Originally Posted By: DAAOriginally Posted By: KizmoI don't know about out west, but I don't believe the unseen coyote gets educated around here. Everywhere I hunt, there are people all the time. Human scent is, I'm sure, everywhere. I don't believe it possible for a coyote to associate human scent with a sound for that reason.
It's very different in the areas I hunt. Very.
Human scent is not that common in the big majority of areas I hunt. Human activity, period, is unusual. Coyotes in general tend towards nuevo phobia, with some individuals displaying it to an extreme degree. Others much less, of course. But my experience leads me to believe that the coyotes around here do very much become educated to calling. Very much. I think it's probably as much to do with associating man smell and activity with the calling as anything. That's all they really need to learn, or be conditioned to - is that man smell and activity. Which, most coyotes around here instinctively fear. I don't know a single successful, experienced coyote hunter in my area that doesn't agree - coyotes DO get wise, around here.
But, of course, coyotes are highly variable, adaptable and individual. There simply are not any hard laws, no always, no never and everything has to be taken in very specific context. Even here, some don't wise up - but, those ones are almost all dead, by this time of year.
Another variable, a dynamic, that's different around here, that the above starts to touch on. Public land. It's a two edged sword. The bad side is that everyone can and does hunt the same ground you do.
You talk about only 10% coyote density in GA vs. the west. How about talking about 1000% coyote HUNTER density in the West vs. GA. It's not an exaggeration, though to the tyro I know it sounds wildly so, but, it's true, to say that "most" coyotes on public land in the West that are within reasonable striking distance of a population center, have been called to multiple times by Jan. And as a result, have become educated and difficult to call. Most of the virgin ears are dead by now and the ones that remain mostly are educated.
Again, that must sound nearly unimaginable that millions of acres could all be called multiple times in a season, but, it's true. Keeping in mind, most of the habitat is marginal and most of the coyote are concentrated in the better habitat, a million acres can be parsed down to a much smaller area of good coyote density - those are the good areas and everyone knows them and everyone hunts them. And by "everyone", I mean a LOT of predator hunters.
Just because it's not like this in GA, don't vastly over generalize and over simplify and extrapolate those circumstances to other areas with vastly different variables in play. I honestly don't think you can appreciate just how much pressure these public land coyotes get around here. I work in an office of white collar, generally not very outdoors oriented people and about 1/4 of the men coyote hunt with a call at least once or twice a year. There are many thousands of coyote hunters that live in the same city I do - Salt Lake, and we all hunt the same public ground. You can bet your Bippy that a lot of our coyotes associate prey distress with danger by January of every year!
Some of your other points, again, simply do not apply and would be considered "bad advice", for the areas I hunt. Like the part about howling in response to jackrabbit sound - my experience (over three decades of calling), is pretty consistently very, very different from what you describe. Howling to rabbit is common as dirt around here, for one thing - it happens on literally MOST morning stands, all season long. It's expected, not unusual. And the expectation created by it is not at all what you describe either. I don't doubt your description and observations are accurate for your area and your experiences, but, again, you can not apply them very widely, because they are pretty much exactly wrong, for my areas and what I have seen over 35 years of calling coyotes here.
I could go on and on. But it's a waste of my time. Most of this stuff, a guy just has to get out and figure out for himself. Because, as really the only point I'm trying to make here, is that coyotes are next to impossible to pigeon hole. You have to deal with the unique variables and circumstances in which you find them. And chances are, at least half of what you read on the internet, is going to be dead wrong, for those particular circumstances.
- DAA
its comments like that, that keep me coming back to this website. The thing about dave is he has been calling coyotes for as long as alot of guys have been alive. He got to see what it was like calling when 99.9% of people didn't even know you could call coyotes. oh my I could only imagine what the calling must have been like 20 years ago, in the BFE areas I hunt now days.
The reason so much public land gets called is because if you really look at the land, yes there are quite a few roads through it, but is there really that many?? and on those roads how many spots would make a decent spot to make a stand. What I have seen happen in the last really 5 years is that the locals in these remote areas are now coyote hunting too. I remember walking into a store in baggs wyoming a few years back and people saw I was camoed up and asked me what I was hunting. I said oh just a few coyotes. I would get a look like "what coyotes"?? why would you wanna do that. now if you go back into that same store I bet a dollar to a donut the same person would say, oh my uncle, or brother does that. This keeps us from being able to escape the crowds because if a local is out there and lives out there, they are going to be tearing up the joint. I have been walking into stands where we were actually very quiet on our approach but the place just erupted in threat/warning howls. No question these coyotes have been monkeyed with. They associated noises like this to human and danger. as I mentioned in another post if there are transient coyotes in the area that might come in normally. you have been cock blocked by the educated ones.