Hunting Pressured Coyotes?

F

FlySlanger

Member
Hey all, I just got my first permission to hunt a great looking 1500 acre cattle ranch in Florida. Might not be much for some of you guys but it’s a huge deal for me. They say they’re calving year round and do have issues with coyotes eating calves, however they said they already have 5-6 guys hunting it. One guy said mentioned at least some of them are out there at night with thermals. I’d probably start out with daytime calling there but I’d like to hear what tactics some of you guys would employ knowing you’re competing with other hunters. I just have a little foxpro patriot and a cottontail mouth call. I was thinking upgrading to a “MFK Edition X24” might be a good move as they seem to have quality sounds that I think a lot of these other guys wouldn’t have. Apparently there’s a lot of turkeys out there and was thinking about trying to play something like turkey distress or maybe chicken distress to try to set myself apart. I also think getting more practice to try to get more confident on those 300yd plus shots could help me up my game as well. What do yall think I should try out there?
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If you could find areas with yotes that are not hunted by the other guys, you'll do better.
Try to make contact with other guys to stay away from their areas.
My experience in GA with pressured yotes - is that they hide during the day.
Good luck, and check back in regardless of outcomes..
 
i would find another spot. if you really have to try this spot and have thermal gear. i would get a tripod for the rifle and a nice seat. find a spot where you can scan for long distances and just sit and watch. ambush them...silently.

but remember the post about the hunter who was killed by other hunters, at night using thermal gear....i wouldnt hunt this farm. maybe ask if they know of other farms having issues. or just locate a few farms on your own. ON X hunt app is a big help.
 
Just my opinion, but I wouldn't hunt it for 2 reasons. 1, respect for the guy who got permission before me in hopes I'd get the same respect from someone else on my spots. A lot of landowners don't understand it and just want coyotes dead so they give permission to multiple hunters. If you can all work together and plan everything out it can be done, but that's wishful thinking. 2, you're just going to be screwing each other over and making it really tough to get any to respond to the call. I don't want to be there at the same time as someone else, or just after someone else. Too many unknowns. I'd rather have a couple 100 acres all to myself than 1500 sharing with 6 other hunters.
 
bohunr said:
i would find another spot. if you really have to try this spot and have thermal gear. i would get a tripod for the rifle and a nice seat. find a spot where you can scan for long distances and just sit and watch. ambush them...silently.
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I think this is good advice. If I absolutely had to hunt this spot, I'd just hunt over a carcass near the operation and hunt it silent like I do on my bait site.
 
Yep… as has been said, Look for unpressured, unhunted spots. That’s a lot of others hunting it already. I have a couple spots where there’s one other person that can call it, and we both keep in contact when and if we go there. We’re likeminded callers and understand the importance of communication. Mostly for the safety factor, as we’re both primarily night callers. But we also understand the pressure element.

If I were to try your spot, knowing of what’s going on there, I would do as bohunr and wolverines has mentioned and sit quiet over bait or deadpit or something. But I seriously doubt I would waste my time there. You may have a different perspective, and that is fine. Good luck with whatever you decide on.
 
It wouldn't take very many days or nights for 5 or 6 coyote hunters to ruin a 1500 acre ranch for calling in coyotes.

I am very lucky and get to hunt coyotes on 5 ranches that have 7,000 to 40,000 acres that nobody else is calling coyotes on. On my third or fourth day of calling coyotes on these ranches my success rate goes down very quickly. I am pretty sure most of the coyotes I educate, I never see and they see me get up and walk back to my truck and drive off after calling.

Even when I do a pretty good job of killing the coyotes that I call in, in wide open country I am educating many coyotes that heard my calling sounds, heard me shoot and then watched me walk back to my truck and drive off. From what I have seen over the years coyotes that have heard 5 to 10 calling sounds and seen the hunters going in or leaving 3 or 4 times, WILL NOT just come charging in to distress sounds because they have not heard those sounds before.

