Help for a new coyote hunter

[LuckyLuc82]

I recently became friends with a farmer who's livestock has been ravaged by coyotes, he asked me to come by at night and wait for them to come. Clearly that can't be the best way to hunt these buggers.

Please tell me how to hunt them, when, and techniques that will work in Southern Ontario.

Oh and keep in mind I never hunted coyotes, I will be using a Remington 223. I have full camo and access to fresh kill that can be used as bait. I also have a Knight&Hale coyote call (still learning how to use it).

Any help would be greatly appreciated,

Thank you!

 

[TheTooner]

I'm sure the coyotes come out at night and that may be the best time to see them and start trying to figure patterns of movement and routes they use, but check your province's hunting regulations about when you can actually shoot them. I wouldn't assume night hunting is allowed.

 

[blargon]

The only place I would shoot an animal at night would be in my yard or the barn-yard in protection of property, not hunting. Anywhere else, you're looking for trouble......

 

[Trotter]

I would not sit there waiting. First of all, legalities aside, you will need to do alot of tracking.Track them during the day, if they are hitting a barn, follow the tracks in the morning. They are very unpredictable creatures, and very wary. The are very active during full moons (no surprise), and they should be packing up in southern ontario right around now. Go out and listen. One night it will be from one direction, next night, a different one.
By all means, if you don't want to track them, get a Mojo remote decoy, set up a blind. Coyotes are active in the daytime, you just see them less! Get a second vehicle and hunter, (hounds if you have them) you may need to do lots of tracking, and first snowfall is good.

 

[Glock4ever]

Southern Ontario has some really nice terrain. What you need to do first is look at Google Maps (Satellite) or some other satellite imagery of the property that you are going to hunt. Key features you want to look for are: Wooded areas, low features, and water features. You need a mix of open and wooded terrain to successfully draw coyotes in. I usually set up along a treeline/hill feature with my back masked by trees or the hill. I set myself up looking along a treeline that is lower then ground around it, many coyote callers are concerned that a coyote will see you coming in but if properly anticipate where the coyote will come from and where you position yourself, it doesn't matter what you wear, the last coyote I took I was wearing blue jeans and a green stealth jacket (it is a goretex windbreaker that is actually a bit shiney). Coyotes travel in low ground and along natural lines of drift (basically think about how you walk through off road terrain - you are naturally looking for the easiest way to get to where you are going. Practice your calling - knight and hale calls aren't the greatest but they do work. Don't blow on the call like a whistle, what you want to do is make it sound like the animal your imitating (assuming you are using a mouse/rodent/rabbit call) sounds like it is crying and being tortured to death - so lots of short blows, modulate how much air you put through it, you can even use your hand over the opening to make it sound like the noise is being cut off by another animal. Call for about 1-2 mins vigourously and loudly, STOP, wait about 5 mins - watching the likely access routes to your "bait", call again 1-2 mins, wait about 5 mins. I do this routine for about 20-30 mins - don't give up too quickly! My first mistake when I got into this was quickly abandoning the routine because I didn't think anything was coming in. Coyotes have great hearing and if they are within 5 km of the stand they will hear it and it will take them some time to come in. When they get closer they will sometimes watch from a distance, so don't be disheartened if you don't see anything right away. Hope this helps. Hunting at night is fine if you have a good light source - coyotes seem to be less cautious at night but I prefer hunting at dusk and dawn (more dawn) as you can draw in the coyotes that were unsuccessful hunting more easily - hunger is the best motivator.

 

[LuckyLuc82]

