Grrr... can't find anybody to go 'yote hunting with me...

[CountryBoy19]

I have everything for a successful night of 'yote hunting except an e-caller. I contacted several guys I know with e-callers and I promised them that if they get a 'yote within 200 yards of me I will deliver them a dead yote. Not a single bite on my offer... I don't have an e-caller because my 'yote setup is typically for getting rid of nuisance yotes so I'm not too worried about calling them in to me in most cases.

Just venting my frustrations...

 

[mrjarrell]

Check the classifieds. Saw an e-caller there earlier today. Till then, hope you find someone to call 'em in.

 

[SaintsNSinners]

Can you use 308 on a coyote?

 

[Stschil]

Record and loop speeches by Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi through a blue tooth audio device. That will sound just like a wounded rodent.

 

[snapping turtle]

I used mouth calls I have many. I also made an E caller off garment Al's website with a different configuration.

Get a couple of mouth calls and get out in the field.

 

[churchmouse]

Had some luck with e-callers but better luck using other methods. We do the nuisance deal as well.
I need to get ready to get out there again. Not been in a long time.......

 

[M4Madness]

I'm from Bedford as well (but now live 10 miles outside of town), so howdy neighbor. LOL! I don't own an electronic caller either, but have two friends that do. Neither has brought theirs around, so I went out the other evening with an old mouth call that I dug out of my hunting junk. Within one minute of me using that call, a coyote charged in to within 40 yards of me. I'd like to say that I killed it, but it came in on my right side and I couldn't get a shot off in that direction (I'm right-handed), then it hit my scent stream and was gone. Just make a trip to Wal-Mart and buy a rabbit in distress call, and you might be surprised with the results. Good luck!

 

[Jason R. Bruce]

Imagine a guy develops an interest in golfing. He inherits his dad’s old clubs, buys a few dozen balls and a membership to the local course, spends three days a week on the driving range… but never plays the first round of golf because he doesn’t have a 13 degree sand wedge. That’s what I see when a guy thinks he can’t coyote hunt until he gets a piece of equipment like an electronic caller. Some guys hang up over decoys; some think they need an AR15 or a ghillie suit before they can even go afield. I can only assume the predator hunting craze on television is generating these philosophies on “must have” equipment.

I think it boils down to a nationwide (industry-wide) knowledge gap about what it takes (or doesn’t take) to call and kill a coyote. Folks who decide to take up something like turkey hunting have volumes of other people’s trials & tribulations at their fingertips, legions of sportsmen have come off the sidelines to become proficient turkey hunters for this reason. Not so with coyotes, and it’s not likely to change.

One of the most fundamental differences in consistently calling and killing coyotes in Indiana, versus deer/turkey/waterfowl/ect is the way coyotes respond to hunting pressure. The margin by which your future success falls each time you screw up a particular group of animals or piece of property is incredible. Far worse than anything else we hunt in Indiana. Not even on the same scale, and inconceivable to many sportsmen who spend most of their time on less finicky quarry.

I’ve said for years, if a guy can go out and legitimately call and kill 5-6 coyotes a season (10/15-3/15) in Indiana he is extremely successful. Most likely in the top 1% of callers in the state. I’m not talking about coyotes spotted from the truck and called in later, or coyotes a buddy shot on a stand, or coyotes called from a pile of fresh meat. I’m talking about good scouting, stand selection, calling, behavior management, shot selection & shooting that result in a coyote on the tailgate (not wounded). With this in mind, I think the average newcomer to predator calling has some unrealistic expectations that his Saturday afternoon should yield a coyote or four.

We’re about to host a 10[SUP]th[/SUP] Annual predator hunt here in Indiana that’s hosted several hundred different hunters in its day. It’s a pleasure to meet all these new guys each year and get to know a little about them. From elected officials to offshore oil riggers, duck hunters to fur trappers, it’s amazing to see who is out there calling coyotes. The vast majority are great people, great attitudes and a will to overcome these tall odds of success. The vast majority will make around 10-20 stands a year, calling 2-5 coyotes into sight and killing 1-3 of them. For the most part, these are guys that take it very seriously. They have the equipment and land access; they spend time improving their game year after year.