Sometimes you can get aggressive coyotes to come into coyote vocal sounds that they have not heard before. But many coyotes may shy away from coyote vocal sounds because they don't want to deal with or fight with other coyotes.
 
I hunt a lot of public lands here in Colorado, and I know they get pressured, quite a lot, in fact. There are almost always fresh tire tracks or footprints on the properties.

That being said, I do pretty well.

I use handcalls, call sparingly and will stay a bit longer, say 20-25 minutes. I do not usually have any hard chargers on these properties. Instead, I get most of my action at the 15-25 minute mark, and they come in slowly.

Coyotes will migrate into an area after the controlling coyote(s) have been killed. This is, I believe, why they howl mornings and evenings, to find out who survived, and if a territory has opened up due to deaths of the controlling coyotes.

When I had a 710 acre duck hunting club all to myself, I would usually go twice a month, from October until March/April, and usually get 2-3 coyotes each time I went. The place was really never vacant of coyotes for very long.

So, if the other 5-6 guys are good at what they do, you should have 'fresh' coyotes to hunt on a frequent basis.

If they are not very good, well, then you have a lot of skittish, educated coyotes. They are tougher to call, but are still killable. This is, I believe, where a handcall really shines. Two guys using the same handcall, will sound different, whereas every E-call from the same manufacturer has the exact same sounds on them, and if a coyote was fooled by a certain E-caller playing Cottontail Munchies, that particular coyote might hesitate the next time it hears Cottontail Munchies from that manufacturer.

Good luck and keep us posted!
 
When dealing with pressured coyotes and daytime hunting slipping undetected into thick cover areas where they bed with a shotgun and a hand call could be productive. You probably won't have a lot of success calling them out into the open during the day when they are high pressured.
 
This makes me wonder, I have about 850 acres I could hunt uninterrupted by other hunters. How often would y'all go into the same spot? I called in a coyote last Friday but by the time I got my rifle into position she was booking it out of the area. I think I winded her. How long would you wait until going to hunt the same location again and how much distance would you give between hunted fields? I'm in NE PA.
 
that's a lot of hunting pressure, I'd be concerned about lead flying in my direction, not sure I'd mess with it. A lot of times I never use a call, last 6 I've shot didn't use a call.
 
FlySlanger said:
Hey all, I just got my first permission to hunt a great looking 1500 acre cattle ranch in Florida. Might not be much for some of you guys but it’s a huge deal for me. They say they’re calving year round and do have issues with coyotes eating calves, however they said they already have 5-6 guys hunting it. One guy said mentioned at least some of them are out there at night with thermals. I’d probably start out with daytime calling there but I’d like to hear what tactics some of you guys would employ knowing you’re competing with other hunters. I just have a little foxpro patriot and a cottontail mouth call. I was thinking upgrading to a “MFK Edition X24” might be a good move as they seem to have quality sounds that I think a lot of these other guys wouldn’t have. Apparently there’s a lot of turkeys out there and was thinking about trying to play something like turkey distress or maybe chicken distress to try to set myself apart. I also think getting more practice to try to get more confident on those 300yd plus shots could help me up my game as well. What do yall think I should try out there?View attachment 17080
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My tactics are based mostly on my own experiences. I've hunted the North central plains for many decades. I've hunted rolling hills, flat land & timbered areas. Here are some of my own observations; "Most" coyotes hunt at night. Finishing up their hunting the next am. They will bed down from pre-Sunrise. Up until around 10-11am. Few stragglers will be on their feet up until around 11 am or later . They will bed down for the day. Remaining bedded down until around dark. Can a bedded coyote be called? Yes it can. But they will be reluctant to respond. Unless the right sound triggers them. "Most" coyotes when bedded down, will 99.9% of the time. Have the prevailing wind(even a slight wind) at their backside. Which means, they may/will. Often scan to THEIR cross & down wind areas. "Most" coyotes will choose to bed down in cover (wind break) areas. Such as, timber, sloughs or tall grasses for example. Use that known behavior knowledge. To give you an edge on them & adjust accordingly.
 
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