For You Beginners: A Guide to Voodoo (as applied to coyotes)
- Thread starter Kizmo
- Start date
Silent Hunter
New member
Kizmo,
Thank you immensely for this well written post. Thanks for injecting it with humor that we all can relate to, that most of us have had lead to humility when hunting our quarry. In my opinion, you hit the nail on the head on your post. Enjoy the hunt, for what it is and our time spent doing so. Don't overthink it, but be observant to what's around us and learn from it. That is what makes this sport so enjoyable.
Thank you immensely for this well written post. Thanks for injecting it with humor that we all can relate to, that most of us have had lead to humility when hunting our quarry. In my opinion, you hit the nail on the head on your post. Enjoy the hunt, for what it is and our time spent doing so. Don't overthink it, but be observant to what's around us and learn from it. That is what makes this sport so enjoyable.
GC
Well-known member
Originally Posted By: KizmoOriginally Posted By: GCGreat post Dave. It's easy enough to tell the real players from the fans in these type threads.
Also easy to tell the voodoo priests...
Well, you caught me. I thought better of it and edited the post to not be contentious. However, I will stand by the statement and add a hearty GFY for effect.
Also easy to tell the voodoo priests...
Well, you caught me. I thought better of it and edited the post to not be contentious. However, I will stand by the statement and add a hearty GFY for effect.
Kizmo
New member
Originally Posted By: GCOriginally Posted By: KizmoOriginally Posted By: GCGreat post Dave. It's easy enough to tell the real players from the fans in these type threads.
Also easy to tell the voodoo priests...
Well, you caught me. I thought better of it and edited the post to not be contentious. However, I will stand by the statement and add a hearty GFY for effect.
I'm all broken up...
Also easy to tell the voodoo priests...
Well, you caught me. I thought better of it and edited the post to not be contentious. However, I will stand by the statement and add a hearty GFY for effect.
I'm all broken up...
SlickerThanSnot
New member
voodoo bacon is good stuff.
SalemDawger
New member
The truth is somewhere in the middle of this argument. DAA is right about Utah being pounded. It is normal for me to run into multiple groups of callers in the same day, and I often call in marginal remote areas 200 + miles away from any city. Heck, one time I was on stand and had two different groups of guys come and call the same wash I was in, one 200 yards below me and the other 400 yards above. Coyotes out here get pounded year round and my success rate has fallen every year for the past 20. More coyote hunters do equal less success do to several reasons.
But, I've called in coyotes in in Skull Valley just west of SLC in January. I know these coyotes had been called to a ton, and yet they responded like they had never been called. I am not saying this is normal, both times I was shocked. I have also had a coyote come in after my buddy road up on a motor cycle and yell at me in the middle of the stand. I've also had a day of going blank on 10 + stands on a ranch that no one had called. My point is, sometime coyotes just don't make sense. Do coyotes get educated, yes but not in the ways I totally understand.
About the only 100% true rule is the only way I know how to guarantee no coyotes is to stay home and the only way I can guarantee getting one is to keep hunting for as long as it takes. I've come to see the fun in the coyoteless days and appreciate the ones I call in even more. If it were easy I would probably have quit by now, but At the same time I do feel lucky to have hunted back in the days when sporting good stores would have only one dusty peg of OLT rabbit distress calls. But gain back then I didn't value the hunt near as much as I do now.
But, I've called in coyotes in in Skull Valley just west of SLC in January. I know these coyotes had been called to a ton, and yet they responded like they had never been called. I am not saying this is normal, both times I was shocked. I have also had a coyote come in after my buddy road up on a motor cycle and yell at me in the middle of the stand. I've also had a day of going blank on 10 + stands on a ranch that no one had called. My point is, sometime coyotes just don't make sense. Do coyotes get educated, yes but not in the ways I totally understand.
About the only 100% true rule is the only way I know how to guarantee no coyotes is to stay home and the only way I can guarantee getting one is to keep hunting for as long as it takes. I've come to see the fun in the coyoteless days and appreciate the ones I call in even more. If it were easy I would probably have quit by now, but At the same time I do feel lucky to have hunted back in the days when sporting good stores would have only one dusty peg of OLT rabbit distress calls. But gain back then I didn't value the hunt near as much as I do now.
