Tournament Results/ Questions

D

daybuck

New member
Hunted a predator tournament in Southwest Va. last night. A typical tournament would be 4 coyotes and maybe a bob-cat or a couple foxes would win with multiple teams having multiple coyotes. There were 13 teams that hunted and it probably covered 4 counties. Each team probably averaged 8 to 10 sets throughout the night. 8am check-in. The conditions weren't the best for a tournament as the moon was close to full but it was overcast all night. Temperatures were in the mid to upper 30s all night. Light wind. Forecast was for rain in the morning.
My brother and I hunted together as a team but saw no coyotes and only heard coyotes on 2 of the 8 sets we hunted and they were in a different zip code. We hunted properties that are usually if not always productive. Nothing...zero. We decided not to go to the check-in since it was 2 counties away. The organizer of the tournament reported this morning that NO coyotes were killed by any team and the winner killed a single bob-cat. Never has this happened before. Probably north of 100 sets combined between each team and everybody has the same result. I know that sometimes fish bite and at other times they don't, but this is a head scratcher for me. Whats your theory on such a poor night for predator hunting?
 
Gee may I don't suck as bad as I think, if you guys in Erie are struggling maybe there's hope for me in north central PA. I'll just get after them harder, hope things turn around for everybody soon, good luck and be safe out there.
 
You hunt a contest and only make 8–10 sets? We hunted a contest last month and ground it out from sunrise to sunset. We didn’t kill a bobcat until last light. A cold front had just pushed through and the wind was howling. If I’d been pleasure hunting, I wouldn’t have even gone out—everything was locked down. Even the deer we saw were bedded in windbreaks. Nothing was moving.

Pleasure hunting is a whole lot nicer—you get to choose when to go out based on weather conditions.

We saw a couple coyotes out past 400 yards. The wind was blowing so hard the coyotes didn’t even know they were being shot at. My partner runs a ballistic calculator for long-range shots, but after a few rounds he shut it down—said he had no idea how much the wind was pushing the bullet.

We set up tight to where we knew they’d be laid up and kept our stands short. If they didn’t show fast, we were already moving to the next set.
 
Infidel 762 said:
You hunt a contest and only make 8–10 sets? We hunted a contest last month and ground it out from sunrise to sunset. We didn’t kill a bobcat until last light. A cold front had just pushed through and the wind was howling. If I’d been pleasure hunting, I wouldn’t have even gone out—everything was locked down. Even the deer we saw were bedded in windbreaks. Nothing was moving.

Pleasure hunting is a whole lot nicer—you get to choose when to go out based on weather conditions.

We saw a couple coyotes out past 400 yards. The wind was blowing so hard the coyotes didn’t even know they were being shot at. My partner runs a ballistic calculator for long-range shots, but after a few rounds he shut it down—said he had no idea how much the wind was pushing the bullet.

We set up tight to where we knew they’d be laid up and kept our stands short. If they didn’t show fast, we were already moving to the next set.
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We hunted 8 sets, prime sets that we knew held coyotes and stayed on each set for about 45 minutes. Driving time between sets adds up as we hunted in 2 SW Virginia counties. My point was if 13 teams averaged that many sets and everybody reported that they didn't see or hear anything (other than the one bob cat kill), then what, in your opinion caused them to be locked down? It seemed like the perfect night, other than the cloud covered moon. Most other times there would have been 15 or 20 coyotes killed across all teams.
 
daybuck said:
We hunted 8 sets, prime sets that we knew held coyotes and stayed on each set for about 45 minutes. Driving time between sets adds up as we hunted in 2 SW Virginia counties. My point was if 13 teams averaged that many sets and everybody reported that they didn't see or hear anything (other than the one bob cat kill), then what, in your opinion caused them to be locked down? It seemed like the perfect night, other than the cloud covered moon. Most other times there would have been 15 or 20 coyotes killed across all teams.
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I have no idea what caused them to be so locked down or why nobody else was able to call anything in and get it killed. There are simply too many variables you could point to. On the hunt I’m referring to, we made 12–14 stands back-to-back without calling in a single thing. We were feeling defeated, and at one point I was wishing I hadn’t even agreed to hunt. We just kept grinding.

When we later went back and looked at the timestamps on our kill videos, we realized the most productive stretch of the entire hunt came during a four-hour window—from 9:30 to 1:30.

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The night before, a strong cold front had moved in, and I’d guess that may have had everything locked down—but that’s only a guess. If I go looking for a specific condition to explain an unsuccessful hunt, I’ll always find one. The problem is that the very same condition can produce the opposite result on another hunt. Nothing is ever set in stone. Once you start treating conditions as absolute, it can keep you from heading out on hunts that would have ended up being productive.
 
I see a lot of deer hair in scat for several weeks after our firearms deer season. Coyote don't hit baits much and they aren't as vocal. I believe they aren't on their feet as much, full bellies aren't made for running. Which means getting close before calling, getting too close and your busted.
 
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