Southern Ontario has some really nice terrain. What you need to do first is look at Google Maps (Satellite) or some other satellite imagery of the property that you are going to hunt. Key features you want to look for are: Wooded areas, low features, and water features. You need a mix of open and wooded terrain to successfully draw coyotes in. I usually set up along a treeline/hill feature with my back masked by trees or the hill. I set myself up looking along a treeline that is lower then ground around it, many coyote callers are concerned that a coyote will see you coming in but if properly anticipate where the coyote will come from and where you position yourself, it doesn't matter what you wear, the last coyote I took I was wearing blue jeans and a green stealth jacket (it is a goretex windbreaker that is actually a bit shiney). Coyotes travel in low ground and along natural lines of drift (basically think about how you walk through off road terrain - you are naturally looking for the easiest way to get to where you are going. Practice your calling - knight and hale calls aren't the greatest but they do work. Don't blow on the call like a whistle, what you want to do is make it sound like the animal your imitating (assuming you are using a mouse/rodent/rabbit call) sounds like it is crying and being tortured to death - so lots of short blows, modulate how much air you put through it, you can even use your hand over the opening to make it sound like the noise is being cut off by another animal. Call for about 1-2 mins vigourously and loudly, STOP, wait about 5 mins - watching the likely access routes to your "bait", call again 1-2 mins, wait about 5 mins. I do this routine for about 20-30 mins - don't give up too quickly! My first mistake when I got into this was quickly abandoning the routine because I didn't think anything was coming in. Coyotes have great hearing and if they are within 5 km of the stand they will hear it and it will take them some time to come in. When they get closer they will sometimes watch from a distance, so don't be disheartened if you don't see anything right away. Hope this helps. Hunting at night is fine if you have a good light source - coyotes seem to be less cautious at night but I prefer hunting at dusk and dawn (more dawn) as you can draw in the coyotes that were unsuccessful hunting more easily - hunger is the best motivator.

This is exactly what I was looking for someone who acctually knows what they are talking about, THANK YOU!!!

I love asking a question on here and getting an acctual answer and not a bunch of armchair commanders dancing around the logic and the philisophical meaning of my question.

Glock4ever, thank you!

 

[gj169]

I recently became friends with a farmer who's livestock has been ravaged by coyotes, he asked me to come by at night and wait for them to come. Clearly that can't be the best way to hunt these buggers.

Please tell me how to hunt them, when, and techniques that will work in Southern Ontario.

Oh and keep in mind I never hunted coyotes, I will be using a Remington 223. I have full camo and access to fresh kill that can be used as bait. I also have a Knight&Hale coyote call (still learning how to use it).

Any help would be greatly appreciated,

Thank you!

Try to be there at first and last light
If your going to use a livestock kill for bait,wire it to something solid so they can,t drag it away
Put the bait preferably where you can get some decent shooting lanes,keeping in mind the wind,also not too far out in the open,they are more comfortable near cover,here in Ontario
Get back 100-200 yds
I would not try calling coyotes to bait,they will bust you especially with a hand call.
Be patient and stay still and they will come
When you kill one ,take it away,theyget spooked from dead coyotes
Let us know how it goes,GJ

 

[Joe_Singer]

Hey just wondering where in SW Ontario u are located?

 

[LuckyLuc82]

around orangeville, thank you jg169 thats exactly what I was doing last night, the farmer has a dog that senses them coming, apparently they aren't afraid of the dog, they even ate 2 of her puppies, that really pissed me off, the farmer can't take it anymore, the yotes cost him almost $3000 in livestock over the last 2 years. None came lwhile i was there yesterday, then it got foggy and too dark for me to see anything, I would idealy like to hunt them during the day thats why I came on here to get some advice on baiting them in. Apparently they come from all directions.

 

[Glock4ever]

Luc, Coyotes appear to be coming from all directions but they travel on very specific patterns. Just like us, they are creatures of habit, they will travel the same routes into and out of treelines, unless threatened they don't change their routine. I don't know that I would set up 100-200 yards away from bait - for me that is pretty far and it will be hard to see a coyote coming in to it. I typically will shoot coyotes at sub-75 m when calling and have only shot 1 coyote at 125m distance + and I live in the prairies. Typically, I rarely see coyotes in the open field - sometimes as I am driving down the road I will see them hunting mice in the field but if they see slow down they will run for cover quickly. I know some guys try to road hunt coyotes but I have only had success road hunting 2 times (I was moving from 1 stand to another and spotted the coyote). The first was along a dirt road where the coyote was standing next to a pond about 50m away and the second time was across a slough that I was driving by. If you encounter a coyote in this manner, the only chance you have is to slow the vehicle down calmly (don't slam the brakes) - as soon as you do the coyote will start to trot/run. Don't try to stop it with your voice until after you have dismounted/loaded your rifle/shouldered it - it is hard to do smoothly and not jerky/panicky but if you move too unnaturally the coyote will bolt. Once you have the rifle shouldered, if you are lucky it is sitting if you're not it will be trotting. Regardless, I always give it a nice "whoop" sound and get it's attention and then fire when it stops to look at you. If it is running, I never shoot - I don't like to wound an animal, even a coyote, so I don't bother firing there will always be more.