Wcboy
New member
Great thread, I have enjoyed reading both sides. and can agree with points from both. I am one of the people that Kizmo speaks of who seeks advice and weighs it out to come up with a plan and apply it in my neck of the woods. I see both points of the educated coyotes and I have heard it here from guys I hunt with about educating our packs but yet we will call some of the same property year after year as well as a lot of people, and have success in doing some( well some of the guys I hunt with do)my question is if we are educating coyotes every time we call an area then why will that area produce coyotes year after after? and if we as humans are aware that we are educating them then why do we continue to use the same tatics in those areas? not sure what the breeding season is in the west but here in indiana it starts in jan-feb and seems like the distress sounds are less effective and we change to vocals. its kinda like deer hunting the rut. just my two cents worth.
Again great agruments from both side and good reads.
Again great agruments from both side and good reads.
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Kizmo
New member
Originally Posted By: SalemDawgerThe truth is somewhere in the middle of this argument. DAA is right about Utah being pounded. It is normal for me to run into multiple groups of callers in the same day, and I often call in marginal remote areas 200 + miles away from any city. Heck, one time I was on stand and had two different groups of guys come and call the same wash I was in, one 200 yards below me and the other 400 yards above. Coyotes out here get pounded year round and my success rate has fallen every year for the past 20. More coyote hunters do equal less success do to several reasons.
But, I've called in coyotes in in Skull Valley just west of SLC in January. I know these coyotes had been called to a ton, and yet they responded like they had never been called. I am not saying this is normal, both times I was shocked. I have also had a coyote come in after my buddy road up on a motor cycle and yell at me in the middle of the stand. I've also had a day of going blank on 10 + stands on a ranch that no one had called. My point is, sometime coyotes just don't make sense. Do coyotes get educated, yes but not in the ways I totally understand.
About the only 100% true rule is the only way I know how to guarantee no coyotes is to stay home and the only way I can guarantee getting one is to keep hunting for as long as it takes. I've come to see the fun in the coyoteless days and appreciate the ones I call in even more. If it were easy I would probably have quit by now, but At the same time I do feel lucky to have hunted back in the days when sporting good stores would have only one dusty peg of OLT rabbit distress calls. But gain back then I didn't value the hunt near as much as I do now.
In the situation you describe where you run into multiple hunters per day, I agree that coyotes can be de-conditioned to respond to a rabbit call, just like a dog can be housebroken. I really don't think your situation is the norm for most areas, though, and, if it is, the law of supply and demand will eventually exert its influence. Just like the coyotes that quit finding rabbits when they hear a scream, many of the hunters that drive 200 miles to come up empty-handed will eventually stop going there.
I notice that you attribute your decline in success in these areas as being due to several reasons. Yes, in that situation, electronic screaming rabbits may actually outnumber real screaming rabbits and the coyotes stop coming to them. If the habitat is marginal, that much human activity of any kind may run them out in search of better habitat. Also, that many hunters HAVE to be taking their toll on the coyote numbers. You can't kill what's not there.
I believe that the #1 thing that increases your odds of success is simply finding places where coyotes like to be. As an example, I have a 600 acre place that's L-shaped, about half agricultural fields and half pasture dotted with huge live oak trees. At the bend of the L was about 5 acres of thick scrub oaks and underbrush, which was cleared out last year. I only hunted it in the afternoons, but I hunted it nearly weekly, as it was the first place in my "circuit". In the last two years before they cleaned out the 5 acre honeyhole, I killed 17 coyotes sitting on one tree, none of which weighed less than 30 pounds. All but one came out of that little 5 acre plot of scrub. Since they cleared out that little 5 acres, I haven't even seen a coyote on the whole place. I didn't educate them despite being there almost every week. They simply aren't there anymore.
Another place I hunt, nearly 20 miles from that one, is about 2200 acres with 800+ cows and calves on it. I hammer this place weekly, year round, because before I started hunting it, the ranchers were averaging 25-30 calves lost per year to coyotes. I haven't seen a coyote on it since early October, and haven't heard many either. Were I to believe in voodoo, I might be inclined to believe I have "educated" those coyotes. However, I'm rational, so I called the state DNR and inquired as to whether or not there had been any canine distemper or parvo outbreaks in the region. Sure enough, there was distemper outbreak out there this spring and a parvo outbreak since then. "Educating" coyotes has nothing to do with it.
I called this male up for my buddy Dr. K_n Thursday night in a still-smoking burnt pasture. 40 lbs., weighed on a deer scale, 4 years old by his dentition. He was a known calf killer, and had been shot at and missed by the farmers twice that week in the very spot where we killed him, the last time being two days before. We were sitting in the back of my truck, and he was shot at 150 yards. Since it was so windy that night, I was playing Lightning Jack because it is louder than any of my cottontail sound files. We have no jackrabbits in Georgia. Despite the fact that #1-he had been shot at twice that week, #2-he's never heard a jackrabbit in his life, #3-he was no pup, and #4-the pasture we hunted was burned that day, he came from across a paved highway full of cars to his demise.
