Merle's First!!!!

batman1262

New member
I aquired Merle with all the hope of trying to make a decoy dog out of him. Worked hard at obedience training, scent trailing, and all the stuff trying to get im ready. He is now 10 months old and has bee on 10-12 stands and I have failed miserably at putting yotes infront of him. Seems almost like he was an unlucky charm.

Went out this Sat morn cause the weather here in KY was perfect. First cool snap after a rainy evening. Plus the farmer had called me saying the yotes were whipping up on his dogs and he was concerned bout his cows.

I arrived at the farm bout 20 mins before first light. Made the long walk thru the woods to the large hay field that had just been cut. The wind was exactly as forcasted NNW. Sneaked into my stand location and set out the foxpro and went and tucked into a fence corner. I was well concealed. Couldnt quite see across the field yet. Field was 250 yrds wide and Approx 800-900 yards long. Just as I could see other side of the field(250 yrds) I fired up the foxpro with a lone howl. Nothing. Waited 2 mins and lone howl again. This time was a group howling back off of my right shoulder. Seemed to be a mile or better away. Waited another 2 mins. Nothing. So I start with field mouse distress and let it run 2 mins and shut it off. All this time Merle is milling aroun 50ish yard out in the field doing puppy stuff, smelling everything, and generally goofing off out in the cut hay. I waited a minute and went into lighning jack. Periods of off and on for 5 mins. Nothing. Waited for 1 min of silence and used coyote pair for a min. and then silence for 1 minute and used puppy distress. Puppy distress been playing approx 4 mins and I was geting really discouraged and shut it off thinking to my self how crapppy at this that I really am. Started to thinking about leaving and said wth I am already here let it play. Started up coy pup distress again and Merle runs out to the caller and starts his own version of howling. I start to chuckle at the sound of a 10 month old Austrailian Shepperd trying to howl. I look over to my right shoulder and at the other end of the field I see something come out of the woods. Approx 800 yards away I am not sure what I am seeing. Slide gun over and power up the scope, its a coyote! Merle is still singing his own song and the yote sits down. I am trying to figure out what I am gonna do next and Merle abruptly stops howling. Been roughly a minute since yote showed up and Merle starts scent checking the wind. He acts kinda funny and I am wondering is he maybe smelling the yote? Another min goes by and I am starting to believe that he does smell the yote cause wind is breezy and straight from yote to us. All of a sudden Merle lets out a wierd sounding bark and started moving that way. He gets roughly half way and stops and starts barking. But then the yote goes from siting to standing and Merle seen that and was gone like shot out of a gun rite at it! As he starts to close in the yote goes back into the woods. Merle follows into woods. I start to panic and reach for collar controler and cant find it. [beeep] my dog gonna die cuz I am too stupid to have it ready. I look up and Merle is 100 yards out of woods headed my way, and what is rougly 75 yards behind? Yep the yote! I couldnt hardly believe it! I am startin to shake uncontrolably! 500 yards out, 400 yards out, 300 yards out, 250 yards out! At 250 yards the yote locks up! Merle kept coming. Yote starts barking and inching my way. Merle got back to abot 50 yrds of me and stopped and started baking back. Yote came another 25 ish yards and that was it. And that was all my nerves could take. I centered crosshairs on a frontal chest and just under chin and BOOM! THWAAP! Not even a tail twitch! Merle comes back to me like WTH? And I was all kinds of torn up! I know I prolly shot too soon but any more and I would have been too torn up to shoot. I was already hearing the blood pumping in my ears! I am so proud of my dog.

Let me tell you that Nosler Custom tropy grade with ballistic tip varmit bullet is some serious bad medicine! Tiny entry whole and no exit!

 
I had to take a moment when we walked out to look at it! I was all torn up. Its hard enough to kill a yote in Ky, but to get it all to FINALLY come together was priceless for me! I had alot of good advice and support from the members here and really appreciated it! This will be my new obsession for sure!

I forgot to add that Merle's first also turned out to be a 2 pointer with the white tipped tail!

 
Congrats to you and your dog Batman.
I always tells folks that one that follows the dog back is better (for me anyway) than ten that just come to the call with no dog.

Bet you would agree right about now.

Stay after them
Kelly
 
Beautiful Australian Shepherd, good looking coyote. Those dogs are about as smart as you will ever find, so I believe you will be having a lot of fun with Merle. Thanks for sharing.
 
You got that right Kelly!!!! I get excited when one comes to the call but I get to another level of torn up when one follows the dog in! I havent had buck fever since I was a teenager, but I got yote fever almost to the point of not being able to shoot!

Thanks for the kind words Al! I am proud of his looks, but his brains are really what shines! Dang thing learns like water going into a sponge. His only issue is that my GF is making him alittle over affectionate!lol
 
Nice work, and what a good looking dog! Don't be too quick on that collar controller... those dogs can handle themselves, and getting is some bad spots will be the best way for them to learn quickly. You don't want to tone/shock them unless it's necessary.

Good luck.
 
I had a great time for sure! Hoping to get more infront of him soon!

As for the collar, I didnt like him to be that far out and going out of my site in pusuit of yote, because he is still a pup. He is still only 10 months old. I didnt even get it turned on before he started back. I made a couple mistakes in this hunt. Prolly shot alittle to early, was gonna tone Merle back just before he did it himself, didnt wait around after shot to see what else may be coming in. But I was really HAPPY!!!!
 
Last edited:
There are many good decoy dogs that were not trained with a collar, and they are as good as you will ever find both working coyotes, and coming back to a whistle or other sounds. Maybe some of the guys who have trained them without a collar can chime in here.
 
Nice job! Aint nothing quite like it.

I have a young dog that Im working with right now that has never had a collar on him. Dont sweat it. If they dont need one, dont worry about it.
 
Originally Posted By: batman1262
As for the collar, I didnt like him to be that far out and going out of my site in pusuit of yote, because he is still a pup. He is still only 10 months old. I didnt even get it turned on before he started back.

I understand you get attached to them and don't want them to get hurt or run off. I also understand thinking that 10 months is too young to let them out of your sight. I don't want to tell you how to handle your dog, but I have seen more dogs ruined by an owner being too cautious and not letting the dog make mistakes and figure it out on it's own. Dogs won't mature as fast if everytime they look up their master is there for reassurance.

Now I am not saying you have made any mistakes and it sounds like you and your dog had a heck of a successful day. Just let things play out and have fun with it. Hopefully you have 12 - 13 more seasons with him by your side.
 
Thanks for all the support and advice guys! Still a LONG way from having all this figured out! As for now Merle is on the DL! I have no idea how it happened but he has a nasty cut on one of his pads and has been packing that leg for 2 days. I been keeping it clean and hopefully he will back after it soon. It has healed considerable in just 2 days but he is still packing it and looks funky.
 
Back
Top