Locateing coyotes

[Tim Anderson]

I was out last nite doing some locateing to find out where my coyotes move to dureing the denning season and to see how many are still around...
I found five famaly groups and a few loners and some of the pups are close to knee high and some just a small fur-ball.. I noticed most of the famaly groups are only a 1/2 -1 mile from the areas i normaly find them in dureing the hunting season. One group has moved from an area that i normaly find them in due to a farmer that has some ATV trails, the coyotes only moved into the section a little deeper and farther north where the ATV cannot drive..
As far as locateing ,the coyotes answer back very quickly and really lite the area up.. Since i have my Game-Ear Quads i can tell what direction they are howling from and how many.
I have one group i located the nite before and i was almost on top of them when i howled as they where only 75 yds from the truck when they answered..

I will let them rest up a bit and then hit two more groups to verify that they are in there core area or in an area they hunt..

[Tim Anderson]

I had time today to do a little denning.. I found eight of the cute little buggers in a pipe.. I checked them over and then put them back in the pipe with a few gophers to chew on..LOL

[Red Fox]

Good to hear. Any thing you find in common from one area to another? Sunny or shade area's for example. I am up by Alexandria and know of 2 area's that have dens but never went out to go look. I was under the assumtion that they wouldn't howl when in the dens area to protect the pups. About the time the corn tassles they move around and get more vocal. The corn looks like it's starting out pretty good.

[Pure Predator]

Whats your sound of choice for locating.... I seen a goverment trapper role through town yesterday... he had a flat bed full of snares on the head-ache rack of his truck and two large mega-phones... I stopped him, he said that he has been using just Emergancy Sirens to locate with... says it works good and it doesnt bother them to much...

I used to hang out a couple of miles off of our local railroad crossings, when the trains went by about 2 times a hour... The coyotes would go crazy... Worked great...


Mike
Pure Predator

[Tim Anderson]

[quoteGood to hear. Any thing you find in common from one area to another? Sunny or shade area's for example. ][/quote]

At first i was seeing a patern then i moved to another area and it changed . LOL
Some of the coyotes have there dens on some sort of high ground simular to the fox, and then i find another and its along some fence line on lower ground or along the edge of some heavey brush or vacant grove. And we have some here that use culverts just like some of the fox are doing..
The onlything i see thats pretty common is the den is on the sunny side of a hill or fence line or ditch... A water source is close by also.... Someone once told me that coyotes don't dig there own dens they just use what holes are there and clean them out and make bigger for them to get into...
For locateing i use just howls and they work on most of the coyotes. I have a few that are a little fussy to what howls they answer to so i carry a few extra howlers along and go through them till i find the one they like.. I know where most of my coyotes are so if i don't get a response i'll try something different or comeback later. Sooner or later they will give up there location by howling.. Some of the pups are almost knee high and they will howl back as well..
On my last trip west i did some den locateing and found that a majority of the dens are on a hillside and at the base of some sort of cover or inside the cover.. But this was done on one day of calling and on one ranch so it maybe different in other areas..

[Prairie Ghost]

Tim, Did you SEE knee high pups? Or are you just judging from their howls? Knee high would be way old for this time of year not saying that it can't happen but wow that would be really big to what i'm used to this time of year.

[Tim Anderson]

Prarie Ghost: A few weeks ago a farmer was driveing down the road and spotted a coyote in the ditch about mid-day. He drove home and got his rifle and came back and shot it. It turned out to be a pup from this year and was about half way to the knee joint..
I found out at nite here i can use a lite when locateing as long as i don't have a gun along so i have been carrying a spot lite along when i locate. The other nite i had a pair of them about 50-75 yards from the truck in the grass just watching me..tried to get picks but they would'nt hold still long enough. Its hard to judge there actual size so i'll just say they where below the knee and when i worked that area agian the other nite i could also hear them respond to my howling and i could also hear the adults.. There was a noticeable difference between them when they howled..
I have another area where i have seen the pups and they are just a little bit bigger than the fox pups i just posted . Between the two groups one had alot of hunting pressure where the other group did not due to its location. ( hard area to get them out of due to alot of cover and the size of the section. 3x2 sq. mile) So this may affect them as far as breeding time goes. I don't know for sure..

[Prairie Ghost]

Did they have coyote coloration or were they still that smoky grey color?

[Tim Anderson]

The head area was a browness red color simular to the fox pup and the flanks a little on the darker side. It looked like they where in the stages of going from fuzz to hair. The other pups where a lite brown also simular to the fox with a gray or dirty white underside..

[LeviM]

Sweet Pics Tim!

[lyonch]

Good post Tim!! You sure have expanded your knowledge and efforts to better yourself when pursuing them this past season

[Tim Anderson]

Thanks!! I had alot of good help the last couple of years and i'm still learning..

[Tim Anderson]

I was out again last nite locateing in a different area and found a few more coyotes and then on the way home i located some that i had found earlier.. I don't have a 100 coyotes to play with but the ones i do have i have noticed that most of them respond differently to howls and some also sound different than others. One last nite had a deep loud howl that kinda said don't mess with me i mean buisness and a different one sounded off with a long scratchy howl or gravely. Then there were a few that had a higher pitch howl and sound more excited or nervous.. Anyway most of them are easey to tell apart from one another so now i can tell if i'm howling to the same coyote for each location or if there is another one that i may have missed the first time through..
I have had guys tell me that by locateing with Howls all i'll do is educate them.. For starters the coyotes in my area are pretty tuff to call to begin with so i don't think its going to hurt any..LOL
Second if this was true and i was educateing them why do they answer back when i comeback to locate them?? I have a few that are only a couple hundred yards from the road when i located them and they just stood there.. Hmmm
Third there are some that say not all coyotes will answer you when you howl to locate them. I found this to be some what true, but also found that if you come back another nite they will respond. I was out one nite with a full moon and very clear sky and i could not get any to respond but as the nite went on and the moon was starting to drop and the sky got a little dirtier then the responses started to pick up. I also found some coyotes may require a few more howls to get them started so i added a few more howls to the serious that i use to locate..
There are some coyotes that prefer a different howl also, for example i may have to go to one of my hand howlers that produces a higher pitch of howl or for another coyote it may prefer a deeper howl or longer drawn out howl. The nice thing about locateing them is if the sound is'nt right they are very patient and and will stick around and answer you when they hear the right howl..
I'm going to go out again sometime and try the siren for locateing and see if it makes any difference with the coyotes that are a little fussy..
Also while i was out i found two more groups of little red foxes , one group was the size of the others i have found and one group is about half the size of an adult.. Must of been an early hatch just like i saw in the coyotes here...

[Pure Predator]

... was just hanging around the house tonite when the wife said, for fathers day why dont you go see if you can call up a coyote or two... with out hesitation I jumped off the couch and ran for the hills...

Stand one... nothing...
I moved about a half mile into the wind and, wasnt thirty seconds into the stand with one of my new calls when, a cocker spaniel sized pup almost ran me over, if I would have seen him coming I could have caught him... The look on his face was price less... Just like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar.. I sat there for a second and realized I had to be by the den, so I took the foxpro and played some pup distress under, my mouth calling... kinda like the pup had grabbed somthing and was having a hell of a time with it... about five minutes into that... the Female, I presumed showed up with another pup in tow... They popped out about twenty yards, I was packing the shotgun, but I didnt have the heart... Just real cool to see them react... The second pup seemed alot bigger than the first,

Why do you think that was.....

Mike
Pure Predator

[Tim Anderson]

It couldbe it is the dominet pup of the litter, gets the best tit first or gets to the solid food first..