How To Hunt Coyotes: Expert Guide 2021

Hunting for predators is one of the most exhilarating experiences a hunter can have. The methods are the same whether you’re hunting for coyotes’ pelts or to defend your animals and keep your land secure. Consider what the coyotes are doing during that mating season, where you’ll set up, and what calls you’ll use to attract coyotes. Patience is, without a doubt, the most important component when you are in a real hunt or even when you are reading how to hunt coyotes.

There’s nothing quite like pursuing a predator with a skilled hunter’s keen senses. Here are seven guidelines to keep in mind if you’re going out to hunt coyotes.

How To Hunt Coyotes

Coyote Hunting Tips For The Timber

Coyotes in wooded regions are dispersed and difficult to locate. However, there are methods for locating and bringing them in.

Coyote strategies

Coyotes have migrated into forest country in unprecedented numbers in recent years, despite being generally thought of as creatures of the wide-open West. The difficulties of coyote hunting in large woodlands are obvious: the cover never stops, and the coyote caller’s calling noises can only go so far. Three options are shown below.

Look for meadows, clear-cuts, loggers’ landings, cover seams, marsh margins, and other openings in a flat area, and pitch up camp there. You’ll get much-needed visibility, your call will go further, and you’ll be just where the coyotes are—that mix of clearings, transition zones, and deep cover where prey (such as mice, cottontails, moles, and voles) live.

In the hills, look for gullies, hollows, valleys, washes, draws, and other topography that allows you to stand up on one side while surveying the opposite slope for varmints.

Set up often in a large wood habitat, cry loudly, wait, wait and wait a short period (15 to 20 minutes, with 3 to 5 distress crying sequences thrown in), then move on. The best method to find a coyote that will hear you is to cover a lot of lands; the dogs have a lot of places to be, and noise doesn’t go far.

Guns & Glass

Big forests, by their very nature, need close-range shooting. Long-range guns and high-powered scopes aren’t appropriate here for shooting coyotes. In this circumstance, a shotgun is the ideal coyote gun to get on your target quickly. Short barrels that are simple to grip and aim, as well as tight chokes, make turkey shotguns excellent predator firearms.

Coyote Hunting Tips For Farmland

Coyotes…and coyote hunters…abound in farmland. To lure an experienced hound into range, you’ll need a lot of woodsmanship and effort.

Coyote strategies

The agricultural environment has had the greatest rise in coyote numbers over the previous decade, following exurban and suburban regions. That doesn’t make agricultural song dogs simple to track down. In contrast, everyone and their uncle is pressuring and persecuting these coyotes. People who hear dogs crying at night know where they dwell, and they go after them with a vengeance—and teach them how to hunt.

Here’s a new task for you: The habitat of agricultural coyotes varies greatly. They’re all distinct, and no single setup and strategy suit all. Rolling dairy farm territory with a mix of woodlots, a row-crop country dotted with sloughs and grasslands, a beef country with its wide pastures and large forested river bottoms—they’re all different. You have to be as flexible as the coyotes you’re hunting as a hunter.

All of these settings, however, have two things in common: minimal shelter and plenty of open spaces to attract interested coyotes. The key is to sneak in with the wind blowing toward you from potential coyote hideouts, set up quietly, call with purpose, and be patient with these cautious and hesitant dogs.

How To Hunt Coyotes

Guns & Glass

A coyote gun that isn’t as big as your deer gun is more fun—and more acceptable to landowners. Using a suitable shotgun will make bowhunting coyotes a lot easier.

Coyote Hunting Tips For Cowboy Country

Coyote strategies

West of the 100th meridian, traditional coyote hunting begins. Every dedicated coyote hunter owes it to himself to go where the deer and antelope congregate. You may produce more activity in three or four days here than you can elsewhere in a whole coyote’s mating season. This takes us to another crucial point: The West is an ideal location for a rookie predator hunter to develop expertise and gut-level confidence, understanding that coyotes can be summoned at any time. If you make a mistake on your call or miss with your rifle, there’s always another chance if there are a lot of coyotes about.

