Ramblings and Such From Hunting Coyote
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LRNut
Well-Known Member
Yea, like patience and humility.
mitebeck
Well-Known Member
Reemty to test this, drive down the freeway faster than the traffic, but just barely, and keep just a periferal view of each driver as you go by. They won't pay any attention, but if you look at them hard most will look over their shoulder at you! Try it!
And that is Why I tell people not to look directly at the animals coming to their calls or when they are hunting them to look beside or past them the military even teaches this use your peripheral vision to observe where they are and what they are doing . We all ,animals included , have our own space and when it's invaded by others we know it . Go have a cup of coffee with a friend just move the salt and pepper shakers a small amount at a time towards them most times before long when you have reached and crossed into their zone they will move them back towards you when your hands are off of them . I may study too many things . A lot of us humans have dulled this sense by living where we do in such close proximity to others .
I told some friends that I would help them teach their son-in-laws to be better at coyote control so I went out yesterday and did some tracking . I told them that I would locate a denning pair for them and then show the younger guys how I call the pair and find the den then take it with them to get them a start on doing it . As I got out there tracking I got to thinking about tracking and how it was just kind of second nature to me , to see the subtle marks and that how so many people might not know what they meant to me or what they may be looking for yet . So I took some pictures of the light tracks in the sand and dirt of trails . I couldn't even see them in the pictures but could see them well in the trails as that is what I have trained myself to see . I could see the light but darker impressions left by the pads even the toe nail marks in person but not in the pictures . I was trailing an old male coyote his tracks were around 3 inch's long while a females tracks would be maybe 2 1/4 inch's to 2 1/2 inch's long and not as wide for the front paws . I will try to find some good mud prints to take pictures of . By mud I'm speaking of wet but not soupy soil so that it will hold a good print . I know that most on here have seen their prints but still you never know someone may not have . While talking with these friends , in the field they were telling me about them opening a female to show their son-in-laws the tubes the first female didn't have any it was as if she had been spayed in all of the ones that I have checked over the years I have never found that . So now I am wondering about what caused that to happen maybe she had eaten some meat with hormones in it or some thing like that . I have been out of the loupe for a few years but I do remember talk of such experiments being conducted and how back on the east coast they had done experiments to control rabies in wild canines by doing areal bait drops with vaccines in them .
Was doing a drive by today, a male fox ran out of neighbors bushes, after some poor shooting ended up killing him at 300 yards........this was within a 1/2 mile of where I killed that nursing female a week ago. Called up the neighbor to let him know why I was shooting by his place, he said a day ago they lost a chicken and were wondering how they were going to catch the culprit.............he was Ka-powed
Win Win for everyone
With the red fox in my area so many times I have found that the female was a single mom raising the kits . But this is a good example of why the den is normally a good thing to take then the adult that is left have no reason to kill livestock . The kits when old enough to be raised with out moms milk are often adopted by others if you just kill the mom so then you killed one fox for sure and some of the kits may die and some may be raised by others isn't it interesting and a good learning experience . With fox most often I can take the den then trap the mom close by with a good flat set well blended and using Hawbeckers whiley red 500 lure on a small stick , just a drop or two is all that's needed , set in a backing about 6-7 inches from the center of the trap pan and 3-4 inches off set from the center line of the approach from the up wind side of the trail coming into the den area . I'm not bitching just trying to be helpful and give a little advice on how I do things like this to save myself from having trouble down the road there are so many small things I do that time has taught me but may be different for others . It's kind of like cats around the barn if mom gets killed another cat will take over rearing the kittens , but normally not a male as he just wants to kill the kittens and bread the female . But with fox they only cycle once a year .
I have often used a cotton swab with one end cut off as a lure holder at flat sets , they will return to the earth ( rot down ) and hold enough lure to get the job done with fox , coyote ect, and when you catch an animal they are going to tear the set area up and you will lose the bait ( lure ) holder any way . I like to use a cotton ball as a lure holder also as it is then doing double duty as a sight attractor as well . So often with coyote , especially , less is better I have found in my area it keeps them curious enough to get closer even when calling but especially with trapping .
