How do I find a good Coyote set up in sagebrush?

H

happypappy

New member
I live in Rexburg, ID and the only thing around is sagebrush until you get into the mountains up by Island Park (I don't know if anyone even hunts yotes in the mountains but let me know what you got if you do).

When looking for a good place to set up, what do you look for in sagebrush? I'm from Illinois where there's corn fields and tree lines, a little different from here. Everyone says "wind is the most important thing, don't call upwind of them", but how does that apply when I don't know which way they're gonna come from in the middle of the desert where everything is the same. They're not holed up or napping in any certain area, they're just everywhere around you if I understand correctly. Do I just call and look downwind, do I get on a small lava rock mesa, should I drive up to the mountains and sit with my back to them? I want to get educated before I educate them first.

I'm stumped, any help would help!
 
Get a ghille sapper and sit on high ground with a cross wind or wind in your face.

Don't move and you can sit anywhere you please.
 
Here goes.

Sage is not tight sea of brush, it has structure, maybe less defined than farmland in the Midwest. But there are openings, grass filled drainages, bowls, ridges, gullies, and where your at exposed basalt outcroppings. Learning to use natural features for blocking, roads, irrigation canals, ridges, farm fields can all be used to block coyotes. They have a tendency to stay in the sage where they are safe rather than crossing open spaces to get to our caller. I have a saying, "It is easier to call coyotes in the brush than try and call them out of it". Find some elevation that lets you look down into the sage. Hunt openings in the sage. Ariel views of the area you plan to hunt are good to find openings, Google Earth, Onx maps and even real-estate sights have satellite views of the ground. Scouting out stands before you hunt can be a big help as you are not wandering around in the sage trying to find a stand on the day you want to hunt.

Remote callers are heaven sent in the sage as the action is going to be close and you want the coyote focused on the caller not you. I find directional callers(speakers facing one direction) a big help also, I find many of the responding coyote will come in from the direction the caller is facing. this might be a phenomena of the fact I've been doing this long enough that I have a pretty good idea where the critter will be coming from and instinctively face my caller that direction.

Cross wind is your friend, facing down wind will have a coyote in your scent cone long before you ever see him. Facing into the wind if you can get your caller out far enough that he can circle downwind and be between you and the caller.

With crosswinds or quartering winds I will set my caller on the upwind side of the opening and set up so I can see the coyote poke his head out of the brush to look into the opening or trot up the length of the opening. It doesn't always work, I did have a coyote sit down four feet from me and look out and watch the same opening I was.

Decoys are a something that can be a help or hindrance, I find spinning decoys on the ground can be a problem a coyote coming through the sage can't see and is relying on his ears and nose, coming out of the brush and finding something spinning in his face can really spook him. Small decoys off the ground where they can be seen from a distance seem to work better for me.

Guns and optics, ranges are going to be shorter most of the time well under 100 yards and sometimes as close as your shoe laces, sounds like shotguns but there will be many times the coyote will hang up at the edge of an opening or you will find a plase that the sage is thinner and you can see them coming farther. I like to use combo guns O/U rifle/shotgun or fast handling rifle with scope that have very large FOV's for faster target acquisition and being able to track moving animals in the sage and see enough ahead of him to spot and opening for a shot before he gets there. I really like scopes with at least a 45' FOV and prefer a lot more, my 1-4x20's got to 100' and still have the 4x to shoot accurately out to 300 yards so my combos wear 1-4x20's , my bolt action 1.5-6x40's and I'm playing with 2-12x42's with a 55" FOV on the bottom end.

Good luck to you and have fun.


Fun in the sage
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There is a lot of different sage also, tops of ridge where water runs off will a lot of time have sage that is less than knee high, lower places can have shoulder high sage.


Large flats of sage like this can be a sanctuary for coyotes as many hunters bypass it because they can't see into the next zip code.
UrYXtJ.jpg


There are places to hunt this you just have to find them.
 
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What AWS said.

Except I don't have a combo gun. If unsure, I like my AR with 2-10 Firedot on 2x. If I know it's a shotgun stand, well, shotgun.

- DAA
 
That is some great advice from AWS!

Make sure you have a shotgun when you are calling coyotes where there are lots of sage brush or junipers on flat land. With a shotgun you can find a decent calling spot quickly and easily. There are many great places to call coyotes with a shotgun that are terrible rifle calling locations.

I want to be able to see 30 to 40 yards to make shotgun calling stands. I really like the feeling of knowing if I see a coyote, it is in range and I can shoot it with my shotgun.

When you park your vehicle on flat land, check the wind direction before you walk away from your vehicle. Many years ago I figured out if I walk straight against the wind and set my e-caller about 10 to 15 yards straight against the wind from where I am going to lay down or sit down, I have more coyotes run right in on me in good shotgun range.

If you stay in that straight against the wind mode your scent trail will be a very narrow one. If you have your vehicle, yourself and your e-caller in a straight line you have a much better chance of the coyotes not smelling you, your vehicle or your e-caller.