 

[LuckyLuc82]

sounds great, i will try to figure out their patterns, the farmer did tell me 3 different directions he saw them coming from, I walked the perimiter and saw some what looked like nesting areas in thick bushes along the fence line. I will keep you guys posted, any more advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Trotter]

This is exactly what I was looking for someone who acctually knows what they are talking about, THANK YOU!!!

I love asking a question on here and getting an acctual answer and not a bunch of armchair commanders dancing around the logic and the philisophical meaning of my question.

Glock4ever, thank you!

Coyotes are a pest here. The gang here get upwards of 100-130 kills last year in the WMU area of 90B and south as a group effort. Previous year was just under a 100 kills.

 

[Murdoc]

Buy a Primos electronic call THEY WORK AWESOME, I bought one here last week took it out quickly to my quarter and in 5mins had 2 packs respond and finally a big male came in for the female invitational call. Then bagged one the next day, this one was running full blast towards the call (coyote serenade) we seen him about 30 seconds after we set up as I was halfway through the serenade................... I was really impressed at how effective the electronic primos call works. you can immitate rabbits,rodents,fawn distress,pups,woodpeckers and you have about 12 calls in all as well as 5 different howls, I use to use the primos hand calls but I find this much more effective and most of all easier it was the best $250 I ever spent. I am sure some hand callers on here will disagree but I think anyone who uses on will be AMAZINGLY suprised at how well they work.

 

[Glock4ever]

E-callers do really work but it is a big outlay of cash for somebody who only hunts occasionally. If you decide to go with an e-caller, I recommend Johnny Stewart - wireless caller. I have only tried two callers (Foxpro 416 and Johnny Stewart) but between the two there are some really significant differences which can make the caller effective. The foxpro was nice and had good volume but it was pretty expensive (400+ bucks) and the remote was difficult to consistently control the caller with. E-callers use line of sight to control the soundbox/remote (like a tv) so what I found was that when I hid the e-caller in the grass/bushes (likely areas where a rabbit/small animal would hide) the remote couldn't control it all the time - if the sounds run on too long, it doesn't sound natural, so it was a bit frustrating to use. Short of hanging the caller in a tree (which also works) it wasn't as versatile as I had hoped. The JS e-caller, has two parts - the remote receiver/amplifier and the speaker. The two can be linked together with a 6" cable or you can hook them together with a 30 ft cable which is included as well. The really nice thing with this is that you can hang the receiver/amplifier in a tree and run the cable to the speaker 10m away in the underlying brush. The control is fantastic and the sound is very loud. The only drawback is that the JS calls use proprietary sound cards which can be pricey to buy. Mine came with 18 sounds of which you can mix 2 sounds with so you really have a large variety of calls that work great but the Foxpro's do allow you to download more sounds cheaply (MP3) and install them. I don't recommend that you u get a non-remote caller as mouth calls are inexpensive and sound more realistic. Wireless is nicer as wired can be a pain (stand set up wise). Let us know how your hunt goes.

For hand calls, I use four from Sceery - the cottontail distress, special coaxer, variable predator, and open reed predator. I also had a Knight and Hale multi-reed caller. The K/H worked alright I was able to call in a few coyotes but the 3 replaceable reeds that I got which were supposed to sound like different animals pretty much all sounded the same so I only used the one reed (cottontail distress). I gave it away to my buddy who is getting into coyote hunting to get him started, the only bad thing with that caller was that the reed would freeze shut when it was cold out. I then switched to a Sceery and never looked back - the best caller out his that I have used to date is the variable predator. You can make so many sounds out of it, it is ridiculous! The coyotes seem to really like it too, as out of the 4 I have it has the highest success rate. I got three Sceery Callers and a dvd to show you how to use them from Wholesale sports. Great deal and he really knows how to call in coyotes. I really recommend that you try his stuff.