Originally Posted By: WcboyGreat thread, I have enjoyed reading both sides. and can agree with points from both. I am one of the people that Kizmo speaks of who seeks advice and weighs it out to come up with a plan and apply it in my neck of the woods. I see both points of the educated coyotes and I have heard it here from guys I hunt with about educating our packs but yet we will call some of the same property year after year as well as a lot of people, and have success in doing some( well some of the guys I hunt with do)my question is if we are educating coyotes every time we call an area then why will that area produce coyotes year after after? and if we as humans are aware that we are educating them then why do we continue to use the same tatics in those areas? not sure what the breeding season is in the west but here in indiana it starts in jan-feb and seems like the distress sounds are less effective and we change to vocals. its kinda like deer hunting the rut. just my two cents worth.
Again great agruments from both side and good reads.
The point of this thread was to try to de-mistify coyote hunting for beginners. The voodoo priests of the world would have you believe that making one wrong decision will ruin your hunt and/or your hunting land for untold weeks to come. I think that many newcomers who listen to this gobbletygook end up suffering from paralysis through analysis, eating Cheetos in front of the TV when they could be hunting. I suspect many of the voodoo priests resent newcomers "intruding" into "their" land and/or sport, and attribute their own declining success to these newcomers "educating" "their" coyotes. They seem to long for the "good ol' days" when they had these places all to themselves. I guess I can't fault them for that. However, they would have you believe coyote hunting is as mystical as killing a chicken and burning candles in the graveyard at midnight, and only they have the "true" connection with the coyote gods. That's chickensh_t. Sure, there's a learning curve like everything else in life, and being successful requires patience and persistence. It can be done, you just have to get out there and do it.
Edit-Wcboy, when did you start coyote hunting with a lightsaber???
But, I've called in coyotes in in Skull Valley just west of SLC in January. I know these coyotes had been called to a ton, and yet they responded like they had never been called. I am not saying this is normal, both times I was shocked. I have also had a coyote come in after my buddy road up on a motor cycle and yell at me in the middle of the stand. I've also had a day of going blank on 10 + stands on a ranch that no one had called. My point is, sometime coyotes just don't make sense. Do coyotes get educated, yes but not in the ways I totally understand.
About the only 100% true rule is the only way I know how to guarantee no coyotes is to stay home and the only way I can guarantee getting one is to keep hunting for as long as it takes. I've come to see the fun in the coyoteless days and appreciate the ones I call in even more. If it were easy I would probably have quit by now, but At the same time I do feel lucky to have hunted back in the days when sporting good stores would have only one dusty peg of OLT rabbit distress calls. But gain back then I didn't value the hunt near as much as I do now.
In the situation you describe where you run into multiple hunters per day, I agree that coyotes can be de-conditioned to respond to a rabbit call, just like a dog can be housebroken. I really don't think your situation is the norm for most areas, though, and, if it is, the law of supply and demand will eventually exert its influence. Just like the coyotes that quit finding rabbits when they hear a scream, many of the hunters that drive 200 miles to come up empty-handed will eventually stop going there.
I notice that you attribute your decline in success in these areas as being due to several reasons. Yes, in that situation, electronic screaming rabbits may actually outnumber real screaming rabbits and the coyotes stop coming to them. If the habitat is marginal, that much human activity of any kind may run them out in search of better habitat. Also, that many hunters HAVE to be taking their toll on the coyote numbers. You can't kill what's not there.
I believe that the #1 thing that increases your odds of success is simply finding places where coyotes like to be. As an example, I have a 600 acre place that's L-shaped, about half agricultural fields and half pasture dotted with huge live oak trees. At the bend of the L was about 5 acres of thick scrub oaks and underbrush, which was cleared out last year. I only hunted it in the afternoons, but I hunted it nearly weekly, as it was the first place in my "circuit". In the last two years before they cleaned out the 5 acre honeyhole, I killed 17 coyotes sitting on one tree, none of which weighed less than 30 pounds. All but one came out of that little 5 acre plot of scrub. Since they cleared out that little 5 acres, I haven't even seen a coyote on the whole place. I didn't educate them despite being there almost every week. They simply aren't there anymore.
Another place I hunt, nearly 20 miles from that one, is about 2200 acres with 800+ cows and calves on it. I hammer this place weekly, year round, because before I started hunting it, the ranchers were averaging 25-30 calves lost per year to coyotes. I haven't seen a coyote on it since early October, and haven't heard many either. Were I to believe in voodoo, I might be inclined to believe I have "educated" those coyotes. However, I'm rational, so I called the state DNR and inquired as to whether or not there had been any canine distemper or parvo outbreaks in the region. Sure enough, there was distemper outbreak out there this spring and a parvo outbreak since then. "Educating" coyotes has nothing to do with it.
