setups at nght

H

HARD_TIMES

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What is the best way to set up on an open field at night? the field is about 40 acres with a hill on the east and west sides there is a reedbreak with small hardwood timber about 50yds wide coming from N to S out to the middle of the field. Need help they howl about 3 nights a week.
 
Hi Hard Times, In my opinion you will have to pay close attention to the wind. In western pa I have learned that they just dont come out in a field for no reason at least this time of season, so I do most of my hunting in the woods. It would be nice to set up like the videos we watch and have them just come out of the woods in into a clear shot. It just dosent seem to be working that way for me...Are you using a call and what time of the night do you hunt.
 
Yes I'm using rabbit calls. thought about house cat sounds or chicken sounds because there is a house with a chicken yard about 200yds across the field from the reed break. wish I could figure out how to load pictures off a camera to show a picture of what I'm facing.
 
A picture would be great... but try Google Earth. its free and a great program to mark and share hunting spots. You can send a link and i could see a satelite view or your hunting spot. Its great. Go to Google search and type in Google Earth and download the program to your pc it is great for hunters.
 
Try to give them a way to use cover to check your wind, at night they will always try to rely on their noses first. I use the edges of cover and try to get my wind to blow wide of the cover so they don't have to go across half a field to check the wind. When they step just out of the cover you should be able to connect with them. I try to setup about 90-100 yards away from the edges. I use ditches, unmowed grass, hedgerows etc to coax them along. If it is comfortable for them they tend to utilize the cover. There was an articke in Predator Extreme a while ago with some pictures of setups I put together, send me your e-mail and I'll send those photo's to you.- Matt McDonald
 
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Try to give them a way to use cover to check your wind, at night they will always try to rely on their noses first. I use the edges of cover and try to get my wind to blow wide of the cover so they don't have to go across half a field to check the wind. When they step just out of the cover you should be able to connect with them. I try to setup about 90-100 yards away from the edges. I use ditches, unmowed grass, hedgerows etc to coax them along. If it is comfortable for them they tend to utilize the cover. There was an articke in Predator Extreme a while ago with some pictures of setups I put together, send me your e-mail and I'll send those photo's to you.- Matt McDonald



--Matt,
That 2/08 PX article about you and your hunting partner's system was just incredible! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/bowingsmilie.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/bowingsmilie.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/bowingsmilie.gif

I made detailed notes and created Google Earth diagrams applying it to some of my areas, with various wind directions.

I'm from the west originally and have only got a few years into calling Easterns in this very different terrain here than what I'm used to and I can see why your system works.

I can't wait to give it a try here in MD. That was very generous of you guys to share your technique with the rest of us. Thank you! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinning-smiley-003.gif
 
It's hard to explain but I think Andrew Lewand did an exceptional job at conveying the idea. We're glad to pass along anything that works for us. Sometime I'll try to get some pictures up also. Thanks for the good words- Matt McDonald
 
Man, you guys sound all fancy to me. I've been hunting at night with a partner for a long time, it's the only way to go. True story that a coyote well almost always try to wind you at night.
It really don't matter what time it is at night, if the coyote is hungry and they usually are they well come calling.


You got 40 acres of open land to make a stand on, that sounds easy to me. Get in the middle of the field with your caller and press the button.
The coyote or coyotes should show up heading to the downwind side of the stand.
40 acres ain't much hunting country to hunt, one stand is all you're gonna get, coyotes do move around alot........Good luck
 
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I use these setups at night. We try to draw the coyotes from cover utilizing cover to approach our wind. We try to shoot them prior to them catching our wind. They become more predictable when you give them an easy way to come comfortably to you and to attempt to check your wind. I find my success goes up with a partner who can stand forward of me when I am calling. I use handcalls mostly but have found an e-caller set at a medium to low volume coupled with a hand call for the louder calls works wonders for us. We use this in Upstate NY so it is focused on Eastern calling, I believe the Eastern coyotes act differently thatn the western coyotes...unwillingness to leave cover till the last minute etc. Anyhow I hope this explains it a little, most everyone can apply this to an area they call, hope it works for ya- Matt McDonald
 
After looking at how you set up your stands I have a couple questions.
Who's using the light? You have the callers away from the shooter? That makes it hard to see the animals eyes as it approches.
It's the terrain that makes the animal act the way they do, not because it's a eastern coyote.
Coyotes don't always come in from the downwind side even at night, although they may be headed that way. Don't pay all your attention downwind, just most of it, right?
 
You'er right not to pay all your attention to the downwind side. When I'm calling I cover the back door and my partner, Ed, covers the approach that yields the highest percentages of shots- that being the approach routes like I showed ya. You're right that it's the terrain that makes them act like that, I just try to use the terrain to give them an easy way to try to get my wind, like they want to do, and watch for them to come that way. We both have our lights on and Ed has not had any problems picking up the eyes. Whenever we see some eyes comming toward us we signal to the other person by shining our light towaed them until we see that they noticed it. When I see Ed's head turn toward me I go directly to where I saw the eyes and light it up. We use Nitelight hat lights for all of our calling. I often shoot with just this light canted on my head over my scope. We find that most of our coyotes here circle for the wind at about 100-120 yards from the call, Ed tries to stand at that area so the shot is shorter. Needless to say he does most of our shooting but luckily he doesn't miss much. I'm sure I have a lot to learn too but figured I'd chime in with what works for us.
 
Nick, thanks for the words, I wonder if anyone here knows about those little antler calls you make, they are the favorite hand calls I have now and I've began to pile them up using them.See ya round- Matt
 
Yep, a good partner is very hard to find. It's common for coyotes to circle at night where I hunt and at usually the same range you're talking about.
 
If you use google earth you can get a satellite view of your area from space. A screen shot can be taken on the computer using alt PrtScrn Key in combination. This will take the screen shot and put it in the buffer or cache memory.

Open up a photo editing program like Paint or PaintShop Pro or Corel or Adobe PhotoShop CE and you can open the clip board photo and save it with a proper file name. You can do PhotoShop manipulations on the photo and then post the photo to a server like Photobucket for free. Look up Photobucket.com on the net. Sign up for a free album and then upload pictures from your computers hard drive to Photobucket servers and save them in your photo album.

Log into Photobucket and view your album pictures. From there you can copy and past the photo links using windows copy and paste commands. Copy the links below your photo. They may look like this.
or like this
HTML: 
xxxxx.xxxx.
. Once you copy the link you can open up this web sites forum and paste the photo link into your post.

If this forum is setup to accept img or images then it should work. Using the img thing you may be able to post multiple pictures in this forum.

The adm of this forum has to set up the forum software to allow photos to be posted in here first.

Using photos and especially google earth satellite photos of your hunting areas is a good teaching tool.
 
www.live.com gives you great 3-d pictures and you can change the view from east to west north etc. on the birds eye view. A program like Snagit that you can get free will grab the picture on your screen. That's what I used above.
 
Can you just import a pic or do you have to upload it to a server? because it asks for a url. When you edit this post it says "you may attach a file to this post while editing".
the copy and paste is not available.
 
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