't miss me then I didn't do a good enough job while I was here". I didn't say that to be arrogant or anything was just trying to be honest. Here's another one. "Don't beat around the bush just fire up the chainsaw and get it out of the way."
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Ramblings and Such From Hunting Coyote
- Thread starter DSheetz
- Start date
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In the years I have had so many interesting things happen that I wouldn't believe unless I had been there that I don't doubt things that are amazing that happen to others . Some things that happen are so funny it's hard not to laugh at them and yourself and some of them are scary , some are just plain interesting . Life is good and it is interesting .
I was working for a ranch north of town . I had the boundary fences set up between them and their neighbors with snares and had been doing good with them . Early in the spring the neighbors had had lamb killing the offenders had been coming off of the ranch I was now working on , that's how I ended up working that part of this ranch . I went over and did a little tracking and found some really big tracks , bigger then my hand . I followed them back to where they went into the pasture I was working down into some real rough deep draws . They went under the fence I had set up but farther down it then I had been going by a couple of hundred yards because it was all walking to get there and took so much time to . and when I don't have to get killing stopped I normally don't waste time that way as you will get them with time when they take the easy route as we do . I set it up with a good 3/32 , 7z7x21 air craft cable snare 8 foot long . At that time I was using Patterson knots for snare locks . Patterson was out of roundup Montana and used a small loop with the cable ran through it three times then pushed one of the passes up and put the tail of the cable through that to form his lock . If you put your cable through backwards it wouldn't lock up right but if you did it was a kill lock and you wouldn't have water heads to skin . They were a very fast lock you needed to set them with a little upward tilt so the wind didn't blow them closed . They are now illegal here as you have to have a breakaway on your snare now and so many people don't know how not to catch deer or antelope with them . Back to the story . I set up the fence walking down it a few hundred yards . We have a 72 hour check law so I checked it twice in 6 days then on the next check , the ninth day I had a big present laying there for me . He was a big old tom that had a lot of broken teeth and all of them showing a lot of wear . I don't know how old he was but I'm sure it was a long time and he had most likely moved down from the high country for an easer life as I hadn't seen any tracks before .
A lot of years ago I used what were called Coyote Getters . They were a small single shot 38 caliber gun . The shells they used were 38's loaded with just enough powder to cover the primer then a light cardboard disk with sodium cyanide up to about an 1/8 inch from the top another disk then sealed with wax or a tar . You would rap the shell holder with wool , cotton ,or flannel . You had a stake that was driven into the ground , A hollow tube made out of electrical conduit that had a slit cut into it then rolled back and a small piece of spring wire soldered on it to hold the trigger of the getter in it the tube was mashed flat on one end you would put dirt or a piece of wood in the bottom of the tube so you could use a bolt to drive it into the ground without blowing the bottom out . You had a piece of 1/8 hard wire with a dimple drilled in one end and a loop on the other end you set the firing device on something hard then put the dimple on the firing pin pushed it down and set the trigger you then put it in the tube . Then you put your shell into the shell holder and screwed onto the gun . With it in place you then took your bait and put it on the top , shell holder, around the outside but not over the end of the shell . The old government guys had what they called getter butter or coyote butter . Some of it was made with bone meal as a base and some of it used blood meal as a base with some mineral oil or glycerin mixed in to make a smooth paste . They all had their secret ingredients they added to it that they clamed would make a fox or coyote slobber all over themselves just to get a bite . When you screwed the top on these things you wanted to wear a good heavy leather glove be down on your knees bent over facing away from them and reaching out to the side . When you went to pick them up out of the field you darn sure want to be in this position in case some thing had pulled on it but didn't set it just leaving it set with a hair trigger . You had the back of your hand facing you using your forefinger and thumb to screw the top on . If one went off doing either of these things it hurt like crazy when it hit the palm of your gloved hand and you for sure didn't want it to puncture your skin . When an animal pulled it they were scared half to death and would run as hard as they could as far as they could before they died . The first thing I would do was turn a circle looking for eagles or buzzards eating some thing . If I didn't see that I started walking circles at about 25 feet increasing distances un till you saw them . The farthest I found a coyote was close to 400 yards. I was up on the mountain one time fixing fence and found some of them with the tubes wired to fence posts a foot and a half off the ground at an upward angle . Winter sets for frozen ground and drifting snow . It's hard to say who put them there and how long they had been there they didn't work any longer and had been out lawed for years by then .
