Seasons mean different things to different people. For me it starts in late October to early November and ends around Valentines Day. I only hunt for fur so that is the only time frame I hunt in. Also I am with Ronald in people making some pretty windy claims. The only people that lie worse than fishermen are coyote hunters. LOL What coyotes count as yours any way? Is it what you kill personally or what you and your partner or partners killed in combination with yours? Can you count what your partner killed when he was not hunting with you but because he is your "partner" are they counted as yours also? A hunter's numbers can double or triple very easily using this mathematical formula. LOL
For example here is a picture of me and my partners fur we took one season. It is about 3 and a half months worth. Counting a pile of mangy ones that we could not skin we had well over 200 coyotes that "SEASON" In 01 we nearly had 300 coyotes between the two of us.
Now this picture is of yours truly with my "personal" take of about 135 (including mangy ones not pictured)
To get back to your question DAA is about spot on for a day in day out average for a caller in the west. In some parts of the east you might be doing real good to kill 1 coyote in ever two or three full days of calling. Now DAAs average of 2.25 per day of calling may not sound impressive but I am here to tell you that it is. He and I and a lot of people have had much bigger days than 2 or 3 coyotes but the more days you hunt the lower your average will be. That's just the way it works. My best days have brought me 12 and my worst have brought me zero. By the end of the season my average per day hunting will be below 3 per day. If you can pick and choose your days prior to weather fronts and have good areas to hunt you can average 4 or more a day easy enough but like I said earlier over the long haul your average will drop. Your honey holes will run dry, the weather will through you a curve once in a while and of course plain old bad luck will happen. If all you are interested in is killing then hunt is late August through mid September. If you choose to call a pup that still has some milk teeth a real "coyote then your coyote" kills per day will be much higher.
It is hard to set a bar on what is good or average or bad because everyone's hunting areas are different and coyote #s very greatly all over the Country. Major Boddicker breaks the numbers down very well in his excellent book "Critter Calling with the Major" On the very first page of his book he states...
"During August through October calling is often outstanding with averages of one or more predators called in per stand. The problem is, the fur isn't prime then. It the critters are killed they are worthless and not only the caller gets no return, but other users of the fur resource get no return. That is wasteful and not to be encouraged."
I firmly agree with that statement but the moral call is up to the individual. Major goes on to say that 3 to 6 predators per day could be expected in November/December and 1-3 per day in January/Feburuary. The least producing months are March/May with an 0-2 per day success rate.
As you can see there are a lot of variables involved but it is never a good idea to compare your numbers to other peoples. If you are killing more than 50% of what you call in and 80% of what you get a shot at you are statistically doing damn good no matter what time of year or what the body count is.
Hope this is what you were looking for.
Good luck this fur season.
Q,
