Howling for coyotes

[Rich Cronk]

For calling highly pressured coyotes to the gun, there is nothing that can equal the use of coyote language. A non aggressive "Lonesome" type of howl seems to tell the resident coyotes that there is a stranger in the area. The long, drawn out howl that trails off at the end. I don't use barking before the howls anymore because coyotes may perceive the barking as aggression. We don't want to spook the young of the year. I don't howl until I am ready to kill the coyotes that approach, and they often approach silently. Using howls to locate coyotes at night with the idea of calling them the next morning can hurt you. Why? When you howl at night, coyotes may approach your location and bust you. Now if you are setup to call coyotes at night with aid of a light, then this advice is not aimed at you. If it is spring or summer and you are howling at night to locate denning area's, that is ok also. Now thinkabout this though---You go out on dark winter night with intent to locate coyotes. You howl at about 10:P.M. and get a vocal answer. All well and good, but that coyote will likely be several miles away when morning arrives. Coyotes are on the move at night because the do alot of their hunting in the dark.

So you want to try howling for coyotes? When you get to your chosen stand, try giving them one or two lnesome howls. Now wait in silence for a few minutes. If no customers, repeat the howls and wait a couple of minutes again. Still no customers? Now is the time to hit em with a distress sound. I use the puppy distress for this. You could use a different distress scream, like maybe a bird or a kid goat distress. The coyotes in high pressure area are usually wise to the rabbit calls already.

[Prairie Ghost]

I see your point rich i try not to locate that long before calling to stop that from happening. The first year at nationals we did have the problem that you mentioned. After locating a pair of coyotes from the road we decided to set up for them however they were already on their way in and busted us! I have since changed some stratgies to prevent this from happening

[rhino]

I was out late sunday afternoon. I howled once and the whole river bottom erupted. however I didn't see one coyote come in at all. I wonder if eventually they will come walking by or if they will just keep howling back. or is there a certain sequence that will help draw them in

[Jerry Hunsley]

Rhino, Play the waiting game. I'm sure if you would have remained onstand a little longer and changed up to what Rich said about using hurt pup and not much, just every once in awhile just to peek the coyote or coyotes interests. It is old hat, they will come to investigate this stranger in their territory. I have used this technique a long time . Patience is a key. It may not work every time but a good percentage of the time it is money. If you can get out on a full moon night like last night it is money in the bank. If some of you remember when I gave the little talk at the Classic a few years ago, I talked about that very thing. As the season goes on the coyotes have been exposed to all kinds of distress sounds. Using a few howls with time in between will invoke a few silent incoming coyotes. With the snow that we have , as you know coyotes won't always come long distances with heavy soft snow. Now we have a different situation in South Dakota and probably North Dakota. We had a few days of warm sunny days. That put a nice hard crust on the snow making it a lot more easy for coyotes to travel on. It also makes the caller a little easier to detect when you are walking into your setup area. I have found that if you wait just minutes for things to settle down you are much better off. On those cold , calm nights like last night , sound travels a very long ways. Try your howls what every they may be and mix in a yip once in awhile. All that coyote has to hear is one note . Try this sometime and I'm betting it will work for you. Try the whole scheme of less calling and more time on stand A lot of the coyotes in my area are on the river bottoms at night and lay up in the river breaks during the day. Now when the weather is really cold and windy the coyotes will be on the river bottoms all the time. If you have the option to hunt the river bottoms in your area , that gives the hard core caller a chance to get out, where as the normal caller would just stay home and say F##K It. I guess I got off the original subject a little bit. My whole point was try somthing different later on in the season and get away from some of the more common distress sounds. If you have the luxury of having virgin territory to call , no problem with distress sounds. But remember, mating season is coming up and howls will become effective. Howing will always be part of my arsenal.

[bucksnbears]

Holy old-post Jerry. you dug that one out of the archives a great refresher though. i may actually try some night hunting this weekend and try your advice. i lost your wiley one call will have to get another next fall

[yipyipyow]

Very informative post i really appreciate the info... What kind of howlers are your personal favorite? I have a johnny stewart e caller and some mouth callers... if you use a electronic sound is there any place to get a good download? I really could use a howler of some sort. I got my first fox last night and that was one of the coolest things ever! I just need to get a yote in... Man they are smart I think they are really educated in my area.

[bucksnbears]

Congrats on the fox Yip

[yipyipyow]

bucksnbears what kind of call do you recommend?

[bucksnbears]

yip, i'm more of a spot n stalker. where i live its mostly open farm fields for miles and miles and miles. i've been calling mostly fox for 30 years but never hardcore. just started calling coyotes sieriosly about 3 years ago but i'm by far no expert. i've tried lots of different calls and have had good and bad luck with all. depends on the day(and mood) of the animals. Jerry H has been a sirious caller for years so take his advice WAY over mine. i have called in fox with jackrabbit distress but have had better luck with cottontail. some have luck with bird sounds but i really hav'nt explored that much.

