Coyote behavior

[AWS]

I'm an avid coyote hunter and live where I'm surrounded by 10,000 square miles of coyote hunting ground and could hunt here 10 yrs and never hunt the same stand twice and I try not to.

I read here about folks building rifle that will kill coyotes out to the next county. Why?

If a called coyote will commit to 500 yards why not to 300, 200, 100, 50? What causes them to hang up?

I see photos of a well known predator hunter hunting wide open country and taking a lot of coyotes with a shotgun. What do you think his secret is?

Your thoughts.

 

[Coyotefurharvester]

Location,Location,Location.

 

[ELR LVR]

I'm an avid coyote hunter and live where I'm surrounded by 10,000 square miles of coyote hunting ground and could hunt here 10 yrs and never hunt the same stand twice and I try not to.

I read here about folks building rifle that will kill coyotes out to the next county. Why?

If a called coyote will commit to 500 yards why not to 300, 200, 100, 50? What causes them to hang up?

I see photos of a well known predator hunter hunting wide open country and taking a lot of coyotes with a shotgun. What do you think his secret is?

Your thoughts.

Some places such as Nevada Desert, you kinda need to be able to shoot them from far away,
by the time they get within 600 yds
they have spotted your truck, smelled your dogs, likely seen you trying to hide behind a little tiny bush for cover etc
Plus if they get shot at much they tend to get smart and flank you from a direction you're not looking until you see them running away.
I've seen them dumb, and waltz right up to within 50 yds and holler at ya,
but not the Nevada desert ones I have come across
The further away you can spot and shoot them the better.

 

[nakneker]

I'm an avid coyote hunter and live where I'm surrounded by 10,000 square miles of coyote hunting ground and could hunt here 10 yrs and never hunt the same stand twice and I try not to.

I read here about folks building rifle that will kill coyotes out to the next county. Why?

If a called coyote will commit to 500 yards why not to 300, 200, 100, 50? What causes them to hang up?

I see photos of a well known predator hunter hunting wide open country and taking a lot of coyotes with a shotgun. What do you think his secret is?

Your thoughts.

Response #2 is the biggest factor I’ve experienced for how willing a coyote is to come into shotgun range. Educated coyotes are a different animal from ones that don't hear a dozen different calls between august and January.

When we first started calling in high school (early eighties) we just used a Sony boom box and a Johnny Stewart yellow hammer woodpecker tape and literally got ran over every other stand. Things have changed, you’re a lucky man if you live where calling pressure isn’t too intense.

The other factor I’ve seen that coyotes will come into shotgun range is cover. Even in areas that are heavily called a guy can set up in thick cover and do pretty good. Shots are fast but we get more in than we do calling open country. We call in thick cedars with shooting lanes when we do this or tall sage brush.

 

[jxb]

"coyotes with a shotgun" back in the 80's when I used to hunt them for pelts it was common for pairs to go out one with a shotgun and the other with a rifle. Some really liked 10ga as they said with BB's they could kill a dog to 100yrds, regardless of the reach the rifle guy gets them past 100 and the shotgun person in close.

To answer the question: if you're doing everything right, they will be in your lap before you know it never stopping for a shot. This is where a shotgun really helps.

I went with one of my friends in Colorado around 2001 showing him calling, he toted his 12ga and the only reason he didn't shoot the yote was because it was to my left about 6ft and he was on my right (he's a bird hunter). At 6ft I said something to spook it into stopping before he bit one of us. Dumped it going away at about 80yrds, it shouldn't have stopped to look back. My friend was in shock for a long time, he'd never seen one so close or even that behavior. Have to say I was a bit as well, maybe 30yrds was as close as I'd ever had one come in. We about died laughing over the look on that dogs face.

 

[RussellJ]

I'm an avid coyote hunter and live where I'm surrounded by 10,000 square miles of coyote hunting ground and could hunt here 10 yrs and never hunt the same stand twice and I try not to.

I read here about folks building rifle that will kill coyotes out to the next county. Why?

If a called coyote will commit to 500 yards why not to 300, 200, 100, 50? What causes them to hang up?

I see photos of a well known predator hunter hunting wide open country and taking a lot of coyotes with a shotgun. What do you think his secret is?

Your thoughts.

Here in SW Michigan, the wind is not my friend when calling coyotes. It's in your face one minute then you feel it on the back of your neck the next minute. A light wind is the worst.
SW Michigan = Hunting Suburbia

 

[Dannybcc]

I like your coyote stories. I never put in the required time to be a real successful coyote hunter. Did have some luck though.
My favorite memory was I was stump shooting and shed hunting with my long bow. Two does came in running hard right at me.
Regretfully I was standing right out in the open in a patch of cedars with no cover to hide. I did have a couple seconds to get ready and nock an arrow for whatever was chasing those does.
Sure enough, here come this coyote in hot pursuit of those two does.
He got smart about one foot away from stepping into my shooting lane. He did a 360 and ran back the way he came staring back at me. He had my heart pounding and put a big smile on my face. I think he had that wtf expression on his face.

