chasing coyotes

I live is Ks also and have shot my share of coyotes from the truck. When I was younger I worked on a ranch in western Ks that was big. The pasture behind the house was about 600 acres and full of cattle.We went out to check on the cows one day because they were dropping calves and as usual we took our guns with us in case we saw any coyotes. Sure enough we saw one and shot it. Next thing we knew we saw another one and shot it. Final outcome of checking cattle that afternoon was 17 dead coyotes out of one 600 acre pasture. Some areas I don't have a problem with hunting them from the truck but I use the method sparingly. If a fellow wants to hunt them from the truck that is fine as long as there is some common sense used and they dont get stupid while they are doing it, like shooting while the vehicle is in motion. No matter how you do it, from the truck, dogs, or calling, we all share the same passion for predator hunting and enjoy it. Hunt them how you like to, have fun, and enjoy your time with friends and family.

snakeman
 
I learned a long time ago...If it's legal, then a fella better be careful about knocking it.

I've lived in Minnesota, Montana, west Texas, Florida, and different parts of Indiana...and hunted in all those places while I lived there. One thing I found out the hard way...What's considered "sportsmanlike" or "unsportsmanlike" in one place isn't necessarily considered sportsmanlike or unsportsmanlike in another.

In Minnesota (and many other places) many people will shoot a dog if they see it running a deer. In the panhandle of Florida, when most folks go deer hunting...Guess how it's done? With dogs...and trucks and CB radios. (It's legal) And if you bad-mouth that and talk about how lazy and unsportsmanlike it is...LOOK OUT! That's the way they've been doing it for years, and their grand-pappy and his grand-pappy, etc.

It's local culture. It's family heritage. It's the kind of hunting that you know.

So, one guy grows up and his dad shows him how to hunt coyotes by chasing them with a truck. Another guy learns about calling. Some may do both. If both are legal...You just have to adjust and learn how to live with it.

I've never chased coyotes. You can't chase 'em here in Indiana...In fact, by the letter of the law, you can't even lean on your truck for a rest while you take a shot.

So I guess you just have to roll with punches or try to change the law. Actually, after a while, I really started enjoying chasing deer with dogs in Florida... But there was always that little nagging feeling inside that sometimes made me want to drop the hammer on a dog.

Just my .222 worth
 
What the hell. I may as well toss my .02 in here while the fire's going, since the guys here that know me know that I cut my teeth coyote hunting on the front seat of a dogwagon as I followed in the footsteps of my grandad and dad. Having said that, I'll go on record as saying that the days where this type of hunting are acceptable are long past. In areas of western Kansas, Nebraska and any other locale where you have large tracts of uninterrupted rangeland, it may play well. But, we have a lot of dog men in my area where you may have upwards of six or more tracts of land in any given section with each belonging to a different landowner.

This particular means of hunting coyotes, though extremely fun, gobbles up huge areas of real estate for a day's hunt. And there is no way in hell that these guys have secured permission to hunt on all that land.

Just last week, I was on break at work at a convenience store on my route and there was a dog wagon with Cloud County plates filling up at the plates. That's a hundred miles away. The dogs had fresh blood on their faces and it was barely 10 in the morning. Had I not been in uniform and driving a federal vehicle, I'd have gladly told them to pack their happy asses back to Concordia and go trespass on their friends' ground. I'd have followed them out of town and the first open gate they entered would have been where the Sheriff would be citing them a few minutes later for criminal trespass.

Don't get me wrong. I have no moral objections to coursing coyotes. Like I said, I've done it and enjoy it. But I bear the burden of getting permission for every place I hunt. This year, that meant five days of driving, over 800 miles, and all for 48 signatures and 20,000 acres. Those guys, if they want to continue doing as they enjoy doing, should pay the same price. My objections center around the fact that these guys are chronic law breekers. Trespassing. Criminal damage to property. Reckless riving. Unlawful stop and stand on highways and traveled roads. And, in my opinion, often times wanton waste of coyotes.

Just yesterday, I found where coyote hunters had removed a sixty foot section of four rung barbed wire fence so they can take a straight shot into a pasture rather than go a hundred feet further down the damned road and make a left turn into a gate with no chain or lock. This morning, I went to a place where I supposedly have sole permission for hunting after the close of deer season only to find all three gates into this place open and with truck tracks going in and out.

