chasing coyotes

N

NE223

New member
I was complaining in a post the other day that there was too much pressure on coyotes in my area and part of it was from people “hunting” them with pickups. I really was concerned about this when I I headed home midweek and found the stubble fields by my house filled with pickup tracks. So I emailed a question to the Nebraska Game and Parks concerning the legality of chasing and shooting coyotes this way. What do ya know, it’s legal. The only time there is a problem is if it’s done from a snowmobile. My only recourse on the area around my place is to have people busted for trespass.

Now I’m not going to be sanctimonious about this, in my past there have been one or two “chasing” incidents but frankly the whole thing always scared the crap out of me, it’s a heck of dangerous way to get a coyote worth a few dollars. Just wondered what the laws were like in some other places and if anyone else sees this as a problem?
 
Legal here in Kansas too. Yep fun too!! Sorry if its hurting your hunting but its the way some hunt. Around here they dont chase and shoot them they chase them to get close enough to turn out hounds to catch them and thats their sport. Really hate to see two ways of "legal!!" hunting fighting back and forth but i suppose you may upset them from time to time, just trying to show you the other side of the show, not trying to argue.

As for tresspassing BUST their A$$'s, and tresspasser is a poacher and deserves to be stonded. Just my 22-250 cents worth.
 
It used to be VERY popular in eastern Co.
My Granpa told me they had several trucks just for it, including a half track.

I know of some guys that used to put big block chevys in old cars, chop the roof off, put in a roll cage and some mud tires and haul ASS!
One guy drives , the other stands up and shotgunns em'

I also know of guys that died or were maimed doing it.

Iv'e hit enough crapp I din't see in wheat feilds just driving from set to set , I would never try it.
Pretty stupid.
And un-sportsmanlike. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif
 
Where im' from in Iowa there is a group of guys in town who have been doing it for years and they have a hell of a time doing it. The shoot up draws to chase them out of the end and then the chase is on. Things are not always legal and I have went one or two times with them but I'd much rather shoot a yote by calling. There was an incident south of where I lived earlier this year in the same type of situation. A bunch of buddies get together and surround a section to chase out yotes. This year however, a man died. One of his buddies either got careless shooting or had a ricoche and shot the man in the head while he was in his pickup. Same type of thing happens almost every year in iowa with deer hunters doing drives with shotguns. This is why I have never shotgun hunted deer i spose. I'm not trying to say doing drives is unethical or should be outlawed but if your going to do this type of hunt, you better damn well know where everyone is at all times and not let the excitement of a 10 dollar coyote or a doe deer cause you to shoot carelessly. My old man traps and he has been walking across a gravel road when slugs starting raining down on the road not 10 feet from him. Didnt mean to get into a big long story about all this but it makes me angry when careless people go out and shoot up the country side. Just my two cents worth.

Jailer
 
Well life can be kinda dangerous if your dumb!
Sounds like you guys may have seen examples of some nonresposible hunters chasing coyotes but ive seem some real idiots out calling and just driving around shooting a coyotes to so even seting out in a pasture can be dangerous if the guys around you have their head buried where the sun dont shine.

As for sportsman like, whoa buddy its a legal way to hunt a species that needs to be controled and can be much tougher than shooting at one with a highpowered rifle. So please dont talk trash unless you have tried it and please dont judge the entire truck hunting crowd on your observance of a few rampant idiots.
 
ilegal in ny unless your crippled with an ambulatory permit, and even then you cant chase em or shoot on the move. imo dangerous and very unsportsmanlike and just plain rude. respect your prey, even if it is just a coyote. every living thing desrves respect.
 