 

[Jonnyofalltrades]

I like your coyote stories. I never put in the required time to be a real successful coyote hunter. Did have some luck though.
My favorite memory was I was stump shooting and shed hunting with my long bow. Two does came in running hard right at me.
Regretfully I was standing right out in the open in a patch of cedars with no cover to hide. I did have a couple seconds to get ready and nock an arrow for whatever was chasing those does.
Sure enough, here come this coyote in hot pursuit of those two does.
He got smart about one foot away from stepping into my shooting lane. He did a 360 and ran back the way he came staring back at me. He had my heart pounding and put a big smile on my face. I think he had that wtf expression on his face.

Stump shooting with a longbow. Some of the best moments of my life.

 

[RaySendero]

I like your coyote stories. I never put in the required time to be a real successful coyote hunter. Did have some luck though.
My favorite memory was I was stump shooting and shed hunting with my long bow. Two does came in running hard right at me.
Regretfully I was standing right out in the open in a patch of cedars with no cover to hide. I did have a couple seconds to get ready and nock an arrow for whatever was chasing those does.
Sure enough, here come this coyote in hot pursuit of those two does.
He got smart about one foot away from stepping into my shooting lane. He did a 360 and ran back the way he came staring back at me. He had my heart pounding and put a big smile on my face. I think he had that wtf expression on his face.

Yeah, I like the stories, too.
I'm a deer hunter, not a coyote hunter. But our lease has a rule:
If a hog or coyote shows up, deer hunt is over - shoot'em!
On our lease, you don't see either much in daytime - both are very nocturnal.

So... I was going by close to a friends house and stopped by to check on him.
He's getting up in age and lives alone. He was doing fine but asked me if I would go hunting with him that afternoon. I knew what he meant. He needed a buddy cause he didn't want to go alone.
I wasn't prepared to hunt, but it wasn't cold and I did have my truck rifle, so agreed to take him.
My truck rifle is an old iron sighted MK1* in 303B (not my best rifle for deer).
I got him in his favorite shooting house and picked another for me that was close to him and that wouldn't take a long shot if I happened to see one I would want to shoot.

I was in stand for about and hour and I heard something run/splash across the creek on the far side of the food plot. A yearling came running crisscrossing the food plot eating as fast as possible. She slowed down a bit to eat but never stopped, continued on out the other side of the plot and ran off. Figured out she was running from something, so got my rifle ready. Yep a coyote was trailing her. He had his nose down following every step she took going thru. Wasn't an easy shot for me with him moving and the afternoon shadows on the plot. Took shot at 75 yards and he ran off.

I waited about 15 mins and went to see if I could find him. Wasn't even sure I had hit him until I found blood where he was when I fired. Luckily, I thought to put a stick up in ground there before I began to follow his small blood trail. He ran full speed out of the plot on a rather open trail that lead thru some woods and around a pond. Going down the trail I lost the blood. So went back to my stick and started again much slower. Sure enough he had done a sharp right turn about half way down that trail into a small thicket. I did not know at that time how good my shot was, so I wasn't about to follow him into that thicket. Instead, I slowly walked around that thicket and found where he came out. I followed the blood from there straight to the edge of the pond. So I standing there looking from a way around the pond and saw a leaf floating on the pond to my right with a drop of blood on it. That coyote had entered the water turned another hard right for about 12' and ran out. I found the blood trail again and followed it for about 30 yards to another thicket. Saw him piled-up dead about 6' into that thicket. Pulled him out by the tail and found I had hit him perfect double lung with a baseball size exit wound.

Was hard for me to believe that he had gone that far with that bad of a wound!!!

 

[17cal Fan]

I called and killed my 1st coyote 1977 at under 30 yards. That was my 3rd season. No internet, no VHS tapes, no money for a cassette tape caller. Just me, sitting in a brush pile with a $4 OLT (brand) plastic call. 3 inches of fresh snow and a single shot 30-30 in my lap. No camo and a sorry excuse for "warm hunting clothes."

Why did it work? Because he heard me, didn't see me and didn't smell me. And it was still about 30 minutes before he showed up. Today I'm convinced that he probably didn't hear me until he happened to be closer to the source of the sound and decided to come check it out.