Thank you again ButterBean . The first one is the print of a female I nearly didn't get the print in the picture my bad . If you look at it you can see where her front and back feet hit the same place and measure 2 1/2 inch's . The second is a male coyote track and shows the same but is 3 inch's long . these tracks look to be a few days old but we had rain and hail the evening before . they were only a few feet from each other coming and going north and south . To the north is a lot of draws with juniper growing in them it also has a good spring in the draws . good cover food and water . I have taken several dens from them over the years so my money would be on them having a den there . The easy way out for me would be to wait a few more days then get out at the bottom of the draws and howl wait and do it again to see if the pups talked . The third one is a red fox it measured a little over 1 3/4 inch so figure it's a male you can see the right front foot then the left rear foot and at the top where it put it's feet together and took off running . I enjoy tracking as after doing it a while and making some notes of what I am seeing at different times you get to know what the story is that they are telling you kind of like reading a mystery novel for me only it's the truth about what happened when I wasn't around .
I've been doing my tracking and have figured out , pretty close , where the den is . I don't want to get too close to it when I try to get the pups to give away the exact location of the den . I want to get set up and be ready for one or both of the adults to come in when I locate the den by using the pups talking to me . It depends on how old the pups are as to who will be at the den at what time of the day . Early on the female will be with the pups all night long and the male will be out hunting ect. at night . He will talk to the female in the morning when he is coming in to stay with the pups and let her go feed and drink you can hear him do this he will be moving and she will be in one place so now you have located , close , the den early on . So then if you are early in the morning when the pups are young you most likely are going to get the male and not the female . If it's latter on you may not have either adult near the den early in the morning . If you take your time and go in at say 10:00 in the morning when the pups are older they will talk to you as will the adults . Then if you are howling they will both come to you , a good shot gun is handy at this time but I've used my rifle often . be ready they are coming to run an intruder out of their area and are looking for a fight . Have your call ready to do the wounded coyote yips to stop the second one after the first shot . Work on yourself so that you can remain calm at this time before hand . You can get excited and shake all you want latter . I will guarantee you an adrenaline over load and the need for a nap latter in the day the first few times .
Keep in mind that if livestock killing was going on I would kill the adults that day and track back to the den that same day when I had gotten close to the den . So then I would get ready and get set up to howl the adults in some time around 10:00 AM to as late as early evening just not so late as that it would get dark before I could get them both and hopefully the den . This is for control work not just pleasure hunting coyote so then I wanted to get the killing stopped as fast as I could and that means killing the trouble makers as fast as I could . If they weren't killing I could then take more time and find the den before taking the adults but I still wanted the puppy factory over the male as it was about controlling the number of coyote for my job . I didn't need large numbers of coyote taken if I got the killing stopped as soon as I could the producers were happy with the job I did for them and understood that was what I strove to do for them .
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Well we have been visiting on here for over a year now . There have been many good , very interesting hunts and other things talked about . if you go back and start at the beginning you can see how I evolved , how I learned from my goof ups and learned to be better at hunting coyote . You can see where I used the wrong call sounds at the wrong locations had no real control of the coyote coming in then as time went by I changed what I did and learned to control the situation better with time and experience . You can then start to understand how I started changing things that I did to make my life easer and get the coyote that I needed to sometimes in just a little amount of time . You can notice how that I took the time to think out what was going on at the time to adjust to each situation . We all every one of us start out first learning to get up on our knees then we start to crawl . Soon we learn how to use things so we can stand up then we learn how to stand with out the help of some thing to keep us steady . The next thing you know your taking a step and unsteady steps moving fast at first to make up for not really knowing what we are doing till we learn to slow down and walk at a good steady pace placing one foot in front of the other with intent hunting is pretty much the same . Some of us want to go farther then others and do , some are happy to just see the out side of our homes . Some of us decide that good enough is good enough and are happy if we get a coyote now and then . Others will decide they want to do coyote control and their form of coyote control is in the eyes of the beholder . Mine was to stop the killing by getting the problem killed as fast as I could and taking care of the reason they were killing in the first place . For others they may or may not care about weather they get the problem coyote and getting large numbers of coyote killed is what they call coyote control . It's all in the way we each look at it that makes it coyote control in our own eyes and what the livestock producer feels is doing him or her the most good . As for me when I get a call to help someone or to teach some younger person I'll teach them to kill the problem as fast as they can and I'll teach them the best ways that I have learned how to and hope that they take that and improve on it . So then let us continue with visiting and talking about our experiences and enjoying each others company . I'll be gone for awhile as I'm going to visit one of my brothers and he doesn't even have phone service where he lives but I will catch up when I get back so keep up the good hunting in the mean time .