I constantly have to entertain the rage of landowners who endure erosion losses and soil compaction problems where coyote hunters have lost their cool in the heat of the chase and left the roadway in pursuit of a five dollar coyote. I've learned to ask, up front, if I may "call" coyotes on their land rather than "hunt" them. That way, at least half the time, I don't get an ass chewing for someone else.

Earlier this year, one of the local dog hunters lost track of his dogs after he'd dropped on a coyote. The dogs wandered around until they found a flock of sheep. The sheep bolted, the dogs did what comes ntaurally to them and the result was the entire flock was killed, as was the owners Australian shepard, which was only trying to do its job. Luckily, the owner was nearby and had a rifle with which he literally laid waste to the entire pack of greyhounds. The "hunter" showed up in time to see the last two of his prize pack take a 30-caliber round in the steamer.

In past decades, coyote hunting has been a minority sport, and one enjoyed primarily by dog hunters. Calling was in its infancy and very few, if any, landowners even knew what it was when I knocked on their door. I had to carry a call just to demonstrate and explain. Today, calling is quickly becoming the next "bowhunting" as people seek out new and more challenging forms of hunting. I'm both thrilled and frustrated at the numbers of know-nothings out there trying to squeal coyotes this year.

As the loathsome coyote gains greater favor with sportsmen, the methods by which it is pursued will undergo greater scrutiny. And when the callers organize and identify the dog people as the leading cause of why our coyotes have gone almost totally nocturnal and why, despite having more coyote this year than in the past, the calling has been the worst in years, there will be debates. And coursing coyotes will be placed in the public eye, as will the trespassing, the cut fences, the errant shots, and the generally poor public perception fo this method. In the end, it won't be the anti-hunters that outlaw coyote hunting from trucks. It will be the demands of growing numbers of callers who recognize the truck boys as the primary cause for the loss of quality in calling coyotes, at least in Kansas. And, then the dog hunters will go the way of surrounding a section of ground and driving the coyotes to the center.

Yeah, I agree. Their value is long gone and I wish the state would step up enforcement on the collateral violations these "hunters" commit.
 
well, for my .02 worth, it is Illegal here in Pa, to hunt use chase persue any and all wildlife, it is illegal to use a spotlight at night that is plugged into a vehicle, if you want to use a light thats fins but it must be a handheld light. I have personally arrested MANY so called "hunters" who hunt deer and turkey from the vehicle. I can say that I really enjoy it, there is not much that makes my day better than charging someone 346.00 for being a slob hunter. NOW before the can of worms gets opened any wider, I work as a Wildlife Conservation Officer so here it is illegal, if I were to work in a state that says its legal then I woulf feel differently. So its not just me I just enforce the laws here.
 
Lance,

You should be the Chief Spokesperson for your sport. I have never read a better post on this particular topic and then to have it come from a hound hunter makes it that much better.

Good Job,

CR
 
Well said, Lance...Lots of food for thought there. Once again, this goes to show me my ignorance of the details of the real problem in places where both chasing and calling is legal. And, once again, I probably just should have kept my pie-hole shut.
 