If the sage brush is 2-1/2 to 3 feet tall and on flat ground you don't have to walk all that far away from your vehicle or have a great hiding spot for your vehicle. When I walk away from my vehicle 200 yard to 300 yards, I turn around and look at my vehicle and then crouch down to get my eyes down at about the height of coyotes eyes. If I can no longer see my vehicle because of the sage brush being in the way, I know I have walked far enough away from my vehicle to start calling.

If the brush is not high enough to hide me when I sit down I like using a firm home made packing camo pillow to prop my head up or lean it up against a bush so I can recline back against the pillow so my head is not sticking up higher than the bush I am sitting in front of.
PICT0011 by [/url], on Flickr
In the above picture my son is laying down with the camo packing pillow holding his head up.
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In this above picture my son is raising up from the pillow, getting ready to shoot the coyote that didn't know he was there.
 
More good stuff, love your layout set up but I'm getting too old to try and get all the way down to ground level, even getting out of a sleeping bag on the ground is getting to be a chore.

Sometimes thinking out of the box can put fur in your lap.
 
Super good advice from both of you, I love this forum. I'll have to read all of these 3 times and then go make mistakes and read them again before I get it all, but at least I'll get it!
Thanks guys!
 
Also.. If you use a electronic caller make sure you clean all human scent off it. I squirt the area with fox urine and drop some lure.

I also rub sage brush in my hands as a cover scent.

The little details can make a difference. Not always but can be the difference.
 
As an ex-trapper, I understand scents and keeping equipment clean but when it comes to calling I think we over-think this. Callers are a hard surface, we don't interact with a caller very much(exposing them to our scent) so they aren't major sources of scent, a coyote has to be quite close to even know it is there. I've had coyotes jump up in brush and grab callers and pull them down, walk up and stare at the caller trying to figure out the sound, circle callers at a few yards and just trot off. I run my decoys elevated and have had two coyotes leap four feet in the air and grab them.

I think the scent factor on a caller or decoy is such a minimal factor that the time dealing with it would be better spent putting in more stands or finding stands more stands to hunt.

I do understand the confidence factor in hunting. If a person thinks something works for them it will and changing things will put them off their game.
 
Originally Posted By: SoftpointAlso.. If you use a electronic caller make sure you clean all human scent off it. I squirt the area with fox urine and drop some lure.

I also rub sage brush in my hands as a cover scent.

The little details can make a difference. Not always but can be the difference.

The coyotes I call up to my e-caller are coming in from the up wind side. They can't smell my e-caller until they get to the down wind side of it and that would put them about 8 to 18 yards away from me.

When calling in close areas where you can't see very far you might as well watch the up wind side of your e-caller because most coyotes won't get close to you from the straight down wind side. The only down wind I watch when hunting coyotes where I can't see very far is the down wind between me and my e-caller.

Coyotes can get within a foot or less of your e-caller if they approach it from the up wind side.
IMG_2580 copy by [/url], on Flickr
[url=https://www.flickr.com/gp/156463377@N08/9h2561 t=_blank]IMG_0859 - Copy by [/url], on Flickr
[url=https://www.flickr.com/gp/156463377@N08/6Q48dz t=_blank]IMG_2240 - Copy by https://www.flickr.com/photos/156463377@N08/, on Flickr
The coyotes in the above pictures came in on the upwind side of me and my e-caller so they couldn't smell me or my e-caller.

I try to keep my walking path and my vehicle on my straight down wind side.


AWS, I now have to use a reclining ramp with my pillow on it or a low reclining turkey hunting chair because I can't sit up from a flat position anymore. LOL

My using a bi-pod on my rifle in prone position days are also about over.
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AWS and others already gave you great advice. I'll still put in my $0.02.

I grew up hunting all the areas around Rexburg and still hunt that area on a regular basis when I visit family. You have plenty of good places to call on public land. There are small hills, depressions and/or openings in almost all of that sage. There are many small hills in the sage country north of St. Anthony, around Mud Lake and Dubois that give you some elevation. As mentioned by others a shotgun can be helpful in the bigger sage because the coyotes could sneak into less than 20 yards before you see them. Those areas with big sage that are best hunted with a shotgun can be very productive because the coyotes feel safe coming in. In open areas they will hang up or do large circles to get the wind when coming in. There was an interesting study done on radio collared coyotes on the INEL West of Rexburg that showed how coyotes circle just out of sight.

There are coyotes all over the mountains in Idaho. However, I do think most of the best coyote habitat in Eastern Idaho is in the sage or has at least some sage near by. The Island Park area you mentioned does have a bunch of coyotes. There won't be as many coyotes in the thick timber areas but there will still be a few. If I was calling coyotes in Island Park I would be focusing on areas that have sage and clear cuts. With a predator call in Island Park you never know what might show up. You could have a coyote, fox, bobcat, wolf, black bear, grizzly bear or mountain lion come in to your call. Personally I wouldn't want to call in a grizzly bear to 15 yards when all I have is my 223. I would make some adjustments to the areas I choose to call in Island Park. In grizzly country I would also think about bringing a friend, a bigger gun and bear spray.

If you are looking for areas to go, send me a message and I could give you a number of ideas.

Attacked is a picture of an Eastern Idaho coyote that I came across while scouting for deer about 3-4 weeks ago.
hcgk5t-N5-Rf24-Kie-Ly-ROp-FA.jpg
 


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