This weekend went to the dogs

DoubleLungRage

DoubleLungRage

Active member
Well...


This weekend belonged to the dogs. Me 0 - Dogs 2

Saturday night I went behind my house. Moon very bright, wind blowing in every direction on the compass, but hey.... I rather be hunting than sitting in the house. Put the call out about 70 yards from me and started off with a few howls to see if any would answer, got nothing. Switched to rabbit and about two minutes into it I scan the field and see something coming in. I look through the scope and it's a nice size coyote. He got to about 150 yards and switched directions on a dime. Pretty sure he smelled me. Stopped at around 300 yards. I threw a shot at him, but missed. If I knew the sucker was going to stay still for that long I could have zoomed in and refocused and probably got him. Oh yeah, my rifle fell off of my tripod too. Figured it was trashed, but I shot it the next day. It moved just a little to the right and that was it. Very impressed.

Sunday night I head down to the road to a place that I have called in everything, but a coyote. I even have called in this fox so many times that him and I are buddies. He's walked right up to me almost like a dog. So since I haven't called in any coyotes in this spot before, I'm not going to lie I was being a bit lazy. I walked the call out into the field only about 45-50 yards. This time I started with a rabbit call. The call had been running for about 2 minutes and I'm scanning the field, nothing. I put the scanner in my pocket and figured I'd play with the scope some. So I'm looking through the scope, looking at my call that's about 45-50 yards in front of me and BAM from the right a coyote stuck his nose to my call then took off. It happened so fast I am trying to find him in the scope, but he won't stop. When I finally seen him I put it on his nose and shot, but he just laughed and kept going. To get to my call where he came from he had to come out of the woods just as I stopped scanning. All I did was laughed and carried on to another spot, but didn't have any luck.
 
As long as you are learning, next time should be better. Coyotes winning is not unusual in eastern hunting, ask me how I know!
 
Don't worry, about the time you think you've made every mistake there is...............you'll find more. (Spoken from personal experience.:()
 
Oh yea, they can get on ya quick even when using the scanner. Like week said-ask me how i know. I would not want to hunt w/o a scanner.
 
It’s a rarity that I shoot a fox. But It’s hard for me to not watch them little guys when they come in. Several times I’ve been paying attention to the fox, or the Fisher, or the Raccoon off in the distance only to scan back towards the caller and see a coyote sticking its nose on the call or already exiting. Some of us never learn! 🤣
 
???? Why don't you shoot Fox and Raccoons ?? they are big time Predators, we don't have Red Fox in S.Texas but we have Grey Fox they and Coons are rough on ground nesting birds Quail and Turkey. Murl B.

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Murl B said:
???? Why don't you shoot Fox and Raccoons ?? they are big time Predators, we don't have Red Fox in S.Texas but we have Grey Fox they and Coons are rough on ground nesting birds Quail and Turkey. Murl B.
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Well Murl, I just don’t shoot foxes anymore because I figure they have a tough enough time dealing with the coyotes. Now raccoons are different and I do kill them when they’re within shooting distance and in season. We do have a season here in NY. Raccoons, Possums and Skunks eat lead pills when feasible for the reasons you mentioned.
 
Yeah, I learned about my 3rd time calling that you don’t hit that button until you have gun mounted and scope on and focused!
I hit the button while walking back after setting the caller out about 70yds or so and by the time I got on the gun and everything set, there was a coyote about 3ft from the call. He smelled my walking scent and spooked so bad he ran so close I thought he’d hit me. No, I didn’t even get a shot!
Lesson learned…have EVERYTHING set for the shot before touching that button.
 
AWS and I had a coyote come blasting between us on a stand down here in the desert. I think it kicked dirt on both of us, but neither of us got a shot at it for fear of shooting the other. :D
 
Murl B said:
???? Why don't you shoot Fox and Raccoons ?? they are big time Predators, we don't have Red Fox in S.Texas but we have Grey Fox they and Coons are rough on ground nesting birds Quail and Turkey. Murl B.

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I don't shoot foxes because we don't have many of them like we used to. The coyote is not native to South Carolina. It is believed that they would have eventually made it over the mountains on their own, but that process was overtaken by hound hunters illegally releasing them into the state because they gave a better hunt than the native fox. Our native red foxes are almost nonexistent now. They believe that the gray foxes' ability to climb tress is the only thing that has saved it. Also, (to my knowledge) foxes have not shown to be of any significance in any of the local predation studies. What was a HUGE surprise in a recent study done in the state is the effect that bobcats have on local fawn numbers.

As for coons. They have exploded to the point that it's insane. However, under our current laws it's almost impossible to kill a coon unless you are hunting them with dogs or trapping them both which have seasons. They need to have a few years of "coon kill off". The South Carolina wild turkey population is in dire need of this.
 
Georgia finally figured out the coons and possums are major predators to ground nesting birds and gave us year round hunting and trapping privileges.
Rumor has it they are going to allow night hunting with e-callers for fox and cats next year. Right now you can call them, but mouth calls only.
Our coyotes have always been fair game 365/24/7.
Our issue lies on public land. We actually have a coyote hunting period on my local WMA, but no night hunting. This is the same WMA I’ve ever seen actual predator trails. This place went from one of the best WMA’s to 3 turkeys killed in ‘22, 7 killed in ‘23, and lst time I checked only 1 killed in ‘24. This is a 20K acre property.
The only thing that gets a pass from me are Red’s. I grew up seeing nothing but Reds, cats, and a few Greys. Coyotes moved in and the Reds were wiped out. I catch a Red every 2 years or so and they always get released. I document it, it don’t charge for it. I’ve told all landowners releases or killing is at my discretion.
When it comes to coyotes and coons I have no moral issue on age or time of year when they’re trapped or hunted. Right now is the perfect time to really reduce those numbers.
 
Don't get even me started on dumb hunting laws. See, here in SC our hunting laws are actually made by the general assembly which is an assembly of politicians.....not biologist.
Coyotes/hogs - 24/7 on private land. public land can only be hunted whenever something else is in season. So whenever deer season goes out you can only hunt them with weapons that are legal for small game, ie. 22's, etc.

Coons - no e-caller. no lights unless treed by dogs. only during coon season.

Cats - no ecaller, only during season, only during day light.

South Carolina went from having so many turkeys that we would "give" them to other states to our season needing to be closed 5 years ago.
 
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