Well, here goes, I might as well admit that I grew up around grey hounds and still have family members that run them. My dad had them and he also had an airplane that was used for spotting, until it was out-lawed I beleive in "76" in Ks. We never shot the coyotes from the air, the plane was for spotting them only. I have ridden in a dog wagon many a time, and still do on occasion.
In the time that I have been around coyote hunting, things have changed. I can remember when a coyote was worth $60 or even more. And, when the fur prices were up there, everyone and thier grandma hunted them by what ever means they had. We saw problems all the time back then, wires cut, smoken' coyotes out of dens, shooting them in trickle tubes, trespassing, etc. But once fur prices dropped out, many of the the "money" hunters dropped out too, and a lot of the problems dissappeared. So, now the prices are coming back up, and so here comes the "money" hunters again, hoping to get in on the action. As far as this quote,
there is no way in hell that these guys have secured permission to hunt on all that land.
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I have to dissagree. I know for a fact that my family members that run grey hounds know who the owner is of EVERY piece of land and has touched base with them about hunting there. They are farmers, have farmed and lived there all of thier lives and know exactly where they can and can't hunt. Simple as that. Oh, I'm sure there are guys that don't know and don't care whos land they are on, but there are guys that know who owns every piece and secure permission to hunt on it. Something else to concider, just because the pick-up might have non-local plates, doesn't mean they don't have permission to hunt. I say that because one thing my family members do is go to differant areas to hunt with differant guys, and the local guys will ride with them to make sure that they know where they can and can't hunt. Just something to concider.
Although I grew up around it and enjoy doing it every now and then, I also beleive the guys that do it are a dying breed, and it probably is on the way out.
I really miss the days of flying over head to watch the action below. It never ceased to amaze me what the coyotes could do to elude the grey hounds, and there were even a few that could just flat out, out run the grey hounds. I saw coyotes that would simply lay down before the hounds got to it, grey hounds are 99% sight dogs, and they won't chase what they can't see. I saw coyotes do what we called "whip a fence", which means the coyote would simply run along a fence and go through it every time the hounds got close, a coyote can go through a fence much quicker than a grey hound, and many times the grey hounds would tire and quit the coyote. If the coyote could get to high standing anything, crops, CRP grass, plum thickets, it would usually evade capture, and even saw a few coyotes simply stop and run right back through the grey hounds and keep from getting caught. So, getting hounds on the ground near a coyote doesn't mean "done deal", it just means the chase is on.
I guess I have to say I accept hounds hunters, at least the few good ones that are left, as I know there are bad ones, just as there are bad hunters in every aspect of hunting, there are bad preachers, bad teachers, bad policeman. Hopefully, the bad apples get what is coming to them, and the rest live long happy enjoyful lifes. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
My thoughts are biased and selfish. You can see I am from Iowa and the southwest part where we do have a some coyotes until the pickup hunting groups get out, with or without dogs. You can bet coyote behavior changes when that kind of pressure hits them. It is legal to do it that way but all the other posts have listed the common illegal actions that go along with this style of hunting(?).
Years ago I hunted with a group of older farmers, age 50+, that did a lot of walking drives on foot to guys on stand. Only about 6 people max. and everyone knew where the other person was. We didn't drive much off the road onto private property and always knew the land owners where we hunted. Most of our hunting was on foot. I don't know of any groups today in my area who hunt like this now.

The only methods I use in Iowa are calling and tracking/stalking after a snow. Once the pickup hunters come out, I try to find property that they can't get on and stay out of their way. I had one of their leaders come up to me about 9 AM one morning when I was just getting ready to go into a 1 x 1 mile sq. section of land and tell me they were coming there in about 15 minutes with a dozen pickups and wanted me to be careful if I was going into that section. After looking at my snow camo outfit, I decided to go to another section.

Regards.
 
Thank you songdog for correcting the "theres no way they have permission" crap. Dont know if these guys have been out to central, or western ks but there is still a lot of large tracts of land where we run coyotes. And you would be surprised how many farmers just want the coyotes dead, and unless you can kill 20-30 coyotes a day calling, they just might opt for the coyote wagons to come in!! There are many exceptions and lots of farmers who have been burned by fence busters or livestock chasers but many still value the way.

And i for one hope this sport doesnt "die" out, just like i hope that the sport of calling coyotes or turkey hunting doesnt.
 
I was going to chime in again sooner but for some reason am having trouble posting.

I guess I opened at least a “small” can of worms with this topic and I just wanted to share a couple of additional thoughts on the subject.

We have to remember as hunters we are in the minority in this country. There are entire organizations who are dedicated to taking this sport away from us. These groups don’t always tell the truth in their efforts to curb hunting and or firearms but in some cases we are our own worst enemies. People make decisions based on perceptions and if their perception of coyote hunting is people chasing these “poor little animals” across a field with a pick up and then gunning them down out the window the result won’t be positive. We will all be painted with the same brush regardless of how we are hunting coyotes.

Personally I don’t have a problem with people who hunt this way if they have permission from the landowner. The problem is when you are in hot pursuit of a coyote there isn’t time to get permission for every piece of ground, you’ll lose the coyote. Most people who hunt this way will pursue wherever the coyote goes, it’s human nature, and so at some point they will trespass and possibly give yet another non hunter a negative perception of hunters and hunting.

As a landowner and a hunter maybe I have a different perspective than some of you but without the landowner non of us are going to have anyplace to enjoy this sport. We need to get the jerks out of hunting period.
 
i guess i might as well get in to. just because some are bad apples dont mean we all are. i have spent many days just driving and nocking on doors asking to hunt. i run hounds here in iowa.if i see the game heading for land that i cant hunt i try and turn the yote. if it goes on that land i stay away from crossings to let it get out of there. i dont shoot in front of the hounds any more and that has saved me a big head ack in the long run. but i still get called from farmers telling me they have problems with yotes and if i dont shoot to not come over. i have shot one yote in the last 3 years. and i have taking over 60 yotes in those years. all have been legal. not all of us are out laws.

