Sorry I'm so late to post my information and pictures, but "better late than never," I hope!!!
I got this idea out of a Fur-Fish-Game Magazine many years ago. The skeleton of this decoy is made out of 3/4" PVC pipe. I used a piece about 2.5' long for the backbone that runs from the middle of the shoulders to where the tail starts. There is a 4-way T-fitting at the shoulder area so you have short pieces of PVC pipe running to the left and right arm pit area and those pieces are topped off with a 90º elbow into which you fasten the PVC pipe that serves as the legs. There is another piece of PVC pipe running up to the forehead of the coyote with a 90º elbow on the end of that piece. At that 90º elbow I placed a piece of PVC pipe about 9" long and cut the end that holds the nose out straight at about a 45º angle.
Hopefully, you'll be able to get a better idea what I'm talking about by looking at the attached photos. One thing this "Hairy the Coyote" decoy needs is a fuller looking body. I may try to put foam rubber inside the case skinned hide or even try styrofoam. I'm still in the experimental stages.
I built this decoy about 15 years ago and have never called in a coyote when I had Hairy with me. On March 8, 2003, my partner from Bismarck, ND and I were out SW of Mandan, ND. It was very, very, very windy with the wind out of the NW at maybe 20 to 25 mph. The temperature was a few degrees below zero that morning. We called into the wind on our first stand of the day and almost froze our faces off! The next place we called we walked in to the SE of the vehicle so we could look to the SE, S, & SW. I set up "Hairy" to the West of me, placed my partner to the east of me about 40 yards and started calling with the wind. I used my homemade howler which consists of a cow horn with a Bill Austin Howler glued in it and I also used the Pee Wee Critr' call for some rabbit distress sounds.
At about the 18 minute mark my partner lip squeaked to tell me there was an incoming critter. The coyote was south of us and a little bit west of being straight downwind of us, but about 400+ yards a way. Believe it or not, the coyote stopped when he lip squeaked and looked right up at him (he had his scope turned up to 18x and was watching when he lip squeaked). Now fellows, remember, there is a 20+ mph breeze blowing! Do coyotes have good hearing? You bet they do!!!
Anyway, I did two low volume challenge calls and a few coyote pup in distress sounds on the howler and the coyote stood still, watching. Then I did some high pitched rabbit distress sounds on the Critr' Call. The coyote moved towards us about 25 yards and stopped broadside. Granted, we were still about 400 yards away, but it sure looked like this coyote had come about as close as he would get. We didn't know exactly where our scent cone was wafting, so my partner took the shot--a hope and a prayer kind of shot and missed.
I don't have a clue whether the decoy helped or hindered. It would be interesting to know if it was a male or female coyote. Maybe it was a female and my challenge howls didn't set well with her? Here's a side view of Hairy. He's probably ugly enough to scare away any coyote with half a brain /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
This is a closeup of the PVC pipe that sits inside his snout and keeps his snoze out straight.
Last, this is a picture of Hairy laying on his back so you can see the PVC pipe used for the front legs and the snout.
