Features







 

Books

 

Fun & Games

Trivia Games

 

Contact Us


 

 

 

John's Journal... Entry 143, Day 4

SUNTANS AND COYOTES

David Hale On Coyote Calling

EDITOR'S NOTE: If you hunt coyotes at this time of year, not only will you get a suntan instead of frostbite, but the tactics you use will change. Because you'll deal with older animals, you can use territorial calls and pup calls along with distress calls. Here's what three of the nation's leading coyote hunters say about the techniques they use to take the song dogs during the long, hot days of summer.

Co-owner of Knight and Hale Game Calls in Cadiz, Kentucky, David Hale has hunted coyotes all over the nation. When Knight and Hale finish up turkey season in May, coyotes become high on their hunt priority list. "During the spring and summer, the coyote's primary diet will be grasshoppers, mice, young rabbits and deer fawns," Hale said. "The deer-fawn distress call can be extremely deadly for calling in coyotes during the summer. But you'll also call in a lot of deer using this call." Hale believes you'll find a call that mimics the prey of the coyotes the most effective call for luring in coyotes in any area of the country. However, if you can't determine what the coyote likes to eat in a specific region, Hale suggests this rule of thumb. "Use a rabbit-in-distress call in areas where you know the coyotes have never been hunted. In sections where you know the coyotes have been hunted, use a mouse squeaker or a bird squeaker."

To better define what calls work best on coyotes in a region, Hale suggests you walk up and down old logging roads and look on the edges of fields to find coyote scat. Use ...
* a stick to break apart the scat to determine what the coyotes prefer to eat,
* the deer-distress call, if you find deer hair in the scat,
* the dying-rabbit call, if you see a large amount of rabbit fur,
* some type of bird call, if you find feathers and bird parts,
* a mouse squeaker, if you see primarily mice parts in the scat.

Although opportunistic feeders, coyotes do seem to prefer some type of prey more than another kind at different times in the summer. Match your calling to the prey the coyote's feeding on at the time you're hunting. Hale likes to hunt fence rows that divide two large fields, briar patches on the edges of cattle pastures, crop lands with low-growing crops to help you see a coyote over the top of the crops or a harvested grain field where you'll expect to find plenty of birds and mice. "I like to hunt out in a field where I can find a trash pile, a tree or a stump to break up my silhouette," Hale mentioned. "I want to hunt with the wind in my face and try to call the coyote out into the field."

Hale, like the other experts we've interviewed, considers a two-man hunt much more effective than a one-man hunt. "I like to have the shooter about 75 yards away but on the same level as the caller. On a fence row, the caller should sit beside one post and the shooter 75 yards away beside another post." Hale prefers for the caller to also operate the decoy. He believes that if the coyote comes in and focuses all its attention on the place where the coyote hears the sound and sees the decoy, then the shooter has a better chance of bringing his rifle up and taking the shot unseen. If the shooter and the caller sit together, often when the shooter gets ready to bring up his rifle, the coyote may look right at him and spook. Hale also likes to buddy-hunt hayfields and suggests that both hunters sit behind the same rolled-up bale of hay.

"Coyotes will often get on top of rolled bales of hay and look for mice that run around and get under the bales," Hale reported. "You may see coyote scat on top of these rolled-up bales. You're calling from an area where a coyote has hunted and taken game before." Hale, like Harris, also has found an electronic caller productive, if the hunters take a stand either in front of or behind these bales of hay and place an electronic caller in a clump of grass or hay, 40 to 50 yards in front of the bale. Coyotes won't spot hunters who stand behind a bale.

"The real secret for success is to keep the wind in your face and the coyote coming to the call with the wind, instead of coming to you from downwind," Hale said. "I like to wear a Scent-Loc suit just in case the coyotes do come in downwind. But if you wear the suit, be sure you wear the mask and the gloves too. If you're not covering your hands and head, you're letting out a good deal of odor the coyotes can detect." Hale also advocates using N-O-DOR made by Atsko or Scent Blaster made by Buck Stop. "Because you're constantly perspiring in the summertime, you need to spray down every hour. Be sure to spray the inside and outside of your hat with these odor killers too. And every time you move to a new place to start calling again, spray down with odor killer."

Hale also mentions that your success depends on how you approach your stand, especially when you hunt in fields. Instead of walking around the woodline until you get close to the spot where you want to set up, Hale suggests you walk straight out into the field to your stand site. You'll spook fewer coyotes and leave less scent this way. Many hunters wear rubber boots to keep from leaving any odor in the region where they hunt. However, Hale considers comfort more important than odor elimination when hunting coyotes. As Hale emphasizes, "To take several coyotes in a day, you'll have to cover a lot of ground. I'd rather wear very comfortable, lightweight and cool boots rather than have high, rubber boots that may be uncomfortable, hot and heavy. The more mobile you are, the more coyotes you'll take." For a weapon, Hale prefers the .22-.250. "I like the flat trajectory of this caliber, and I particularly enjoy shooting the Winchester Supreme shells with a 50-grain bullet."

When you two-man team up on coyotes, Hale believes the shooter, not the caller, should use binoculars. While the caller needs to sit as still as possible, the shooter must see as well as he can. Besides binoculars, Hale recommends coyote hunters use a 3-9X Pentax Light Seeker scope. "I like to keep my scope down to the lowest power when I'm hunting," Hale commented. "If the coyote comes in well away from the decoy and the caller, I'll still have plenty of time to screw the scope up to 9X. But if it comes in close, I'll need as wide a field of view as I can get. So if you'll hunt with the scope on 3X, you'll miss fewer coyotes that come in close, and you'll still have plenty of time to increase the power of the scope for those long shots."

Hale has found hunting coyotes on a full moon or during clear-sky conditions some of the worst times with the least success. He likes to hunt in little or no moon light when a weather front is moving in to the area he's hunting. "Your best summertime coyote hunting will take place just in front of a weather front when the barometer's falling," Hale reported.

TOMORROW: KEN ALLEIN ON COYOTE CALLING

 

 

Check back each day this week for more SUNTANS AND COYOTES...

Day 1 - Brad Harris On Taking Coyotes
Day 2 - Brad Harris On Scent Control
Day 3 - Brad Harris On Coyote Calling When You Don't Know How And Decoys
Day 4 - David Hale On Coyote Calling
Day 5 - Ken Allein On Coyote Calling


John's Journal