I called this male up for my buddy Dr. K_n Thursday night in a still-smoking burnt pasture. 40 lbs., weighed on a deer scale, 4 years old by his dentition. He was a known calf killer, and had been shot at and missed by the farmers twice that week in the very spot where we killed him, the last time being two days before. We were sitting in the back of my truck, and he was shot at 150 yards. Since it was so windy that night, I was playing Lightning Jack because it is louder than any of my cottontail sound files. We have no jackrabbits in Georgia. Despite the fact that #1-he had been shot at twice that week, #2-he's never heard a jackrabbit in his life, #3-he was no pup, and #4-the pasture we hunted was burned that day, he came from across a paved highway full of cars to his demise.
Originally Posted By: WcboyGreat thread, I have enjoyed reading both sides. and can agree with points from both. I am one of the people that Kizmo speaks of who seeks advice and weighs it out to come up with a plan and apply it in my neck of the woods. I see both points of the educated coyotes and I have heard it here from guys I hunt with about educating our packs but yet we will call some of the same property year after year as well as a lot of people, and have success in doing some( well some of the guys I hunt with do)my question is if we are educating coyotes every time we call an area then why will that area produce coyotes year after after? and if we as humans are aware that we are educating them then why do we continue to use the same tatics in those areas? not sure what the breeding season is in the west but here in indiana it starts in jan-feb and seems like the distress sounds are less effective and we change to vocals. its kinda like deer hunting the rut. just my two cents worth.
Again great agruments from both side and good reads.
The point of this thread was to try to de-mistify coyote hunting for beginners. The voodoo priests of the world would have you believe that making one wrong decision will ruin your hunt and/or your hunting land for untold weeks to come. I think that many newcomers who listen to this gobbletygook end up suffering from paralysis through analysis, eating Cheetos in front of the TV when they could be hunting. I suspect many of the voodoo priests resent newcomers "intruding" into "their" land and/or sport, and attribute their own declining success to these newcomers "educating" "their" coyotes. They seem to long for the "good ol' days" when they had these places all to themselves. I guess I can't fault them for that. However, they would have you believe coyote hunting is as mystical as killing a chicken and burning candles in the graveyard at midnight, and only they have the "true" connection with the coyote gods. That's chickensh_t. Sure, there's a learning curve like everything else in life, and being successful requires patience and persistence. It can be done, you just have to get out there and do it.
Edit-Wcboy, when did you start coyote hunting with a lightsaber???
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Originally Posted By: Kizmo
The point of this thread was to try to de-mistify coyote hunting for beginners. The voodoo priests of the world ... gobbletygook ... the voodoo priests resent newcomers ... attribute their own declining success ... and only they have the "true" connection with the coyote gods. That's chickensh_t.
If the point is helping beginners, why all the snide backhanded bull crap towards those with dissenting opinions? Do you really think you are the only one who actually knows anything, or is willing to share and help around here?
Frankly, I have a hard time even reading your nonsense. There may be some good stuff hidden in amongst all your self aggrandizement and putting down of others with differing views, but I find it hard to find the pepper in your fly chit.
- DAA
The point of this thread was to try to de-mistify coyote hunting for beginners. The voodoo priests of the world ... gobbletygook ... the voodoo priests resent newcomers ... attribute their own declining success ... and only they have the "true" connection with the coyote gods. That's chickensh_t.
If the point is helping beginners, why all the snide backhanded bull crap towards those with dissenting opinions? Do you really think you are the only one who actually knows anything, or is willing to share and help around here?
Frankly, I have a hard time even reading your nonsense. There may be some good stuff hidden in amongst all your self aggrandizement and putting down of others with differing views, but I find it hard to find the pepper in your fly chit.
- DAA
Kizmo
New member
Originally Posted By: DAAOriginally Posted By: Kizmo
The point of this thread was to try to de-mistify coyote hunting for beginners. The voodoo priests of the world ... gobbletygook ... the voodoo priests resent newcomers ... attribute their own declining success ... and only they have the "true" connection with the coyote gods. That's chickensh_t.
If the point is helping beginners, why all the snide backhanded bull crap towards those with dissenting opinions? Do you really think you are the only one who actually knows anything, or is willing to share and help around here?
Frankly, I have a hard time even reading your nonsense. There may be some good stuff hidden in amongst all your self aggrandizement and putting down of others with differing views, but I find it hard to find the pepper in your fly chit.