They do not lay around waiting to hear something. They hunt a lot and are usually on the move. Which translates to quietly sneak in to your stand with the wind in your face and start with low volume, super low. If you have done the proceeding, there may be one under 100 yards before you even start. And because of competition for food they'll come charging if they are close. So be ready to shoot before you start calling. I had one jump through the fence I was sitting against 30 feet from me as soon as I started calling.

Today when I coyote hunt I'm using one of 3 electronic calls that I have. If it's daylight, the call is at least 30 feet away from me and to the side with a motion decoy next to it. If it's a night, no decoy needed, thermal scanner in my hand and thermal scope sitting on top of the rifle which is in a tripod. Mouth call is always in my pocket for backup.

A few videos on my youtube channel not professional grade but fun https://www.youtube.com/@centerfirecentral

 

[centerlineseal]

Just me, sitting in a brush pile with a $4 OLT (brand) plastic call. 3 inches of fresh snow and a single shot 30-30 in my lap.

First coyote I called in was the same situation, only with a 7mm Remmag, on the Middle Fork of the John Day River, Oregon. Still have and use that Olt. (He was there almost immediately, looking straight on at me. Tried to head shoot him, but ended up blowing the back of his neck into a softball size hole. Lot of sewing on that one!)

Thanks for the memory.

 

[jds holler]

Biggest mistake most guys make is parking their truck and walking to a "stand" in a place where they can be seen for miles in every direction. THEN sitting and calling from a place where they can see for hundreds of yards.
As soon as you start calling, the coyotes know EXACTLY where you are. The connection between their ears, eyes, and nose is miraculous.

Biggest problem most of us desert hunters have is we sometimes don't have enough breaks in the terrain to hide us as we get set up. jd

 

[xswanted]

Shooting long shot equates to ego and a lack of hunting ability.

Why shoot anything a long ways off other than that?

I hunt these days with a 22 Creedmoor which is very capable of taking long coyote shots. Having the ability and experience to shoot a coyote at 400 plus yards is a great tool to have but I’d rather and most often get them closer.

Most of the time, in my opinion anyway, if a coyote hangs up at a quarter mile or more it’s already seen something it doesn’t like.

 

[jds holler]

"Most of the time, in my opinion anyway, if a coyote hangs up at a quarter mile or more it’s already seen something it doesn’t like."

Oh heck yeah. I want to make another point also. I've shot a bunch of called coyotes, and the most memorable - fun - exciting - pee your pants - experiences have been with the close ones.

Shooting one at distance is pretty "ho-hum", compared to having one run over your feet. (which I've had) If you're in it for the fun, do your-self a favor and set up for some close range action. I can almost guarantee that you'll get more action than if you use a ":long range mindset". jd

 

[17cal Fan]

I didn't / don't want to assume the OP's ability in any way shape or form. But for me, I know that yotes have come in close and I failed to see them. Found tracks in the snow to prove that theory. So even a stand that doesn't produce does not mean you didn't have company. And after 50 plus years of hunting them, I contend it happens a lot more than I realize. That's why I enjoy hunting with a buddy when I can, 2 sets of eyeballs.

 

[xswanted]

"Most of the time, in my opinion anyway, if a coyote hangs up at a quarter mile or more it’s already seen something it doesn’t like."

Oh heck yeah. I want to make another point also. I've shot a bunch of called coyotes, and the most memorable - fun - exciting - pee your pants - experiences have been with the close ones.

Shooting one at distance is pretty "ho-hum", compared to having one run over your feet. (which I've had) If you're in it for the fun, do your-self a favor and set up for some close range action. I can almost guarantee that you'll get more action than if you use a ":long range mindset". jd

Agreed.


The ones that come in and you can watch them react to the situation are the best, or charge in like mad and ready to fight. Hard to beat that.

 

[spencerhenry]

Longer shots are for call shy coyotes. I have killed hundred of coyotes, from 30 yards to 600 yards. Sometimes they just don't come closer, like after you killed a few of their buddies in the previous weeks. Also depends greatly on where you hunt. Just because they don't close the distance doesn't mean they have seen you, usually when that happens, they turn and run.

 

[603Country]

Yeah, I like the stories, too.
I'm a deer hunter, not a coyote hunter. But our lease has a rule:
If a hog or coyote shows up, deer hunt is over - shoot'em!
On our lease, you don't see either much in daytime - both are very nocturnal.

So... I was going by close to a friends house and stopped by to check on him.
He's getting up in age and lives alone. He was doing fine but asked me if I would go hunting with him that afternoon. I knew what he meant. He needed a buddy cause he didn't want to go alone.
I wasn't prepared to hunt, but it wasn't cold and I did have my truck rifle, so agreed to take him.
My truck rifle is an old iron sighted MK1* in 303B (not my best rifle for deer).
I got him in his favorite shooting house and picked another for me that was close to him and that wouldn't take a long shot if I happened to see one I would want to shoot.

