Varminterror
New member
I'm surprised more people haven't had this experience, but it's pretty common that animals will use the clear cut of the tracks as a path for travel. When you think about it, it actually makes sense. It's quiet to travel down and the rail berm offers a high ridge to use for visibility, but also offers cover to let animals travel low without being seen. Where the tracks penetrate dense woods, it's one of the only open spots to make travel easier on them.
I spent a lot of time calling along tracks when I was younger and always thought they were an advantage.
Highways, in my experience, are even better for calling, but for different reasons. Frankly, the bad nature of people makes the ditches on highways just outside of towns a great place for predators to get food. I use red-tailed hawks as indicators. If there are red-tailed hawks on the powerline poles or fences along the highways, that means there is a food source there that's good for both the hawks and for coyotes. If I see a ton of hawks along a patch of highway, I fight pretty hard to get permission to scout coyotes near there and at least look for sign. Sometimes the hawks are there because the coyotes aren't competing with them, so you won't find sign, but usually it's a good indicator of a great place to call coyotes that have very little fear of vehicles or people.
I spent a lot of time calling along tracks when I was younger and always thought they were an advantage.
Highways, in my experience, are even better for calling, but for different reasons. Frankly, the bad nature of people makes the ditches on highways just outside of towns a great place for predators to get food. I use red-tailed hawks as indicators. If there are red-tailed hawks on the powerline poles or fences along the highways, that means there is a food source there that's good for both the hawks and for coyotes. If I see a ton of hawks along a patch of highway, I fight pretty hard to get permission to scout coyotes near there and at least look for sign. Sometimes the hawks are there because the coyotes aren't competing with them, so you won't find sign, but usually it's a good indicator of a great place to call coyotes that have very little fear of vehicles or people.