DMP25-06
Well-Known Member
A lot of years ago I used what were called Coyote Getters . They were a small single shot 38 caliber gun . The shells they used were 38's loaded with just enough powder to cover the primer then a light cardboard disk with sodium cyanide up to about an 1/8 inch from the top another disk then sealed with wax or a tar . You would rap the shell holder with wool , cotton ,or flannel . You had a stake that was driven into the ground , A hollow tube made out of electrical conduit that had a slit cut into it then rolled back and a small piece of spring wire soldered on it to hold the trigger of the getter in it the tube was mashed flat on one end you would put dirt or a piece of wood in the bottom of the tube so you could use a bolt to drive it into the ground without blowing the bottom out . You had a piece of 1/8 hard wire with a dimple drilled in one end and a loop on the other end you set the firing device on something hard then put the dimple on the firing pin pushed it down and set the trigger you then put it in the tube . Then you put your shell into the shell holder and screwed onto the gun . With it in place you then took your bait and put it on the top , shell holder, around the outside but not over the end of the shell . The old government guys had what they called getter butter or coyote butter . Some of it was made with bone meal as a base and some of it used blood meal as a base with some mineral oil or glycerin mixed in to make a smooth paste . They all had their secret ingredients they added to it that they clamed would make a fox or coyote slobber all over themselves just to get a bite . When you screwed the top on these things you wanted to wear a good heavy leather glove be down on your knees bent over facing away from them and reaching out to the side . When you went to pick them up out of the field you darn sure want to be in this position in case some thing had pulled on it but didn't set it just leaving it set with a hair trigger . You had the back of your hand facing you using your forefinger and thumb to screw the top on . If one went off doing either of these things it hurt like crazy when it hit the palm of your gloved hand and you for sure didn't want it to puncture your skin . When an animal pulled it they were scared half to death and would run as hard as they could as far as they could before they died . The first thing I would do was turn a circle looking for eagles or buzzards eating some thing . If I didn't see that I started walking circles at about 25 feet increasing distances un till you saw them . The farthest I found a coyote was close to 400 yards. I was up on the mountain one time fixing fence and found some of them with the tubes wired to fence posts a foot and a half off the ground at an upward angle . Winter sets for frozen ground and drifting snow . It's hard to say who put them there and how long they had been there they didn't work any longer and had been out lawed for years by then .
DSheetz ,
Very informative story .
That was some dangerous work .
I had always heard about the cyanide "Bombs" as people around here called them , but your detailed description of those devices allows all of us to see that your line of work , in predator control , was a very dangerous job .
What you are describing are much smaller than I imagined them to be .
Did the coyote that was killed by the cyanide also spread that poison to the scavengers that fed on the carcasses ? And on down the food chain ?
I hope that you never had one of the cartridges accidentally fire on you .
DMP25-06
Straight Shooter
Well-Known Member
I have a friend who has a ranch in northern Montana and he has an ADC guy running 15 getters on his place continuously and they can't keep the coyote numbers in check.
