How would you hunt this property?

R

RSG223

Well-known member
I've seen these questions posed in the past and I know it's sort of a loaded question but I'll ask anyway. How you set up on this property based on the dominate wind direction. The property has a real high spot where the "wind" mark is and slopes hard in all directions as shown with red arrows into a deep valley. The predominant wind is marked with a yellow arrow. I thought I had it figured out but got winded by a coyote for which I never even saw till I walked up on it's tracks over my snowshoe trail. The problem with setting up on the top are is you can't see over the slope in any direction.

Thanks in advance
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I would wait and call that when the wind was out of a southerly direction. If i was day calling i would look for a place to setup with a shotgun in the gold box;

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If i was calling at night with thermal I would check to see if i had visibilty in one of these two gold boxs, I dont know how big that land is without a scale bar, but i would possibly make 2 sets in both areas;

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I agree in cutting it into 2 sets. I would stay off the hill and go mid slope or near the top. On every property your gonna lose the downwind so I just roll with that and try to setup where I can see downwind. Hopefully getting on them before they bust me.
 
Thanks for the responses so far! I've included a revised map as i didn't until now I can hunt all the way to the end of the red line. It slopes into a deep valley at the junction. I've only just started hunting this property this winter so I'm still learning it. It's huge and the white arrow shows where I've been concentrating my calling as the width of this property is about a mile wide and there's' several miles deep consisting of bush and farm land.

@Infidel 762 , thanks for the suggestions. I can only hunt during the day here, both those locations are spots I've never even thought of setting up.

@Kwarw1 , I do avoid setting up on the top of the hill but so far I've set up over the crest of the hill in the "X" (As in the pic below and that's when I got winded
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I’m with Infidel on both setting up close to the road for that wind. Or possibly slipping along the rivers edge to get a little deeper and creating a crosswind setup.

Use the coyote tracks that crossed yours as intel as well. Wherever that guy came from will tell you where they may come from again.
 
I hunt a lot of land laid out exactly like that, and with them getting ready to start denning, those blue-shaded areas are where I’d be looking first. If I was a coyote, that’s where I’d set up a den—buffered from roads and houses, with cover, water, and everything they need close by.

That large river also looks like a hard territorial boundary. In my area, with cover like that, you’ll often find family groups with overlapping territories, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see different groups tolerating each other with dens within a half mile.

I look at the edges of that cover as “getting inside their bubble”—that’s what triggers the territorial response. I’d target it by either slipping just inside the cover with a shotgun and letting my scent blow out into an open field, or setting up 100–200 yards off the edge with the call far enough out to stop them if they break cover. I’d also anticipate them hanging up on the edge to locate the sound, which usually gives you a clean rifle shot.

I can’t tell you the exact setup until I’m standing there and reading the room—finding the vantage points, the lanes, and a solid backstop to work in front of.

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Thanks for the response guys!

@Infidel 762 , thanks for the additional details. You have a keen eye for the denning sites as this is an old gravel pit with lots of old piles of stone, tree debris and so on, the blue area you shaded is the deepest section of the area making it a sanctuary from the rest of the world (so to speak) with some forested patches as well.

Does anyone think there's enough area here to make two stands? Or should they hear the call and draw from the whole area to one spot?
 
RSG223 said:
Thanks for the response guys!

@Infidel 762 , thanks for the additional details. You have a keen eye for the denning sites as this is an old gravel pit with lots of old piles of stone, tree debris and so on, the blue area you shaded is the deepest section of the area making it a sanctuary from the rest of the world (so to speak) with some forested patches as well.

Does anyone think there's enough area here to make two stands? Or should they hear the call and draw from the whole area to one spot?
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For daytime hunting, you can absolutely make multiple stands in that area. Just keep in mind that they’re far less likely to cross wide open fields during daylight the way they might at night.

With breeding season in full swing and denning season about to begin, they typically won’t travel as far to respond to a call. That’s why “getting in their bubble” is so important. It means setting up close to the core area they’ve established to raise their young.

Think of it like stepping into a dog’s yard and barking. That dog is going to respond faster, harder, and more aggressively when you’re inside the fence than if you’re barking from down the street. The same principle applies here — close the distance, get inside their space, and you’ll increase your odds of a strong response.
 
Infidel 762 said:
Think of it like stepping into a dog’s yard and barking. That dog is going to respond faster, harder, and more aggressively when you’re inside the fence than if you’re barking from down the street.
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Good analogy! I've mentioned in the past that I've hunted coyotes for close to 35 years now (on and off) and only with hand calls (prey distress) so this e-calling with coyote vocals is new to me (two seasons now). We also don't have the population density you do down farther south, so my learning curve is going to be very slow.
 
LOL....my luck! I hunted that property again today and this time I set up in the middle, the wind was from the north NW so I thought I was in perfect position. After calling for 5 minutes I see a coyote running away at full tilt about 600 yards from me directly down wind. It blows my mind how he could have winded me so far away and as you can see by the one pic it almost 300' lower elevation. How did my scent drift that far and that low?
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spotstalkshoot said:
Is the river frozen over? So the coyote came from where Jeremy said they would and you setup upwind of them?
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No, there's a section through the middle that prevents them from crossing. You can't see the river in that pic as it's much father back, in fact it's right behind the red X. I choose that spot because I was calling to the right of that pic based on wind direction yesterday, as it goes for miles in that direction. I never anticipated a coyote to be where it was. I guess I'm going to start trying to set up way to the left of this pic next time. It's just very difficult to get there, hence why I haven't yet.
 
Coyote really like the old gravel pits, spoil piles. Great den sites, lots of rabbits, mice and grasshoppers(important pup prey in my area).
 
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