LESSONS LEARNED FROM A DISAPPOINTING SEASON

LTCFA

New member
I had a very disappointing season. I only got 3 dogs after January 1 and I made a lot of stands. In looking back, I'm trying to make some sense of what went wrong because I have been more successful in the past. I did keep a log of all the dogs I got and have only reached one conclusion: none were taken in deep snow. Temperatures varied from bearable to zero. Weather varied from light snow to bright sun. Do you guys have any suggestions for doing a lessons learned from the previous season or is it a case of we don't know what we don't know?
 
It could be something as simple as wrong spots, wrong time or could be as complicated as barometric pressure. Certain things make things line up perfectly somedays and some of the smallest things can make it a bad day for calling. I would look at all the small details and some that may be overlooked most times. Was it before storm fronts, during or after? What was the wind speed that day. Layout of the land...anything and everything.
 
Look at it as time you got to spend out in the field... I find it therapeutic just being out there even if I don't always kill something. I heard it said "that is why it is coyote hunting, not coyote killing"... I think there are way to many variables for some one to tell you what did or did not go wrong especially if they where not present...
 
Originally Posted By: Infidel 762Look at it as time you got to spend out in the field... I find it therapeutic just being out there even if I don't always kill something. I heard it said "that is why it is coyote hunting, not coyote killing"... I think there are way to many variables for some one to tell you what did or did not go wrong especially if they where not present...

BINGO!

I made a ton of stands after Christmas all the way into March and only one stand produced. I had them so close I was sure I should see their movement but couldn't. I'd do the same thing I think most do when in a slump, go back to basics. Make sure you basic fundamentals are sound then continue to reevaluate you stand/call selections.
 
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We had a tough year also here in Southeast Missouri,done a lot more sets with little success.Looking back I think several things made it so much harder to connect with any Coyotes!

In 2012 we had Severe Drought Conditions and dry conditions later in 2013 which cut down on the number of Younger Newborn Coyote Pups.

More Predator Hunters causing a decline in Existing Coyotes.

More Hunters Educating Coyotes made for Wiser/Smarter Predators and tougher Hunting!

Wiser Coyotes are more cautious and more Nocturnal when under Hunting Pressure....no Lights allowed for Night Hunting in Missouri.

Colder Weather,high winds etc made for less Coyote movement also!

Hunter Error,scent control and ever changing wind directions were a factor also!
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Every WalMart has a wall of yote calls and a bunch of guys that shoot a few and educate even more.
 
I try to gain something from every stand. Calling anything in after deer season got pretty tough here then we changed our tactics in Feb. and did pretty well again. Numbers were down and cover was immense which made stand selection limited. The biggest lesson I've learned is that just about the time I think I have them figured out they prove me wrong. Keeps it interesting though.
 
I too suffered in the snow. It was so crunchy and quiet and cold this season. My spots are pretty tight here in New England and I can only guess that they heard us walking in. I could hear deer several hundred yards away at times and I cannot hear well at all, too much time in front of my diesels' turbo on the boat combined with a lifetime of waterfowling. Once the crunchy snow disappeared, temp did not matter, saw and called in many more dogs. All in all a great season here in Mass/Rhode Island. 10 dead, numerous sent to the c-ostipital and many misses just to remind us...it aint easy..just sometimes! So much to learn and luck does play a big part. On reflection, I simply enjoy being outdoors...with a mission!

Killed one and sent one crawling away on Sat AM in RI. Saw a third one to boot!
 
my guess is your places were good a few years ago and now they are called out. i have places like that. really good a while back but now i got greedy and called it a ton and you cant buy a coyote in those spots.

the key to killing coyotes..... everyone can say what they want but this is the truth and noone can argue with it. the key to killing coyotes is to have fresh ears!!! either get a ton of land or dont call very often if you only have a few thousand acres. i know a guy that sounds worse with hand calls than my 7 year old nephew, but he killes 150 or so a year and they are killed in only the months the fur is prime! but he has a ton of land and dont have to overcall spots.

if you have 300,000 acres of good calling country, you dont have to know much. just sit out there and blow on a call and make any god awful noise and you can kill a ton.
 
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A lot of truth in what jglynn says. Even if you are an excellent caller and hunter, you sure don't want to overhunt your places. Just varying your set ups can be enough to get you by. If you keep setting up the same way, time after time, it will get awfully hard to have coyotes respond.
 
I have quite a few big ranches to call coyotes on but the coyote population is not steady from year to year.

We are in our third year of drought conditions so I didn't have a great 2013/2014 season.

When the coyotes have big litters and there are lots of 8 to 10 month old pups running around it is pretty easy to kill a bunch of coyotes.