The cyanide gas's off and doesn't pass on to any other animals so that there isn't any secondary poisoning . If for some reason the cyanide gets on the ground moisture activates it and it gas's off then dissipates to below the allowable parts per million rapidly . The ones that ADC use now are really M-44's they have a spring loaded delivery system so that a spring pushes a plunger up into a plastic cartridge that contains the sodium cyanide and is pushed into the animals mouth . Much safer then the 38 powered getters . The cyanide has a die in it so you can tell who used it the Government uses a red die and the civilians has a green die in it . They both fluoresce under a black light . The amount used now will kill under 110 pound animals if they are healthy . Cyanide stops the blood from transferring the oxygen to the cells so the applicator carries an antidote kit with him that has 6 ampules of amul nitrate that dilates the blood vessels so that you get more interface and oxygen transfer . When you skin an animal that has died from cyanide the blood will be bright red because it is loaded with oxygen . And the air in their lungs will smell like bitter almonds . You still take all the precautions when setting them or taking them out of the field . All gates going into the pastures with them in use must have a gate sign that can be seen easily and is bilingual then each M-44 in place will have a steak sign that is bilingual within 15 feet and easily seen . There are 26 federal regulations that must be followed . They all have to have two peoples knowledge of their placement incase some thing happens to the applicator GPS is used and they are marked on a map by most now . They have to be a certain distance from water that is a source for livestock to drink . I was out with a new guy one time . We were about 400 yards apart from each other when I heard him yelling for me to come quick . When I got to him at the back of the truck I saw 4 ampules crushed and on the ground he had another in his hands sucking air like there was no tomorrow yelling these things aren't working . I told him calm down I'll take care of you your doing it wrong . I got my bandanna out reached in my shirt pocket got my kit out crushed one in the bandanna and told him to hold it to his face and breath normal . After a couple of breaths I said ok now hold it away from your face and breath in fresh air for 4 or 5 breaths now do it that way for 5 minutes . I had him repeat this for 3 ampules . Then I said maybe you should wipe the cyanide off of your upper lip . He looked at me and said am I going to die . I told him no but he was going to have a head ache from hell . He did within a few minutes . When we got back to my house at the end of the day I got a new kit out and opened the can they are sealed in and gave him a new kit . All of my things like that are kept under lock and key . The ejector units are in a locked box by themselves the clean tops are kept by themselves and the cyanide capsules are in a red locked box with a big desiccant pad by themselves . The tubes are kept in a plastic 5 gal bucket . Some of the tubes have 5/16 inch holes drilled in them so I can drop a bridge spike into them for sandy ground making it so they don't get pulled out of the ground . They cost about 25 dollars for each set up so I don't like them to get lost by an animal carrying them off . The used ejectors are cleaned and lubed for reuse . The used tops are cleaned and washed by hand for reuse unless they need re wrapped . You can tell what animal has pulled them by the teeth marks they leave . I wrap mine with cotton from a cotton ball that I un wrap then wrap it onto the top . I take a 9/16 inch fine thread bolt and screw the top on it then dip it in melted wax that I mix up for that use . It's paraffin with just enough bee's wax to make it soft and not brittle . It's an art in it's self to get good with M-44's
I always like to use several different systems on coyote and change my ways often they adapt to what ever you use . Straight Shooter you might enjoy doing a little looking around to find you a spot to set up and snip them where they are running a trail. It's a gas .
Straight Shooter
Well-Known Member
Dave, I plan on it this November.
Straight shooter---How far north in northern Mondamtana..............just happen to be fairly north myself....DSheetz, what a commentary on how it works, wow..............ed-gee-k-shun-al!!! Thanks.
The detail you showed tells a lot about your personality Dave, very precise, just the kind of tools one would need to compete with an animal as canny as a coyote..............the predators have always been a passion of mine, you are matching wits with an animal that has senses beyond your ability, so brain power and precision and attention to detail, is the only thing that can make you succeed..............
The detail you showed tells a lot about your personality Dave, very precise, just the kind of tools one would need to compete with an animal as canny as a coyote..............the predators have always been a passion of mine, you are matching wits with an animal that has senses beyond your ability, so brain power and precision and attention to detail, is the only thing that can make you succeed..............
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DMP25-06
Well-Known Member
Thank You Reemty J . The coyote has always fascinated me . It amazes me how any thing could survive being hunted as hard as they have been and they even multiply as well as learn to live with in our cities .
I would say that the canine family , Wolf , Coyote , African Wild Dogs , and even domesticated dogs , are probably the ultimate predators , AFTER MANKIND .
Their extreme intelligence and the fact that they will hunt in packs sets them apart from other mammals , other than Killer Whales - Orcas ( Thank God that they don't walk on land ) .
But the Coyote will adapt to living and surviving inside the cities . Be thankful that they are not as large as the Wolf species that were stocked into Yellowstone NP back in 1994 .
DMP25-06
I hunted wolves in Canada back in 2000 and the fellow I met up there, he was the one who snared that black female they released in yellowstone and she lived a long time, remember they were celebrating how many litters she raised.......she is gone now........he was paid $2000 US for every wolf snared that was healthy. All the locals thought us Yankees fell on our heads as they said "once they populate, you will wish you never released them".....they had a special kind of snare that would not choke down, would only go so far, so the wolf would be alive. You all want to know another smart predator, the grizzly has some brains also, any predator that lives 20-35 years acquires lots of experiences and gets very sharp.
