A Few Nights worth

northeasterndog

New member
img097.jpg
DSCN1215.jpg
2011-03-27164723_edit0.jpg
 
welcome to the dark side, man them some big dogs an cats you got there. tell us yur rig and set up? calls light? what part of Tex, looks like good deer country that few nights should help the fawns this year
 
Originally Posted By: the impactzonewelcome to the dark side, man them some big dogs an cats you got there. tell us yur rig and set up? calls light?

Northeastern....

Nice pics. You posted these as night hunting kills. Don't see any night equipment in your pics. What do you use?
 
What works for me....works for me. In no way do I wish to lend any appearance that I know what I'm doing.

I have called coyotes and cats for over 30 years. In 30 years you tend to learn some tricks. About 8 years ago I lived in northern Maine....home to the largest coyote in North America. That dog proved to be an absolute hard customer to call. I switched over to low light or night calling. Well money stood in the way. Night gear is gonna cost you. So I kept at it. I ran some game cams on my coyote trapline and began to really straighten that learning curve out. Those cams allowed you to witness yourself what you were doing right and wrong. What lure worked and what lure was hype. Well back to the night calling...I went thru a pile of lights. I tried every lite I could find,,,blue, amber, green, red....none consistently called all fox, cats and coyotes. Coyotes would just balk at about 150 to 200 yards out. Well I bought a cheap generation 1 nvg....the monocular. I next stuck an IR filter over a handheld stinger flashlight. Let me back up here.....after countless nights arriving at frustration because red lights failed I educated myself on the eye of the coyote...as in how he sees the world. The coyote sees the color spectrum different than us so I figured he must see the light at night different than us. So I used my good buddy Justice. Justice is my 65lb Red Heeler. I used his eyes to kinda learn. Everytime I shined a red, or amber or blue, or green light at him he was visibly bothered by it. He would try to look at me but his own anatomy ultimately made him not look or blink etc. The tapetum really reflects that light and causes pain to the optic nerve. Obviously not all coyotes are bothered by it and some can stand to look at the mysterious red light long enough to die.........but most can not. So back to the cheapo NVG and the simple IR flashlight. What I found was the coyote can not see infra red light at 850mw. I tried higher frequency filters and they block to much light so you are back to where you started from. I also tried lower frequency filters and they allowed to mush light to pass acting almost like a regular low powered redlight and we were finding the coyotes would balk once again about 200 or 150 yards. The 850 filter worked the best and we were getting dogs coming in hot in the middle of the night in a field standing 50 yards from are clearly visible truck. Yes I said STANDING. My RIG is a tripod. I use a BOGPOD but any tripod will work as long as it allows the shooter to swivel. I mounted the IR lite to the rifle so that everywhere the muzzle is looking it has a window of IR light. I hold the monocular NVG with my left hand to the eyepiece of the scope and shoot. I use a Burris Extreme because you can see your reticle with the NVG. The IR works so well because the eyes glow almost like they are electric. This all works because it is night and they are super comfortable at night. We have had a few coyotes hang up because they can see us standing at the tripod but thats where you need to drop some more coin on a e caller that has a dependable remote control and will allow you to get 50 to 75 yards away from the caller. Finally and this is probably the most important. Its night so the cat or dog is super comfortable in his environment. The biggest factor I have found is you need a decoy to paralyze them. They are going to come to the sound,,,,see your truck, see you well we noticed coyotes when they saw us didnt just bolt,,,they more often felt comfortable enough at night that they would still work the stand albeit from 200 yards out...so we deployed a decoy...the decoy just held them. The decoy deployed a few yards from the caller just sealed the deal. We really saw percentages go up big time. On the call I really believe now adays the topic is just moot. We might as well discuss religion or politics. They all work they all will call a dog and i'd say go with what you got. The number one thing I would say is I let my night stands work for giver or take 2 kills(or shots). Timewise we tend to be 10 to 15 minutes. If we have a cat working the decoy we obviously stay longer. Some cats have taken as long as 30 minutes to finallly give us a full body in order to identify what those eyes belong to. Specific calls I found that howling is a dangerous game because if I have a beta male wondering around nearby in a field and I howl...the beta male isnt going to want to come and get his rear kicked...if you howl I would say use it in combo with distress sounds. Any distress will work but I like those sounds that have the higher frequency to them.....the babies. They all seem to work with my decoy the best....other than that remember consistency....I use the same call all night long all year long...i set up and tear down the same way all nite long all year long. the mantra of coyotes learning a sound and becoming educated on it is in my opinion huey. A working canine(dog for fowl, hunting, law enforcement, the blind or handicapped) has to be trained with repitional based training fostered with reward based conditioning before they are educated. You calling a coyote with say a jackrabbit and missing him does not constitute an education. Simply move to another corner of the field and reintroduce your sound. They just don't have the rational ability to process logic. I call/kill anywhere between 350 to 700 coyotes a year and call/kill on average 150 cats a year. Trapping/snaring usually pulls about 500 dogs and cats combined but only because in Texas I do alot of predator control on a lot of ranches and they want the snares and traps rolling year round to control their predators.
I have seen coyotes pull out of one trap only to turn around and work my sister dirt hole and get caught...so I feel they dont learn as quick as we credit them. I will be honest virtually all the summer animals are not valuable at all. I still try to get glands urine feces and meat for lure making and all of them that have decent teeth I get the skull for skull art. Winter animals obviously I send the cats to auction and the best furred coyotes I find a market for their pelts.
Like I said this is how I do it cuz it works for me.

Good luck
2012-01-22100348.jpg
2012-03-06195059-2.jpg
 
Last edited:
[img:center][/img]


Remember this night....New Years....gun battle in Mexico a few miles away killing some cats and dogs...goood times....LOL
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: Pain Piller


Remember this night....New Years....gun battle in Mexico a few miles away killing some cats and dogs...goood times....LOL


Northeastern,

I hunted a ranch just south of Rio Bravo on the river. You close to that area?

I wanted to night hunt but was not allowed to because of illegals crossing over at night. Our day hunts were interrupted several times by border patrol agents checking tripped sensors.

First morning out we parked before day in some thick brush and were hit by a big whiff of marijuana smoke as soon as we got out of the truck.....They were real close in the brush.

That's a different world there on the TX border.


 
Last edited:
GMAN yes I am close to that..........outlook me. At least we feel the same way about obama.

The decoy....well if ya'll have a fxpr. Or any other over the counter doo dad and it works for you......then ...keep using it.

Me...I like having 7 adult dogs fixated on my booger and giving me about 20 minutes of video.....before 5 of them were killed. [beeep] any of the decoys work.......don't they? They all do as advertised don't they? [beeep] the decoy is the stand. You got nuthin without it.

I started way back with a jib. And soon threw out the jib topper......none of fxpr toppers work consistently........I used there box and stabbed it with a stryofoam ball from the ladies hobby department from wallyworld...next I ran 9 gauge wire thru it to attach my feathers....glue some iradescant eyes on it and attach a wasatch squeker. Make sure to upload ur kill pics.......we all like seeing boys havin a good night on the kittys and pups. Something bout those feathers an that squeker r dynamic......I've called chingos of dogs n cats just on the decoy....no caller at all.
 
Back
Top