In North Dakota it is illegal to harass any game animal (including predators) with a motorized vehicle, including snowmobiles.
 
i dont believe it should be legal for anyone to shoot somthing from a motorized vehical for any reason unless they are phisicaly handicapped...not even the government. Good example you cant do it in the state of kentucky but my brother and one if his friends decided they would go shoot a deer from a car during deer season after dark and tag it in the next day. well needless to say they were caught and the gun and car were both taken by the police and both of their hunting licences were taken for 1 year. thats the way i think it should be for shooting at game from a vehical
 
I was told that in Missouri you could hunt coyotes with vehicles as long as you used dogs. The trick here is that they could run right through your yard and scare the hell out of you, your kids playing in the yard, any animal that you might have around (horse, cattle, etc.) My point is you can't interfere with these ***holes because it is legal. A friend of mine told me this. His wife was threatened with a gun that if she inteferred again they would come back and see her. My bud called the police and game wardens alike and nobody done a thing. Its all legal. If you shoot the dog, you can be arrested for property destruction and be fined and go to jail. The dog wears a red collar and that distinguishes it from other dogs. This is what my friend and some other people told me. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif
 
Pasturepup....You cant interfere? Dont see why not if these guys are turning their dogs loose on private ground without permision you should be able to get them nailed for tresspassing, also sounds like you may have some lazy A$$ wardens and police, if one of these guys threatened someone with a gun and they did NOTHING.

Humm.....some might say....if you saw my earlier posts on this topic you can tell im all for running coyotes with dogs, and even with pickups to get close enough to turn the dogs out. I am NOT in favor of many of the things some have experienced. Just trying to be a voice for those who do hunt with pickups, and do it.....yes may I say.......SPORTSMAN LIKE. Sure wish you guys could have a chance to witness this angle of hunting from some real dog and pickup hunters were sure getting a bad name from some of the jerks that are out there. And there are some of those guys in every way of hunting.

Thanks for listening to the ramble
 
Shooting from the road killed one of the party this winter in IA. It is illegal, but I had two people do it to the fox I got one day. Two vehicles and three shooters missed, I ended up killing it, not them.T.20
 
As far as sporting goes, in my experience, the dogs have the advantage over ANY motorized vehicle. But, here in northern NM, we have REAL rough terrain!
Mark
 
First of all Bronco, you don't wanna shoot and hit a vehicle with people in it unless they are shooting at you first. Its a felony, I know this cause my house was broken into 2yrs ago and I did this after 4 people beat the hell outta me. They were identified yet 2days later I was the only one arrested. You probably were just kiddin anyway, just wanna let you know the consequences.
Second, NE223 I'm from Spalding, Ne and they have been doing this for years. In fact when I was a little boy they used to use airplanes and snowmobiles until it became illegal. I don't hunt with them anymore because I got interested in calling but have had no luck yet. Last year they had a bullet ricochet into the passenger door of a truck and broke the rolled down window. Nobody hurt, but their was a young boy in that side. As for dogs, the dog hunters in the area screwed up the hunting for everyone. The guys in our area would cut fenses and keep on going without fixing them. But if you don't want these hunters on your land all you should have to do is let them know that. We always respected that. We may not have liked it, but we respected it.
 
Well, here i go getting into the middle of it. I will just come right out and say it. I dispise the whole chasing and hunting from a vehicle thing. In my area in northern Missouri the group of 4 wheel drive pickups do everything in the book wrong. You are not supposed to pursue or harrass animals with motorized vehicles or with the use of radios or phones. In addition to that you are not supposed to have a loaded gun in a vehicle. I see them do it all of the time. They also like to park in the road to listen for dogs chasing which is a real danger in most places. They also don't have permission to shoot a coyote on most people's property where they are chasing and it is illegal to shoot from a public road anyway. I try to make informed decisions before I speak and this topic really p!$$es me off!