So anyway, your buddies being stingy with the E-Callers are probably either exhausted from their own trials & tribulations or they’ve come to realize that bringing new hunters into their neighborhood is going to diminish their own odds of success down the road. Most successful callers I know across the country hunt alone or with one other person on a regular basis. There is a lot of work to do between "coyote inside 200 yards" and "one on the tailgate". I don't think I've ever met a successful coyote caller that wishes he had someone tagging along to shoot.

 

[dak109]

How about more info on the 10th annual predator hunt? Yes, I am being lazy

 

[7.62]

Can you use 308 on a coyote?

If you mean legally, yes....you could use a .50 BMG if you wanted. That might be pretty cool to see too!

 

[CountryBoy19]

I'm from Bedford as well (but now live 10 miles outside of town), so howdy neighbor. LOL! I don't own an electronic caller either, but have two friends that do. Neither has brought theirs around, so I went out the other evening with an old mouth call that I dug out of my hunting junk. Within one minute of me using that call, a coyote charged in to within 40 yards of me. I'd like to say that I killed it, but it came in on my right side and I couldn't get a shot off in that direction (I'm right-handed), then it hit my scent stream and was gone. Just make a trip to Wal-Mart and buy a rabbit in distress call, and you might be surprised with the results. Good luck!

Yeah, it's almost too easy in this area even without a caller... I "know of" you, but I don't believe we've ever met. Although I do know your vehicle because I saw a pic of it on ar15.com and I know you live in the area... and work at the same place...

There is a lot of work to do between "coyote inside 200 yards" and "one on the tailgate". I don't think I've ever met a successful coyote caller that wishes he had someone tagging along to shoot.

Trust me, I can do that part... piece of cake IMHO... I can reliably take 'yotes out to 400 in most cases but 200 is my range where I will nearly 100% guarantee a dead coyote.

And I do get what you're saying about the e-caller but having an e-caller makes it much easier to trick a wary coyote that circles a few hundred yards downwind before coming in. Set the e-caller up at least 100 yds up-wind and ideally the 'yote will circle right to you making it a very easy shot. The reason I don't have callers is because I don't really ever call them. I have way too many and just take them when the opportunity presents itself. I've killed 3 off my back porch in the last couple months. It just so happened that I was at home (northern IN) for over a week and wanted to spend some time in the field with some guys that I don't always get to see and hang out with. It wasn't that they didn't want me to come along, it's because they had other things going on or just didn't want to brave the elements (was pretty chilly).

 

[Jason R. Bruce]

Yeah, it's almost too easy in this area even without a caller...

I love statements like this. What type of kill numbers does one accomplish when things are “almost too easy”? I'm thinking prairie dogs here... just how many are we talking about in a season? How many years have you held this extreme success?

Trust me, I can do that part... piece of cake IMHO... I can reliably take 'yotes out to 400 in most cases but 200 is my range where I will nearly 100% guarantee a dead coyote.

As much as I want to trust you with your ability to kill 100% of called coyotes inside 200 yards.... you turned around and said this in the next breath....

I don't really ever call them.

So, in fact, you have very little (if any) experience in getting called coyotes killed. The internet is an amazing thing.

My experience is that a coyote coming to a call is a LOT different than one gnawing on a deer carcass or napping on a round bale. Their senses are on max-sensitivity, focused on your setup, using every bit of terrain and cover to their advantage with plans to bug-out on the slightest sign of trouble. Stopping an incoming coyote for the shot can be tricky, waiting for him to stop on his own is like watching a toddler defuse a bomb. I would shoot coyote sized silhouettes from hunting positions (standing/prone/kneeling) against anyone at 200 yards... but I couldn’t promise killing 50% of called coyotes all-season-long at those ranges with a straight face.

...having an e-caller makes it much easier to trick a wary coyote that circles a few hundred yards downwind before coming in. Set the e-caller up at least 100 yds up-wind and ideally the 'yote will circle right to you making it a very easy shot. The reason I don't have callers is because I don't really ever call them.

Oh man.

Regurgitated cookie-cutter advice followed by a read-between-the-lines disclaimer. This highlights the nationwide knowledge gap discussed earlier. How would the average newcomer reading this thread know what to absorb and what to ignore from these textual relations we’re having? Ten guys take this info and share it with 80 more, and thousands of people go out jacking up coyotes.