But don’t get me wrong: I’m not implying that this is a bad thing. Being overconfident and casual is one of the biggest mistakes you can make with Western coyotes. These scavengers are waiting to pounce. All that wide land helps and hurts: you can see coyotes approaching from a long way away and prepare for them, but those dogs can see you in a second if you’re silhouetted or moving quickly.

So, when you walk about or travel between settings, be as stealthy as possible. This involves never skylining oneself and skirting below the crests of peaks and hills. Only during dips or saddles should you cross heights. And for the love of God, don’t glass from a hilltop.

Guns & Glass

The ability to take Western coyotes at long range is part of their attraction. You’ll need a rifle that can reach out quickly, shoot flat, and strike exactly where you direct it.

What Is The Best Time To Hunt Coyotes?

Coyote hunting is permitted in most states throughout the year. For a variety of reasons, most hunters like shooting coyotes during the winter months. For one thing, like other animals, their fur is the thickest, which helps coyotes stay warm in cold weather. Also, the peak of coyote’s mating season is in late winter; therefore, you’ll have more chances to encounter them.

As a result, their coat is in excellent condition for selling as fur or for use as a decorative item in your house. Insects and rodents are scarce throughout the winter, thus their food sources are restricted. This makes coyotes more active throughout the day, as well as more desperate and receptive to free food.

From dark to morning, coyotes are the most active. Night hunting is permitted in certain jurisdictions, which provides for a thrilling and unique hunting experience. There are several more factors that influence a coyote’s migration. You can forecast peak movement periods for coyotes in your hunting region with HuntWise’s HuntCast. You may not want to miss out on the finest opportunity to catch a coyote.

Gear And Gun For Hunters

One of the most enjoyable elements of hunting coyotes is that you can shoot them with almost any weapon. You can choose a weapon from traditional bows to AR15s. Laws differ not just by state, but also by county. Before you go hunting, check your local regulations to see what kind of weapons are permitted to use, as well as the time of day and year restrictions.

Coyote hunting is legal in certain areas 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with no restrictions on weapons or equipment such as night vision scopes. Others have very severe rules. Most hunters utilize a variety of firearms, but you should consider the sort of shooting you’ll be performing. Remember that coyote’s keen on wide territory, so you should choose a weapon that can shoot from a long distance.

7 Mistakes That Make Your Coyote Hunt A Failure

Choosing a wrong place

I mean you are hunting coyotes in a location where there are no coyotes. You’d be shocked how frequently this occurs.

Unlike deer hunters who explore for months in pursuit of a large buck, coyote hunters prefer to think, “They should be here,” and set up in a location where there may or may not be many coyotes.

Hunting in an area where there aren’t many coyotes is a waste of time and effort. Scouting can help you avoid falling into that trap. Scout for coyote tracks, kill sites and scat, and it’s also a good idea to listen for coyote vocalizations to figure out where they live. It’s certainly worth a few hours of your effort to substantially increase your chances of hunting success.

Using the wrong call

“With so many coyote hunters out there, it’s difficult to locate a mature dog that hasn’t been called to,” says predator hunting specialist Fred Eichler. “Many are well-educated, and when they hear the usual noises employed by most coyote hunters, they often flee. A rookie caller will have better success if they utilize distress calls that coyotes haven’t heard before or that aren’t widely used. To draw in call-shy dogs, I frequently utilize bird cries such as a turkey in pain or a woodpecker in distress, as well as fawn bleats or puppy screams.”

Calling too little or too much

Among serious coyote hunters, this is a point of contention. Calling too loudly can scare away an inquisitive coyote while calling too quietly or seldom may not persuade a distant coyote to come out of hiding.

Open regions, on the whole, necessitate louder, longer calling sequences. But be cautious. In high-pressure locations, a continuous succession of loud cries may drive away oncoming coyotes.

This is one of those errors that only time can correct. Keep track of how you called in different locations and what happened. Over time, you’ll start to recognize patterns that succeeded. And then there were those who didn’t.

Spoiling your setup

Keep in mind that never spoil your setup when you are hunting coyotes. The way you position yourself is crucial to your success, and a solid setup begins the moment you arrive at the hunting area.