When the population of coyotes is very low and most all of the coyotes that are out there are older adult coyotes it is much harder to call them in.

The 2014/2015 season is going to be a terrible season for wildlife around here, we got no rain and there is no grass, feed or cover so the critter populations will be very low.
 
i hear you guys saying how the droughts are killing you yet the best place ive ever hunted coyotes was in the desert where the only water is a single wind mill within 5 miles of any other. you guys arent giving coyotes enough credit.

we called in 40 coyotes in 2 days and i only saw 3 or 4 puddles of water. everything there was brown and burnt. but we called coyotes on every stand.
 
Originally Posted By: jglynni hear you guys saying how the droughts are killing you yet the best place ive ever hunted coyotes was in the desert where the only water is a single wind mill within 5 miles of any other. you guys arent giving coyotes enough credit.

we called in 40 coyotes in 2 days and i only saw 3 or 4 puddles of water. everything there was brown and burnt. but we called coyotes on every stand.

I live in some country that has a lower average rainfall than some deserts do. It is not a shortage of drinking water that lowers the coyote numbers it is the lack of rats, mice, lizards, snakes, quail, squirrels and rabbits that the coyotes eat that causes the coyote population to drop.

Even when we do have years with a good amount of rain the grass and cover that does grow is brown and burnt looking in April.

The last long drought we had we shot 104 coyotes on the second year of a drought. The following spring the coyotes didn't have any pups and the following year we got 16 coyotes. No matter how good you think you are at calling in coyotes if they are not any in the area you won't call many in.
 
Originally Posted By: jglynn i know a guy that sounds worse with hand calls than my 7 year old nephew, but he killes 150 or so a year and they are killed in only the months the fur is prime! but he has a ton of land and dont have to overcall spots.

if you have 300,000 acres of good calling country, you dont have to know much. just sit out there and blow on a call and make any god awful noise and you can kill a ton.

Wow 150 a year during the time when coyotes aren't blue and not rubbed, (Nov 20 to mid Jan here) and this guy kills 150 in 90 to 100 days?

John - Who is this Pied Piper?

Kelly
 
I don't get out as much as I once did but back in the day we called some areas on a regular basis. Sometimes you couldn't buy a coyote and other times they were everywhere and sometimes this happened just a week or two apart.

What bothers me up here in Oregon is going out and making a bunch of stands with no results then driving around in the public highways and seeing bunches of coyotes mousing in the fields or crossing the road. Go back a few weeks later and have good responses and kill a bunch of coyotes. None of us knows why they sometimes just aren't interested but I do know that coyotes do a lot of moving around. The coyote you see one day may be 10 miles away the next and another coyote is in his place. Or maybe no coyote is there.

I think the reason that they're getting harder to call in some areas is because more guys are hunting year around and there are way more guys hunting. "New ears" are getting harder to find.
 
You can't call coyotes in an place that doesn't have any. (it you don't see any "Fresh" sign, and you can't get them to howl, your time may be better spent calling other spots)

They have to hear the sound to be able to respond. Some places are very windy and the sound just doesn't travel. There have been times where I did the drop and roll deal with a spotted coyote and 300 to 400 yrds away, I couldn't hear my buddy calling to this coyote at all. I understand that I don't have anywhere near the hearing a coyote does, but if at 400yrds I can't hear it, it's likely that a coyote doesn't hear it at 800 yrds, which means you have to do tighter stands in area's they are going to hold up in.

Also,
I have terrrible results calling where I see scat. (scat in the road, I would try doing a stand, lots of howls no shows) so I started walking in a few hundred yards from where i see the scat and calling.. Much better results.. I even called the east side of the road.. called in a double, heard a pair howling on the west side. I shot one, fromt the double, then hauled the dead one to the truck, got a drink, then walked out on the west side and called in the other pair, and shot one. I shot two coyotes within 800 yrds of each other, with the truck in the middle, just doing this trick.
I also found that you get better results when you hide your truck, I have a car cover made from cammo that i made.. It's easy to pull over and hides the whole truck.


It wouldn't surprise me if you said that you sit facing into the wind. i know there are differing opinions on this one, but if you agree that coyotes hunt using thier nose, then sitting with the wind in your face and the call out in front of you means that you are getting busted by scent and may not realize it more then you know.

If I have to sit facing into the wind, I put the call off to the side and upwind of me, You would be surpised how many times i see a coyote coming in from the down wind, run right past me, get close enough to wind the call, and turn around to run only to get a dose of shotgun pelets at 15- 20 yrds.
Any one of these thing, plus you movement on stand could be the issue.
 
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