My experiences contradict your statement in a few ways:

A) The notion that coyotes “circle a few hundred yards” is pretty extreme, I can’t say I’d keep hunting coyotes if that happened very often. Coyotes don’t “come in” from “down wind”. They haul ass away. If they get down wind they smell you, and they leave as if you whizzed a bullet between their ears. A coyote “circling” from a few hundred yards is a coyote that I perceive to be leaving due to a lack of comfort in my presentation of sound.... not coming in at all. Kinda like the chick at the bar that excuses herself to the restroom after you ask if she washed her jeans in Windex because you can see yourself in them. She’s not taking the long way back to you, she’s not interested, she is gone and she was never yours. I hate coyotes like that.

B) Most run of the mill Ecalls on the market don’t have remotes that will run the unit reliably from 100 yards, higher-end models do. Don’t go spend $300+ on an ecaller because you read online that the caller should be at least 100 yards away from you on every stand. 100 yards out, 100 yards back, that’s a lot of wasted walking and unnecessary exposure in coyote country for me. I’ll walk a mile to kill a coyote, but not 100 yards further than necessary.

C) Many of the best coyote calling stands I’ve made in Indiana (and KY/AZ/TX/ect) do not allow 100+ yard visibility upwind. Don’t get so carried away with this “they circle downwind” noise that you put the caller somewhere that you can’t shoot due to some arbitrary rule you’ve adopted. A substantial number of coyotes will die within 5-25 yards of a sound source (electronic or hand) and more will die UPWIND than DOWNWIND of that source. (Chew on that one) I’d hate to set myself up for 100+ yard shots all the time... no sense in expending more talent than necessary or you’ll start relying on luck.

D) Everything (direction of entry, location to sit down, sound selection, volume, positioning of rifle) depends on where the coyotes ARE before you start. To say “you’ve GOT to blah-blah-blah” is to completely ignore the primary factor in a good coyote stand..... coyotes. If you think a person can go into any scenario, any property, and step off a certain distance to the caller or run a particular sequence of sounds with success then you’re missing what coyote killing is all about. Coyotes. It’s all relative; relative to the coyotes and their environment right then and there.

 

[lizerdking]

^^ This guy needs to teach us how to speak yote.

Yotes are mysterious to me, I have a mouth call I've never had luck with, tried an e-call, no luck there. I know they're around, I hear em, see em when i'm not calling them, just can't get em to come visit when i want them to.

 

[CountryBoy19]

snip

Your arrogance on the issue is rather inspiring. I don't need a lecture from a self-proclaimed expert. I've spent plenty of time in the field.

Your post certainly proves that you don't hunt nearly as widely as you say you do. In a lot of parts of Indiana you can see VERY far upwind and downwind from a call setup.

Let me ask you this: Do you use good-quality night-vision equipment so you can actually see what is going on or are you only seeing what is happening 25 yards in front of you? Your post seems to speak to the latter. I use top-quality night vision on a clear night I can spot a yote from 1/2 mile on open ground (there is a lot of it where I typically call yotes in).

I can say with certainty that on the open ground of northern Indiana, a yote will often circle 100-200 yards downwind before approaching any sound it is curious in. If you set up right on your caller you better be a top-shot for night-time shooting because you're going to have to shooting a moving 'yote at ~200 yards. If, OTOH, you set your caller upwind the yote will circle right to you. Every time I've hunted coyotes on open ground they circle straight down-wind then come in to the caller. There is NO way for them to sneak in to the caller or use terrain to their advantage, it is FLAT OPEN GROUND so they always approach wary; from downwind. If you are at the source of the call you will be busted almost 100% of the time. If you're downwind your chances of A) getting a moving shot are better because you will have closed most of the distance, and B) There is a good chance the yote will slow as it nears the source offering a better chance at a shot upwind, where it is already out of your scent...

Now go ahead and pick my post apart with your supreme knowledge of coyote hunting across the entire continent... I'm interested in what you'll have this time..

To be honest, I don't give a **** what your experience is. You're arrogant, many of your posts here on INGO reflect that. Your way to hunt isn't the only way.
The way your coyotes act isn't the way they all act. What works in one area isn't what works in another.

Like I said, I don't typically seek out coyotes, I only shoot them off my back porch to get rid of them. The times I do seek them out 100% counter everything you said above.

 

[CountryBoy19]

^^ This guy needs to teach us how to speak yote.

