Teaching An Old Dog New Coyote Hunting Tricks By Justin Shireman

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[Flintlock]

Justin, I read where you live just south of OKC. I live in Norman, on the east side of town. I have been hunting coyotes off and on for about 10 years. Not too succesful but it's fun. I mainly hunt with primitive bows and arrows for deer and also pistols, single shot.
I have been hunting some coyotes with my pistols and a couple so far last year. I have about 600 acres in NW OK, north of Clinton about 2.5 hrs from Norman. It is nothing but canyons and hills that are great to shoot from. I saw a couple of large coyotes during deer last fall and this spring while turkey hunting. If you ever want to try that place and help a guy learn a few tricks let me know. All I have used is a couple of mouth calls. I have worked for OGE for 36 years and have some other places we could hit also that I have acquired over the years building power lines.

Mike Hames

 

[shiredude]

sounds like we need to hook up this fall. as we get closer to the cooler weather, shoot me a pm or something and maybe we can get a gameplan together via phone

 

[devins]

Justin, enjoyed the article. I got my BS in biology at probably the same place you did. I grew up at Custer City and have hunted from the Gould area up to the Seiling and Oakwood area. Man I am seeing tons this year. I love deer season but am looking forward to January and hitting the calls. I have had to show great restraint this season and have had up to 5 pass me in one evening, and one really nice bobcat that evening too. I moved back to Clinton to practice after the Med Center in Nebraska(great hunting and fishing up there too). Any way I appreciate the article, I don't feel like it but I might be an old dog myself, but they keep teaching me new tricks just like you said. Hope you all have a great season. I have a son in law that we are going to get him started on the coyotes this season so that is just an added bonus too(might get to shop for another rifle with his money, LOL ).

 

[eyeball 2]

sorry but i must disagree with you about a few things. in west texas i hunt several ranches of 50-250 sections, and huge areas of blm in southern new mexico.. normally coyotes are shot almost downwind. if you let them get completely downwind you will only get a running shot. almost only in the fall , with a lot of young around, do any come at you from upwind. normally they will come from crosswind a couple hundred yards out and circle downwind to get the scent before comming in. smart dogs often stay out 300-500 yards and in the high prarie love grass you wont see them without binocs because they blend in. a coyote face is hard to see at 300 yards in tall grass if it's sitting there looking for you. sometimes they come loping by a hundred yards out, from crosswind, and wont stop for a shot before catching scent and turning on the speed, no matter what you do. even a bark or howl just speeds up their retreat. i'm really starting to think they are getting our calls figured out. thanks, rc

 

[devins]

Ralph, I know what you are talking about too. I have friends out in really open country in New Mexico and they tell me the same thing. I notice too that as the trends of what we are hunting cycle the behavior cycles too. As we start calling and hunting them more you see them hanging back more, may be they are getting wise to us or that we eliminate the younger less educated easily and leave the slower more cautious moving and as a result you will get more hanging back. Called in two for a friend on one place a few weeks ago and the second stand and second coyote held at about 400 yards only letting me see its face around the downed cedar it was next to. Normally as they come in you don't need the binos but it held at that cedar watching until I couldn't take it any more and when I positioned the rifle it was watching me, obviously because I had been doing the calling. But since it was on the side of the downed cedar it was opposite of my buddy and he never saw it. But where we hunt is decieving. It looks fairly flat and open but there are tons of terrain breaks and much more cover than you immediately notice and we have tons of coyotes. So typically we are not seeing them until they have already begun there swing downwind. I try to find a big open hillside so I can watch them come in but like our whitetailed deer they are pretty good at utilizing our ruff terrain and staying hidden until they start the swing toward the sown wind side. I would love to hunt some of the more open country like you are talking about.

 

[eyeball 2]

thanks for the reply. i have a gung=ho coyote friend i hunt with who even insists i drive into the country we are going to hunt WITH THE WIND. we walk downwind, sit and call downwind to a large area. He insists if we drive upwind, stop and call -that we have driven through the country the coyotes are in that would have otherwise come to us from. i know dogs directly downwind smell us and will not come in, but those off to the side and downwind do come as they are swinging downwind. the trick is to nail 'em before they get directly downwnd. i would hate to try to take someone from far away as i almost wont hunt in daylight if the moon isnt up in the day. with the winds out here you can loose a whole weekend if it blows. there is good hunting in oct, nov, and dec but i am usually deerhunting then. there are young dogs then that call better. out here calling is poor if the wind is high in jan, feb, march and i only hunt then if conditions are right- making lsat minute plans. new mexico has lots of blm but i would plan on staying several days if i made the trip. we've been in drought and quail and rabbits are very scarce a few years. i dont know if this has reduced the dog pop. or the increase in contests, but this was a pretty bad year. i would sure be anxious abt trying to plan something. if you are going to be in this area in feb though, get in touch. take care, good hunting and good fortune. thanks, rc

 

[ntg]

Good read, thanks!

I'm fairly new to it, but learning w/ a friend who has some experience. One thing I'd modify on your statement about binos is that we take them with us, but only use them just before getting up and moving to another stand. Once in a while you'll be able to spot a yote hanging out in the sage brush, grass, etc., maybe 3-400 yards out. Some are quite leery, and won't come in close.
In my area they do hang at times mostly in the more "open country" type spots we hunt, and you won't see them in the cover w/out the binos. This only happens occasionally.

 

[eyeball 2]

Good read, thanks!

I'm fairly new to it, but learning w/ a friend who has some experience. One thing I'd modify on your statement about binos is that we take them with us, but only use them just before getting up and moving to another stand. Once in a while you'll be able to spot a yote hanging out in the sage brush, grass, etc., maybe 3-400 yards out. Some are quite leery, and won't come in close.
In my area they do hang at times mostly in the more "open country" type spots we hunt, and you won't see them in the cover w/out the binos. This only happens occasionally.

i thought that was exactly the point i was trying to make.

 

[ntg]

Oh...o.k....I read it with interruptions, my mistake. Thanks for writing it. The articles that this site has is one of the things I like about it.