disapearing coyotes

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So is the price of gas so I'm sure you are making out like a bandit...NOT. I think you need to add another world to your list...it is called reality.
 
As usual you would be wrong. However I'm not skinning for the fur market this year as I did find a much more lucrative offer. I could care less what the fur market is doing. I hunt coyotes regardless of fur prices. If they are up I will sell, if not I will look for alternative markets. If the fur market is weak (like it is now) I will still hunt coyotes as the price of fur has never been much of a factor in whether I hunt them or not. So for a change I actually agree with you when you said: "No matter what i'll still be out hunting or calling them and still put up the fur whether its 10.00 or 50.00." Except the part about putting up fur for $10.00. I won't do it for less than $25.00. However if your time is worth $10.00 to $20.00 per coyote minus expenses to attain said coyotes, then more power to you.
 
I was in college at 30yrs old, like I said when I was averageing 125 fox a yr. The mange came in from the east, and continued across my 50X100 mile area that I regularly trapped and hunted. Our area with the wetland lakes was a fox factory. I could see the wave of mange going through by how few animals were in the east and then here and then later in the west of me. I know for a fact hunting did not wipe them out. Before I came here 21 yrs ago, there were guys shooting 100-150 fox a yr from here to Ft Dodge. Atleast one worked at the night shift at Morrels.
The plant closed and those guys mostly moved away. Then I moved here 5 yrs later. The fox were very plentiful, because we had the habitat. The mange took nearly all of them in two seasons. The prey base animals evidently didn't have much predation, so the coyotes that seemed to survive the mange better than the fox, spread out rapidly and took over, easily with all the food they needed.
A lot of fox only go 1-3 miles when spooked, but some go 5 miles or more before stopping, I know I tracked them down.
This is my 35th yr of fur harvesting, I can't even count how many predators I have taken in that time, close to a thousand atleast. 48 bobcats, for sure, about 220-250 coyotes in WY, 50-70 fox in WY, 750-800 fox in IA, and 3-400 coyotes since the mange epidemic in IA.
I would be willing to bet my last dollar, I'm not a betting person, that if I asked our local game warden where the fox went, he more than likely would say the mange also. It seems to me when they were overpopulated the mange spread faster and hit them harder due to the over population of fox, not over hunted fox.
My fur buyer used to go to s.e MT to trap fox for the live market, he averaged 10 a day there. He said I should go one yr, when I got there there were dead deer every where, very few were eaten on. There were no fox there, the mange hit there and wiped them out. This was right next to O'Gorman from Broadus. He has taken 20,000 plus predators in his 40 some yr career. He stated that the mange hit every state, except obviously PA, they are still taking up to a 1000 fox a yr they, one person is, others in 200-400 range. If they are over harvesting the fox in PA, then Phil there wouldn't have taken 1000 fox a yr for at least 3 yrs now. O'Gorman is taking about 1/2 to 1/3 of the fox and coyotes a yr that he used to, due to mange and other factors.
 
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I agree when ever I start seeing a lot of fox,look out the mange is coming.I dont shoot the fox anymore (the coyotes do a job on them) I shot lots when I was a kid,thats how I got into predator hunting.In those days there were no coyotes in Massachusetts.The reason that the the mange that killed your fox did not effect the coyotes,is because the mange mite that attack the fox are not the same as the ones that attack the coyote. I read it in an article by Serge Levierre in Trapper and Predator caller.
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Tactical.20, pretty much the entire state of Montana has seen a drop in red fox. However the theory that they were in a concentrated area may prove true in some places the 150 sq miles you trapped and hunted in IA, but just one quarter of the state like southeast Montana is roughly over 23 million acres. So unless that is considered a small area (by possibly Alaska or Texas standards), mange can obviously be wide spread. Bottom line, mange is bad news for coyotes and really, really, bad news for fox.
 
Nothing will do more to limit coyote and fox populations faster than mange.

As it is present 365 days a year and no discrimination it will effect the very young to the very old and willknocked down populations.
 
My vetenarian said there are three different mange mites that infect them. They both had mange at the same time, I fugured it was the same one. Vet said one hits them in head-face, one butt and legs other? I forgot. Sorry about being defensive earlier, things are not so well here, could be going under after 21 yrs of owning my own business, wife is suffering terribly from 2 different cancer treatment sessions 3-5yrs ago. It will improve soon I am sure, hoping to get a new job starting at 24$ an hr., instead of depending on customers calling me.
 
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Blame that bad grammar on Bush, He gets all the blame, Oh yea, Ursus21, Add me to your list, you are a [beeep] hole. ed
 
well tim i see your making fun of ursus21's drawing ability, by what i can see hes a fine artist, seems like everytime you get in the middle of one of these post you end up telling somebody how stupid they are. for the guys that are taking tims side go back and read some of the stuff hes siad to people and you will see why some people on here dont care for him,i'm still trying to find a govt trapper to ride and learn from tim, ha.
 
I have had a Mountain Lion displace yotes, deer and javalina in the 10 sections around my home. Everything goes back to normal 3-4 weeks later but we don't have the heavy snows you do. It could just be a timing issue.
I have a couple of packs that migrate into neighborhoods during winter to eat dog food. They come back when the pups are born for safety.
Hopefully this is a temporary issue. Good luck and good hunting.
 
this is my take on this time of year.
coyotes are mostly paired up and setting up their territory, it will be centered on water.
from here on out coyotes will hunt smaller and smaller circles tell the pups are born when the circles will be at there smallest.
at that point there are vast expanses with just transient coyotes in the areas away from water.
then as the pups get larger the more they expand back out and hunt the whole territory they are setting up right now.
you may be in a area that isn't suited to denning.
 
Mange almost wiped out the coyotes in my stomping ground several years ago, and they still have not recovered. I thought that the area would soon fill up with new coyotes,but I was wrong. The mange infested area is obviously quite large. As for Minnesota Tim, he can't spell, and he sometimes says odd stuff but I still love him. He does OK with his calling when he travels to the Dakota's, and that says something good about him now don't it?
 
Rich, Of the twenty some coyotes I have killed this year in your corner of the state, they are the cleanest nicest pelt I have seen in years and quite possibly overall the cleanest I have seen ever.Only one have a possum tail ,one had moderate mange at the neck and the rest were beautifully clean.. A refreshing note and I hope indicates the overall health of the local population and maybe are recovering from the mange cycle with a further rebound in numbers.
 
deerman ,

I sure do hope you are correct. Once I get caught up on my call orders, I hope to get out and check some of my stomping grounds for coyote sign. The snow was so deep for several weeks that snow shoes were needed to even walk across the fields. Now that I could walk on TOP of the snow, the little call making shop is as far as I get. By the way, which part of Iowa are you calling?
 
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