Yotes are mysterious to me, I have a mouth call I've never had luck with, tried an e-call, no luck there. I know they're around, I hear em, see em when i'm not calling them, just can't get em to come visit when i want them to.

Daytime or nightime? If night there is a very good chance they are there and you just aren't seeing them. When I got night-vision it changed my manner of hunting coyote 100% because you can see what they are doing LONG BEFORE they ever get to a range where your light would hit them. Without good NVGs you are likely missing a lot of the coyotes that are right under your nose...

 

[lizerdking]

Daytime or nightime? If night there is a very good chance they are there and you just aren't seeing them. When I got night-vision it changed my manner of hunting coyote 100% because you can see what they are doing LONG BEFORE they ever get to a range where your light would hit them. Without good NVGs you are likely missing a lot of the coyotes that are right under your nose...

Dusktime?

Nightvision is expensive.... and I want to stay married :0

Maybe someday.... I do have a pretty kickass redlight that makes anything in my scope identifiable out to about 100 yards... I've called in a few deer with my yote call, and a cat once... I gotta be doing something wrong

 

[CountryBoy19]

Dusktime?

Nightvision is expensive.... and I want to stay married :0

Maybe someday.... I do have a pretty kickass redlight that makes anything in my scope identifiable out to about 100 yards... I've called in a few deer with my yote call, and a cat once... I gotta be doing something wrong

You may not be though. It may be that you have them coming in, you just can't see them well enough and don't know they are there. What is the terrain like?

The very first time I took my NVGs hunting with a close friend that is a "red light hunter" he couldn't believe it. We set up on one call and had one within 400 yards within 5 minutes of hitting the call. I said, "1 at 10 o'clock, 400 yds & closing". He said, "No f'ing way". 5 minutes later we had 3 of them out in the field with us. Afterward he said he never would have known that 'yote was there w/o NVGs. Using the NVGs we were able to watch what the yotes were doing so we knew what was working and what wasn't working to draw them closer. Using that method we worked one in to about 100 yards, but he was downwind and at about the 100 yard mark I think he winded us and got really skittish. He backed out to 300 yards and lingered. And that was our real eye-opener on setting up the e-caller 100 yards upwind of us. It has worked ever since whenever I can find a friend that wants to go when I go back home. When I'm down in Southern IN I don't mess with calling them in so totally different ball-game. Hunting styles will vary largely depending on geography. I don't have a clue how they react to callers down here in Southern IN, but I know how they react to them in the wide-open fields of Northern IN and that is where I feel most comfortable in calling them in because they are more predictable and they don't have anywhere to hide.

 

[crazyj789]

I'm very new to coyote hunting and have that fancy "coyote light" (the one that is a focusable red LED super beam ) I love to go out in the field and learn all the mistakes Im doing. I'm in NWI and it is hard to find wide open terrain to hunt without getting chased off the property by some animal humping yuppie on the neighboring property. I would love to learn how to use mouth or e-calls and actually bring something in close to shoot.

 

[MRP2003]

I agree about the night vision though I am very inexperienced. I have had yotes within 20 yards of me while still dark but could not see them. I once called two in from different directions at the same time while in my stand just by meowing like a cat. At that time I even got a large owl to come within 30 yards of me doing the same just to see if I could get the yotes to comeback Needless to say, I stopped once I saw the owl. I didn't want togetmy eyes ripped out.

A few few other times, I could hear the yotes walking around but just could not see them and wished I had a nv scope

 

[Jason R. Bruce]

Countryboy, I’m interested in how your character arch has developed in this thread. I can’t tell if you’re Macauley Culkin in Home Alone or Bruce Willis in Die Hard. You started out the original topic with a snot-nosed tone about nobody taking you hunting, and now you’re shouting out commands on a multi-man/multi-coyote night-raid killing mission. The comedic value of this thread was worth the cost of admission.

Don’t worry; I’m not going to mention your “almost too easy” comment again or ask for clarification on your 100% success rate. The internet community has largely come to agree that guys like you get a pass while guys like me don’t.

Guys like you can roll into a topic and say “I shoot a .XX on predators with great success!” – Nobody bats an eye or prods hard enough to find out you’ve shot 4 off your back porch since 2009. I stroll in and comment that I’ve shot 150 with a .XXX, over 200 with a .XX and killed 23 with a .XXX one night in Texas but still prefer the XX-XXX... and... I’m arrogant. That’s the internet and that’s why I’m so selective with my participation.

