It aint as easy as it looks
I’ve had pretty good success calling coyotes this season and it seems like every time I share a photo on social media I get several friends requesting that I take them coyote hunting. Although my postings might make it seem like I harvest a coyote every time I go out, that is far from the truth.
My grandson once asked me to take him coyote hunting. It was early March, a traditionally tough time to call coyotes. To make matters worse, his schedule only allowed for an after school hunt. We headed for a spot close to home and fired up the call, playing cottontail distress. Within minutes we had three coyotes coming in on a dead run. They never stopped and we shotgunned the one on the right within three feet of the call.
How could I ever top that? I was afraid his first coyote hunting experience might have given him a false sense of how easy it was. Not to worry, He quickly learned that such a stand was the exception rather than the rule.
Since the inception of the Mule Deer Protection Act, which provides a bounty for coyotes harvested in Utah, interest in hunting desert dogs has skyrocketed. It’s difficult to find a place that has not been hunted repeatedly. There are lots of educated dogs out there.
Hunting success reflects these facts and most stands end without a coyote in the back of the truck.
As a result, if you want to kill coyotes, you need to get out as much as you can and keep trying. 84 percent of my stands this season were no shows, stands where I didn’t see anything responding. Only ten percent resulted in a dog on the ground.
I have had dry spells that spanned 18, 17 and 11 stands between calling in a ‘yote.
I’m sure that some of my unsuccessful stands were because there were no coyotes in the area to respond or the ones that were there had been educated. I have also had my share of stands that were messed up by various scenarios.
Coyotes have an incredible sense of smell. If they get downwind, you’re busted
The wind is probably my number one nemesis. It seems like the wind is always blowing where I hunt. It’s not uncommon to walk into a stand with the wind in my face, get set up to call and, within minutes, feel the wind on the back of my neck.
There are several other culprits when it comes to messing up a stand.
On one occasion I had placed my call on the fork of three branches in a dead tree. Several minutes into the stand the call fell to the ground. I’m more careful about securing the call now. On another occasion my call quit half way through a stand. Upon investigation, I discovered that one of the batteries was loose in the holder, killing power to the call.
I have had people drive right through a stand, I even had a cattle drive pass through a stand last month. Several cowboys on horseback and half a dozen herding dogs pushed a herd of cows right past my stand on Thanksgiving weekend.
Coyotes seem to like hanging out around cattle and I don’t let the presence of cattle deter me from calling. That being said, I have been made nervous enough by range bulls to pack up and leave and on several occasions have had cattle swarm to the call and stand around bellowing. Not a great setup for calling coyotes.
Another problem, especially when calling closer to buildings, is calling in domestic dogs. I have called huskies, different breeds of shepherds, and Great Pyrenees dogs. My scariest encounter with dogs was on a stand in central Colorado decades ago. I was easily 20 miles from the nearest dwelling and called in a pack of seven sorry looking dogs. I had just pulled off the road to try a likely looking spot, so I only had five rounds in my rifle. I quietly gathered my gear and backed out to my truck.
Perhaps the most entertaining messed up stand was the day I called in a soccer mom. I had set up overlooking a wide valley and didn’t know there was a walking trail running through the bottom. I fired up Bay Bee Cottontail on the FoxPro and within minutes, had a response. A middle aged woman appeared between the junipers about 300 yards away. She was shading her eyes with her hand, scanning the hillside intently, trying to locate the poor distressed critter. I was wearing full camo and sitting in the shade of a juniper tree, so wasn’t worried about her spotting me. Still, not wanting to have any issues, I hit the mute button.
She gave up after a few minutes and started to walk away. I’m not sure why, but for some perverse reason, I unmuted the call and the sounds of an injured cottontail echoed across the valley. She quickly stopped and renewed her search for the dying rabbit. Realizing that calling in a soccer mom was not a good idea, I muted the call and, after what seemed like a long time, finally watched her walk out of sight down the draw before I pulled out and heading back to the truck.