Let me give you a short version of a true story that happened to me. It was in late February a few years back. It was a beautiful 50 degree Sunday so the kids went outside to play on the swing set. Keep in mind that I live in a very isolated place with very few neighbors and no landowners that give permission to hunt. Here came the road hunters. They stopped on every hill as far as I could see including right in front of my house. I could hear the dogs running through my place. I looked out in the hay field and a dog was chasing a coyote. The coyote would just play with the dogs. He would go over one hill and circle back and just sit down and wait as the dogs went past him and then followed his scent to him and he would pull the same move again. As I went out to talk to the guy parked in our yard and make sure the kids were ok the coyote came running between my house and me and the swing set and kids. I am not kidding. He ran within 10 feet of my kids and the dogs were not far behind. Needless to say, it scared the crap out of the kids and the worste part was when I looked down the road both directions there were guys standing in the middle of the road with their guns pointed toward our yard looking through their scopes. I was furious and sent the kids inside immediately and jumped into my pickup and drove over to the closest one. The one in the yard had left by then. The guy could tell i was not happy when i pulled up. I got out and asked what in the heck he was doing pointing a gun at my house with my kids in the yard. He just said "it isn't even loaded and i just wanted to see what was going on with the coyote" I didn't get a chance to say anything else as he sped away. I saw him talking on his CB to his other buddies and i am sure they had a good laugh. I called the game warden and he said that there was nothing i could do. As far as i can tell there is nothing i can do. It still p!$$es me off when i am setting in a bow stand and hear dogs coming.

Sorry it was such a long story but i felt it had to be told. I still see hunters running the roads and dogs chasing on posted property and i always ask myself "How can this be legal? They can't even shoot one if they see it, legally. And how can they call something "fun" that involves so many violations?"

Thanks for letting me vent. I am sure there are respectable dog hunters out there but just not in my area. And to those of you who are ethical and get permission and do things right, I mean no bad feelings. It is like every other sport. The bad players always get the attention.
MG
 
MG,

I share your same frustrations and anger. In fact I was very vocal about it on this board sometime ago. I've since realized that this particular group is their own worst enemy and will be the demise of their prefered method of hunting.

It may take some time But I'm pretty confident they'll kill their sport by there own hand unless the atittude changes.

This isn't an attack on anyone but just a simple observation.
 
Just a simple observation CRhodes.

Slob hunters in EVERY method of hunting will eventually cause the lose of our hunting freedoms. Thats why as HUNTERS we all need to band together, turn in the slob hunters, tresspassers, and poachers. Just trying to remind everyone that there are bad apples in every sport and not to judge the whole method of hunting because if they get hunting with dogs outlawed that will just be that many fewer people that show up to vote when they try to outlaw hunting
PERIOD!!!
 
We had a bigger problem with "coyote hunters" driving all over the place in the 80s and first part of the 90s. They would drive over land without permission, and one time cut our fence because they couldn't find the gate. At least that is what we think. Good thing the cows didn't get out.

With calling getting more popular, this hell-on-wheels hunting is starting to take a back seat in our area. We've also had mange go through the area and the lazy pickup hunters don't spend the time anymore chasing what's left. A lot of the older people that used to do this are dying of old age, and I suspect this type of hunting will gradually die off with them.

Pickup coyote hunters shoot .22 long rifle bullets into cover to scare out yotes into the open. One of those bullets came close to hitting my brother and a friend one time during a pheasant hunt. The pickup coyote hunter was trespassing. We gave him some ol' west justice. No, he's still alive.
 
When I first saw the original post I knew that this thread would get pretty heated. But for some reason, I feel I need to get involved.

I prefer to call coyotes. I enjoy everything about it – even if it takes me about thirty stands to get one coyote. But I also enjoy running coyotes with pick-ups. And as stated numerous times in previous posts, all things must be legal, and we do a pretty good job obeying the laws. But the laws don’t cover everything. I know more hunters than not that I wouldn’t think about hunting with because they’re not safe. That goes for pheasant hunting, deer hunting, and coyote hunting.

This does not mean that those who run coyotes with pick-ups are unsafe, lazy, unethical, or whatever else you want to call them. Just like any other type of hunting, you have your bad apples. I too get mad when I see coyote hunters running through property that I know they don’t have permission to be on. I too here the stories of coyote hunters getting killed because the person shooting wasn’t practicing gun safety. But that doesn’t make it unethical.

I would love to invite someone to my area with years of experience to see if they can call in a coyote where the pick-ups have been running them. If that can be done, I will sell the pick-up and never run them again.
 


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