While my comments here do have an arrogant tone, I keep this style of writing aside for predator topics so it’s not commonly seen on INGO. That’s the tricky thing about this online media; it takes a certain style of writing to make hard earned experience stand out clearly amongst others passing by with casual comments. I’ve been engaged in online predator topics since the 90’s so my style here today isn’t a coincidence or necessarily indicative of my personal nature.

Before I tear your latest comments apart as you requested, I’d like to clear up a couple of things.

To be entirely clear, I no longer engage in online debate over the particulars of calling predators. Don’t mistake our conversation here for a debate over how it’s done. I’m careful about which topics I engage and how I approach them, I try to leave the thread better than I found it (the bar was low on this one). I have no interest in squabbling over details of calling coyotes online anymore... everyone has their own theories and I get my opinions challenged by plenty of INGO members in the Q&A section of my public presentations throughout the year.

As those of us in the predator calling world have seen a thousand times, you’re clinging to the old “we all have different ways” and “where I’m from its different” crap to smokescreen your inexperience. That is fine, few people here realize how minutely those things really affect the art of killing a coyote, but just notice that I only truly challenged your blatant broad-brush statements. “Coyotes circle at 300 yards” and “always place the caller 100 yards away” are largely misinformed statements. These types of broad statements are indicative of a person with very little real world experience, and when people like you type pages of advice, it continues to feed that knowledge gap we discussed earlier. Thus my tongue-in-cheek participation here.

Your post certainly proves that you don't hunt nearly as widely as you say you do. In a lot of parts of Indiana you can see VERY far upwind and downwind from a call setup.

This statement is more reflective of your mediocre reading comprehension than a counter to the statement I made. I said “many of the best” stands I’ve made, implying that some of the most productive places are going to have vegetation/terrain blocking visibility upwind. For the deeper thinkers amongst us, this means it’s a good idea to slip in (undetected) on known coyote locations from downwind/crosswind and get as close as possible before applying sound. No closer than necessary. It also implies that stands are most successful when coyotes are “home” where they’re supposed to be based on your scouting, rather than out roaming wildly.

Let me ask you this: Do you use good-quality night-vision equipment so you can actually see what is going on or are you only seeing what is happening 25 yards in front of you? Your post seems to speak to the latter. I use top-quality night vision on a clear night I can spot a yote from 1/2 mile on open ground (there is a lot of it where I typically call yotes in).

LOL! You ignore my direction question then ask your own. This must be the line that sparked the text messages and emails last night. Yes, I use quality night vision... nearly identical to the unit you described owning in another thread but with a select Gen3 tube and some other minor upgrades geared toward killing coyotes. I’ve been running these scopes on coyotes for many years; my two primary hunting partners are carrying identical rigs, one actually just became a dealer of these devices last year. Back in the 2006-2010 timeframe I had a company filming our stands with $20,000 night vision cameras and I tested NV & its ancillary equipment for a few different companies. We’ve spent hundreds of hours observing and documenting coyote behavior, natural and called, with NV devices and other long range optics. Again, if I make comments like this I seem arrogant but please point me to the person who’s spent more time studying coyotes under night vision and I’ll buy them a beer.

Like I said, I don't typically seek out coyotes, I only shoot them off my back porch to get rid of them.

.... says the guy who just spewed two pages of calling advice. And we’re back to the main issue facing aspiring predator callers, the knowledge gap, which summarizes my point in participating here. Not only is there a broad knowledge gap, there are guys like Countryboy that don’t know which side of the gap he’s on so he buries other folks deeper and deeper into confusion. This results in jacked-up coyotes, which broadens the gap even further.

The times I do seek them out 100% counter everything you said above.

I’m relieved. If my years of expansive study and travel with coyotes had boiled down to nothing more than you learned from your back porch and your buddies right-seat, I would’ve been greatly disappointed. I didn’t come here to debate how to kill coyotes with you, or solve the problems of your personal relationships; I simply shined a little light on why predator calling is so unique and largely unsuccessful despite its growing popularity.

I'll be hunting a 10-20 mile loop around Bedford after 6pm today through Sunday, feel free to shoot me a PM if you'd like some more coyotes for your fur buyer. I hate skinning frozen coyotes.