Coyote Hunting

[NHhunter]

I know this site is about deer and deer hunting, but I want to start doing my part in helping the deer herd in my area by coyote hunting. Does anyone have any good advice on how to get started? Websites to visit? Resources? What calls have worked for you? etc...

Thanks in advance!

[kellory]

Please post any info you do find. I spotted a large adult yotie in the cloverleaf of the freeway yesterday! Did not expect to see that, and my camera phone wasn't fast enough. apparently he wanted to check out the big city.

[ranwin33]

Shooting coyotes is not necessarly going to help your deer herd. Some even believe it might do more harm than good.

But all the luck to you, we've got a coyote problem our KS farm, not so much regarding deer, but they've decimated our chicken population. At least helped anyway.

[pgchambers]

I can tell you some of the things we do, but you will have to check your states rules to see which are compliant.

- We hunt mostly at night, but sometimes at dusk and dawn.
- We hunt during the winter months.
- We usually hunt out of pop-up ground blinds.
- When we hunt in the blinds, we wear black. When we hunt outside of them, we wear white unless it is a low snow month like this year, then our deer camo comes back out.
- We set up a remote controlled electronic call. The distance from our blind varies with the terrain, but it is ALWAYS up wind. I don't know the brand off-hand, but ours has replaceable cards to allow for many different calls. It seems that different call work at different times, so if you can afford it, multiple calls(distressed rabbit is a good one) are my advice. Again, the electronic ones are nice, because you get so many calls to play with.
- As stated above, we play the wind. I personally don't do much else in regards to scent-control or cover scents, but I know others who do, so you might want to give it some thought as well.
- We are not interested in degree of difficulty, we want to kill as many as possible, so anything legal goes. I have a small game license year round, so I can drop one anytime they get in range even if I am hunting something else.

[pgchambers]

Shooting coyotes is not necessarly going to help your deer herd. Some even believe it might do more harm than good.

But all the luck to you, we've got a coyote problem our KS farm, not so much regarding deer, but they've decimated our chicken population. At least helped anyway.

We do our coyote hunting more for the chickens in our area as well. Pretty hard to get permission for deer hunting these days, but we often are looking for more area to turkey hunt and taking out a bunch of coyotes raises the good will of many of our neighbors.

[charlie 01]

Shooting coyotes is not necessarly going to help your deer herd. Some even believe it might do more harm than good..

I think you would be surprised if you knew how many fawns are killed by coyotes in your area. In one area I hunt here in Illinois, with trail cams and visuals, I haven't seen a fawn, or fawns with does in the last 3 years. And nor have others that hunt this same property. Most people I've talked to that hunt different parts of this state, had a poor deer harvest and I have to wonder how much of that is due to coyotes. They used to say that coyotes could not take down a healthy deer. I have hunter friends who have seen this happen first hand. If you have a big enough pack around, they can.

[pine valley]

There was a story in the past Deer and Deer Hunting magazine that showed over 200 trail camera pictures of coyotes taking down a fully mature buck. Not only can they get fawns, but mature bucks as well. Of course this it is not very common for coyotes to take down large deer but it can happen. On our farm in Illinois after deer season we always focus on thinning out the coyote herd. It helps out the fawns in the late Spring to early Summer. Over time this will increase your deer herd. Say a coyote kills one fawn. If that fawn were to live, in a couple years that doe will have two fawns, then when those fawns mature they will wither bred other does or have fawns of their own. Over a period of five years that one fawn could have been responsible for over 20 deer. Obviously not all of them would survive, but you increase the chances. I am a strong believer that killing coyotes will improve the deer herd. And since we have been regularly coyote hunting we have seen better deer herds. I know that some things only work for certain places but it has worked for us. Plus it is just a whole lot of fun!!

Here is the link about the coyotes killing the buck:
http://www.deeranddeerhunting.com/image ... -kill-buck

[Deebz]

Please post any info you do find. I spotted a large adult yotie in the cloverleaf of the freeway yesterday! Did not expect to see that, and my camera phone wasn't fast enough. apparently he wanted to check out the big city.

You might be surprised at how many coyotes do take up residence in close proximity to larger cities. Lots of easy meals there.. garbage cans and house pets and such.

[kellory]

This was inside the cloverleaf at the 270 outerbelt of columbus Ohio, and 23 on the north end of columbus. You might want to google that and see where that is.

[Deebz]

I guess that qualifies as close proximity... think he was following the river or whatever it is that's there?