Before you flop down in an overgrown fencerow because it’s convenient, consider if it’s the greatest place to be. Is the distance suitable? Is the wind blowing correctly? Do you see what I mean? Are you visible? If you’re hunting on public land, chances are that a “convenient” location has been heavily hammered. You must pick sites based on efficacy rather than convenience or ease of entrance.

Don’t have enough places to hunt

If your whole coyote-calling kingdom is made up of a single 40-acre plot, you’re going to get tired of it fairly fast. The good news is that many of the landowners who would close the door in your face if you said “deer” would welcome you when you said “kill coyotes.”

Spend some time knocking on doors and forming relationships with local landowners. You could obtain access to the ground as well as vital information about where the coyotes are. Remember that knocking down fences, trespassing, littering, and generally insulting landowners is a certain way to forfeit your (and others’) hunting privileges on a property.

Giving up too soon

Giving up on a set too soon, according to Eichler – an experienced big game hunter is a typical error. You have to wait patiently.

“I sit for at least 30 minutes whether I’m phoning from Florida or Canada,” The expert said. “The only time I don’t call is when it’s snowing, pouring, or really windy, and I know the call won’t go through. I had a lot of coyotes come in after 20 minutes on a quiet day or with a 10-mile-per-hour wind or less. By then, a lot of rookies had packed their belongings.”

Hunting pressured dogs

So, let’s call it a day. Coyotes who have been hunted for a long time are clever coyotes. Why? Because the deafeningly deafeningly deafeningly deaf.

If you’re a newbie who has spent time calling, chances are you’ve made one of the above blunders and have educated coyotes. But don’t be too concerned about it; even if you didn’t, chances are someone else did.

Coyotes in the frequently hunted regions are more difficult to catch. That’s the way things are. You can change the tide by following the advice you’ve just received and doing everything you can to hunt wisely.

Coyotes under duress aren’t going to fall for the same ruse that every other hunter in the woods is using on them. Be creative. Experiment with different distress calls, but keep it subtle and clever.

Why People Are Hunting Coyotes

Hunting coyotes sounds challenging and interesting as well. But have you ever wondered if this activity brings us any benefits? This is a legal activity. Unlike some other types of big game hunts, hunting coyotes has many more positive effects than you may be aware.

To control coyotes population

Coyotes are predators with almost no competitors, and their number rises year after year without any effort. Coyotes adapt before reproducing. When a food source is exhausted, most creatures cannot survive. Coyotes, on the other hand, are resourceful, and they will travel to new areas with fresh food supplies. They’ll consume everything, from rubbish to cat food to full-grown deer, and they’ll keep reproducing.

To help deers and other weak animals to grow

Coyotes typically reproduce from January to March, with a 60-day gestation period. Male coyotes will hunt and return with prey for the mother coyote and her pups as infants are born in the spring. What else is giving birth across North America in late spring?

Whitetail, mule deer fawns, and elk calves, you’ve got it. “Coyotes were responsible for 86 percent of yearly white-tailed deer fawn mortality,” according to exhaustive research performed in Oklahoma. Because fawns aren’t as strong, quick, or tough as older deer, they’re an ideal prey for coyotes to bring back to their families, or for a coyote pup to learn how to hunt.

To prevent disease spread by coyotes

Coyotes develop a variety of diseases and then transfer them to other animals when they roam or come into touch with them. The most common illnesses seen in coyotes are canine hepatitis and canine distemper. When our domestic dogs inhale Canine Distemper, it has a significant death rate. Humans and other animals can be infected with rabies and tularemia. Mites, ticks, fleas, worms, and flukes, which can develop into flesh-eating mange, are common parasites carried by coyotes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNc6s96hpbc

Final Thoughts

If you’re going after coyotes for pelts or to defend your livestock, you’ll need to choose the best time to hunt coyotes, know where to set up, how to manipulate the wind, and which calls to employ. These ideas, together with a thorough understanding of your prey and high-quality equipment, are crucial for a successful coyote hunt. By critically analyzing the information, we hope that you have known how to hunt coyotes and have successful coyote hunts in the future.

Thank you for reading until the end!

 

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