Vargy
 
Most people who hunt this way will pursue wherever the coyote goes, it’s human nature, and so at some point they will trespass and possibly give yet another non hunter a negative perception of hunters and hunting.
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Whoa there big boy thats a pretty broad and may I say "non-educated" statement. Unless you have done a nation wide study, and if you did i think you forgot to poll Vargy, myself, and many other, that is a BS statement how do YOU know what most people will do or not do! Human nature huh, well then i guess all call hunters would probably shoot out the window if they see one no matter where it was right, just human nature they hunt them so they would surely shoot RIGHT. Dont think so!

Just think you might study up on hunter ethics before you make such statement! I know more than MOST that would never follow a coyote on to private land with a truck, or turn dogs out on a coyote on land they couldnt hunt.
 
Ileft something out of my earlier post! In New Mexico, it IS illegal to harrass, pursue, etc. a game animal with a motor vehicle, BUT the coyote is NOT considered a game animal. Hence, motorized pursuit IS legal, WITH THE LANDOWNERS PERMISSION!!! My policy is - don't tear up the pasture with tire tracks, and you can chase 'em.
Hope you catch some.
Save my calves!!!
Mark
 
bigcat fhsu

My apologies for my “uniformed” statement.

I should have said something along the lines of, “the individuals who I’ve seen driving through stubble in my area looking for coyotes and those whose mess I’ve fixed after they’ve blown through a 3 or 4 wire fence, did not seem to be concerned with whose land they were on once they were in pursuit of a coyote”.

Or I should have spoke to the times I’ve put cattle back in after greyhounds in pursuit of a coyote ran through the herd.

I guess my frustrations are showing.

Glad you don’t have these problems in Kansas.
 
I agree with mg totally. I don't think chasing down animals and shooting them from vehichles is hunting. It is this kind of stuff that gives hunters a bad name and anti's another reason to
want to stop hunting. I bet most of the guys that
do this wouldn't think twice about killing a deer
the same way. The government should also not be
aloud to shoot animals from a plane. If you are
gonna hunt atleast hunt by fair chase methods.
 
The government should also not be
aloud to shoot animals from a plane. If you are
gonna hunt atleast hunt by fair chase methods
Click to expand...
I don't think the government would call it hunting, they are there to rid an area of several animals in a short period of time, they aren't in it for the "sport", they are there to kill coyotes. It is a very effective means of doing just that. So, unless you've got a better solution to do what they can do very quickly, I'd say that they should be allowed to use arrial gunning.
 
How about them S.C. Panthers?

Since legalities will differ state to state, you can argue ethics all day long and the end result will still be the activities participation. This thread reminds me of one on rfc where a bunch of guys were advocating hunting deer with a rimfire. I spoke out against it and I was baffled by the amount of people who basicly told me I was out of line.

What are we left with?
Alot of guys chasing down prey with vehicles, would you say this is hunting? I say it is not. More like a slaughter. I'd like to say even if it was legal I would not participate. Perhaps it has something to do with the way I was raised or taught to hunt. Still, if you kill prey without hunting or trapping it, this says something about you. And while I'm not a judge or jury I can choose never to hunt with someone like that.

MG what happened to you just plain sucks. I don't think I would have done anything different in your shoes. And those guys who took off - it does show that most of these guys are just out to see what they can get away with, without concern about safty or damage. Now as far as the guys protecting their livestock, herds or property from predatation - I don't belive this thread was intended to attack you protecting your welfare, nor do I think anyone here would look down on you for taking the nessesary actions. But the fact is in that case you are not hunting either.
 
Intresting posts. Right now I am in the middle of securing permission in a whole new area to hunt. I have been at it for two weeks now and so far no one has turned me down. I hunt with hounds and enjoy the crap out of it. Lots of these new land owner want to come along and watch. I'm glad to say great to have you along for the hunt. About two more days and will have enough land to hunt it right with the dogs. I also know of some guys that will kick there dogs loose with only permission on 20 acres in the whole section. I will not hunt with these guys anymore. They have ruined more hunting spots than I will ever be able to get permission on during my time left here on earth. The worst part is, they don't give a rats a@#$%. Every sport has them, sad day when we see it.
 


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