I was in stand for about and hour and I heard something run/splash across the creek on the far side of the food plot. A yearling came running crisscrossing the food plot eating as fast as possible. She slowed down a bit to eat but never stopped, continued on out the other side of the plot and ran off. Figured out she was running from something, so got my rifle ready. Yep a coyote was trailing her. He had his nose down following every step she took going thru. Wasn't an easy shot for me with him moving and the afternoon shadows on the plot. Took shot at 75 yards and he ran off.

I waited about 15 mins and went to see if I could find him. Wasn't even sure I had hit him until I found blood where he was when I fired. Luckily, I thought to put a stick up in ground there before I began to follow his small blood trail. He ran full speed out of the plot on a rather open trail that lead thru some woods and around a pond. Going down the trail I lost the blood. So went back to my stick and started again much slower. Sure enough he had done a sharp right turn about half way down that trail into a small thicket. I did not know at that time how good my shot was, so I wasn't about to follow him into that thicket. Instead, I slowly walked around that thicket and found where he came out. I followed the blood from there straight to the edge of the pond. So I standing there looking from a way around the pond and saw a leaf floating on the pond to my right with a drop of blood on it. That coyote had entered the water turned another hard right for about 12' and ran out. I found the blood trail again and followed it for about 30 yards to another thicket. Saw him piled-up dead about 6' into that thicket. Pulled him out by the tail and found I had hit him perfect double lung with a baseball size exit wound.

Was hard for me to believe that he had gone that far with that bad of a wound!!!

Toilet paper is your tracking friend. Put a small bit wherever you find blood. It helps you keep track of the blood trail, and, of course it has other uses. And, it’s very bright at night, when you use a flashlight.

 

[STS]

Shooting long shot equates to ego and a lack of hunting ability.

Why shoot anything a long ways off other than that?

I hunt these days with a 22 Creedmoor which is very capable of taking long coyote shots. Having the ability and experience to shoot a coyote at 400 plus yards is a great tool to have but I’d rather and most often get them closer.

Most of the time, in my opinion anyway, if a coyote hangs up at a quarter mile or more it’s already seen something it doesn’t like.

Well…..not necessarily. I shoot a lot of coyotes every year over 400 yards, and it certainly doesn’t have anything to do with ego. Coyotes will usually stop and look the situation over from the first place they can see the call position from. If that’s 400 yards (or 600) and they see something lthey don’t like they aren’t coming any closer. In northern Montana where I am most of the time, there is little to no cover to break up the human outline. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve had one come to the next ridge top and stop at 500 yards, I could buy a couple 8 pounders of powder. You have two choices. Have a rifle that’s capable at that distance and learn to shoot it, or watch them turn around and walk off.

 

[xswanted]

Well…..not necessarily. I shoot a lot of coyotes every year over 400 yards, and it certainly doesn’t have anything to do with ego. Coyotes will usually stop and look the situation over from the first place they can see the call position from. If that’s 400 yards (or 600) and they see something lthey don’t like they aren’t coming any closer. In northern Montana where I am most of the time, there is little to no cover to break up the human outline. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve had one come to the next ridge top and stop at 500 yards, I could buy a couple 8 pounders of powder. You have two choices. Have a rifle that’s capable at that distance and learn to shoot it, or watch them turn around and walk off.

This is the point I made, and you emphasized it.

I said coyotes that hang up at a quarter mile or more see something they don’t like.

So if you’re shooting a lot of coyotes beyond 400 yards either your setup and approach need to be reworked, or your sense of self (ego) tells you that that’s how you hunt.

Your ability and knowledge of the situation implies you know he isn’t coming closer. So we can negate your ability as the cause of the long shot.

You now you have the ability to make the shot.

Your ego won’t let that coyote walk away and try again on another day.

So, you shoot it.

My ego does the same thing in the next state east. Again, I’d rather have them closer, it’s more fun to me. I can, and possess the ability, and a rifle setup to be able to make those shots if presented with it

It’s not being portrayed as negative mind you.


Or the other argument could be, if you’re shooting a lot of coyotes every year past 400 yards, it might be time to rethink your approach. I’m wide open as it gets in ND, I shoot far more under 400 than over.

To each their own though, every setup and situation is unique. I hunt in areas where 400 yard shots could be the norm on certain hunts and on other hunts, not.

Ego is a sense of self in this context so I’m not intending to make it sound as though it’s negative or implying that arrogance is involved.