[Jerry Hunsley]

yipyipyow, There are a lot of good howlers out there to choose from. One is by a fellow who started this topic. Rich Cronk makes a variety of howlers. If you have access to a sporting goods store Primos has a lot of good calls to choose from. I think it is a personal preference for each individual. Some people use a lot more lip pressure to get howls and some people use the bite down method to get a howl that starts out deep and culminates with a high pitch. There was a discussion quite awhile ago as to what kind of howler you are. A lip man or teeth. The call that I started out with was s duck call made by Olts and it was a Number two regular duck call. I just took the end piece off and used it like an open reed. It had a raspy low rabbit sound and was very effective. Then I got a Tally-Ho which is still on the market and probably has killed thousands of coyotes throughout the Nation. I could make a decent howl with it also, but it is used primarily as a distress call. There are a lot of open reed calls out there that you can make a howl on , if you have the talent to do it. It all boils down to practicing and lots of it blowing the calls. I could go on forever talking about the different calls out there and to say one is better than another would be foolish. It is an individual thing. You just have to pick one out you like and practice. Expect to pay more for a custom call though. There are some pretty ones out there , but that doesn't make them call coyotes any better than a cheap call like the Tally Ho or Critter Call. Just about every sporting good stores has a predator calling section and there are many , many calls to choose from. My suggestion would be to get a mediam priced howler and practice with that until you can make a decent howl. You may or may not be able to do that. I might add your howls don't have to be perfect but that comes with practice and that will come. The biggest problem I see with guys is not being commited to giving the howlers a chance to work. They go out a few times and when nothing responds or comes in, they go back to the distress calls that they have had success with. Nothing wrong with that but in pressured areas using distress sounds doesn't always work the best. Have a little faith in the howlers and your luck will change.

[204sniper]

I went out coyote calling tonight under the light of the full moon. Tried a couple stands, and at each one I had a pack respond to the serenade from the e-caller. That was about as far as it got, however. I wonder if they knew I was there since the snow is VERY crunchy. I was wondering if coyotes would respond to locator calls even if they knew that someone was in the area?

[yipyipyow]

Thanks again for the info my buddy has a mouth howler but is sounds like chit so i don't know if thats what its supposed to sound like or if its him... Im just heading out for the full moon again plannin a going till the sun comes up!could sure use some more calls though or sounds anybody download them for their e-calls?

[Tim Anderson]

If you are going to locate coyotes just to find where they are and how many anytime of nite will be fine. I only spend about 3-4 minutes or less when i'm just locateing and then move on.. If you want to locate them for calling the best time is in the early hours or mourning like around 4:00 a.m. till sun up. Once again do youre locate howls and listen for a reply then move on. The coyotes responding to youre howls at this time will be very close to where they will bed down for the day. So just move on and locate some more and then come back after sun up and make a stand close to where you heard them howl from...

I was wondering if coyotes would respond to locator calls even if they knew that someone was in the area?

This fall i located next to a CRP field and soon as the first sequence was played i had a coyote less than a 100 yds lite up and scared the crap out of me..LOL I also had a few other crp fields that had coyotes in them and they where around 200 yds out and new i was there or something was but they still howled back..

[Jerry Hunsley]

204 sniper, Chances are, they probably were not aware of your presents unless you were hearing a series of sharp barks chopped off. I don't know how long you stayed after you heard the serenading but it might have been a good idea to stay there for an extended time and just remained silent and maybe a couple hurt pup or yips, kind of like I posted earlier. Walking on crusted snow does carry a long ways and if they started carrying on as you were walking they probably knew you were there. Some of those ole rangy coyotes can be pretty tough sometimes . That's the ones you can't just set there and continuously call and expect to get them in.

[204sniper]

They didn't start serenading until I played it on the e-caller, and it sounded like they were between 1/4 and 1/2 mile away. To start off the set I played a couple of lonesome howls, then waited a couple minutes and nothing replied. Then I switched to the serenade, and that got em going. So I waited a couple minutes after they settled down and changed to a female invitation howl. I played the female invite about 4 or 5 times and waited a couple more minutes. We were set up in a spot where we could see approximately 400 yards in the direction that the coyotes had howled from, and then there was a section of trees (where I'm fairly certain the coyotes were). I was continuously glassing the field to see if anything would come out. After a couple minutes I switched to a challenge howl. Played 2 challenge howls and waited again. Still nothing. So I switched to a pup distress. Played the pup distress 20 seconds on, 30 seconds off, for about 2 minutes. Nothing. So I waited about 5 minutes and tried a rabbit distress. After a couple series on the rabbit distress, I switched back to the pup distress for a couple series. I was there for a total of 45 minutes, but didn't manage to call them in. So now I have to figure out if they were aware of my presence, or if I did something wrong with my calling, or if there was simply some other reason beyond my control that kept them away.