- DAA
Seems I must have struck a nerve. I'm not the one who started the "snide backhanded bull crap" in this thread, and, as a matter of fact, can't find a single disrespectful remark in my earlier reply to you. If you can find one, please point it out to me.
If you have such such a hard time even reading my nonsense, why do you even bother? By all means, please start a thread and teach me all of your wisdom, or, if you've already done so, provide a link to it. The more I learn, the less I realize that I know.
The point of this thread was to try to de-mistify coyote hunting for beginners. The voodoo priests of the world ... gobbletygook ... the voodoo priests resent newcomers ... attribute their own declining success ... and only they have the "true" connection with the coyote gods. That's chickensh_t.
If the point is helping beginners, why all the snide backhanded bull crap towards those with dissenting opinions? Do you really think you are the only one who actually knows anything, or is willing to share and help around here?
Frankly, I have a hard time even reading your nonsense. There may be some good stuff hidden in amongst all your self aggrandizement and putting down of others with differing views, but I find it hard to find the pepper in your fly chit.
- DAA
Seems I must have struck a nerve. I'm not the one who started the "snide backhanded bull crap" in this thread, and, as a matter of fact, can't find a single disrespectful remark in my earlier reply to you. If you can find one, please point it out to me.
If you have such such a hard time even reading my nonsense, why do you even bother? By all means, please start a thread and teach me all of your wisdom, or, if you've already done so, provide a link to it. The more I learn, the less I realize that I know.
Kizmo
New member
Originally Posted By: Kizmo By all means, please start a thread and teach me all of your wisdom, or, if you've already done so, provide a link to it. The more I learn, the less I realize that I know.
Woops. Looked you up. Guess I'll have to buy one of your videos if I want to learn your secrets.
Woops. Looked you up. Guess I'll have to buy one of your videos if I want to learn your secrets.
Kizmo, regarding the part about the lights. You make referance to the video at the expo. You say to use what the pro's use. I do not deny those 10 pro's are definately masters of the game and Byron nailed it. Its ALL about light intensity. Coyotes, dogs, foxes absolutly see illumination. I think some of them "particular" pro's in the video use white more so cause its better on video than the red. Gerald Stewart even says it in the video. He is the only that uses red, not Woodall. Now don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying white will not work, I advocate using whatever works for you. There are many pro's that use red or colored light that were not on that stage and a few of us normal hunters that use colored lights too. Reference the latest article written In Predator Masters by a member on this site Andrew Lewand (bhw). 76% of hunters use red and only 6% use white. This site was polled along with others! There is a reason for that. Todays colored lights are plenty bright enough well beyond 100 to 200 yards. I cant speak for others but I use red/amber at this time for many reasons but mostly cause white is too bright, my eyes cant adjust quickly enough to that bright light, I dont have that problem with the red. The red light better reflects there eyes IMO.
White works for you and thats great but It sounds like your describing yourself a bit when you wrote about the old timer turkey hunters. Use white cause those pro's do. To me that's is flawed advice....Just some thoughts from a night hunter, not a pro.
White works for you and thats great but It sounds like your describing yourself a bit when you wrote about the old timer turkey hunters. Use white cause those pro's do. To me that's is flawed advice....Just some thoughts from a night hunter, not a pro.
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Kizmo
New member
I agree with you rpc55 that light intensity is what is important. When one uses a colored filter, one diminshes the intensity of a (previously) white light, which is why colored filters "work". However, the intensity of a white light can be diminished by a variable switch or a rheostat without losing the advantages of the light being white. I've never hunted with a colored LED light, but I think being able to see the color of an animal is a great aid for ID'ing one. I mentioned that one 2200 acre place I hunt with the 800+ cows and calves. Every one of them is a black brangus. With that kind of cow density, and with every one of them being black, I'd be foolish to try to use a red one.
If you're making short shots of 100 yards or less, color probably doesn't matter. My places are wide open (especially for Georgia) and my current night shot "record" on a coyote is 485 yards. No way I'd even see one with any red light at that distance, except maybe for eyes.
I used a red light for the first 20+ years I varmint hunted. I've also tried amber and green. Trust me, you will kill more coyotes with a white light than with colored ones, because you will see them better. Provided, of course, you have some means of varying light intensity. My Olight SR90 only has low and high settings, but that's good enough.
If you're making short shots of 100 yards or less, color probably doesn't matter. My places are wide open (especially for Georgia) and my current night shot "record" on a coyote is 485 yards. No way I'd even see one with any red light at that distance, except maybe for eyes.
I used a red light for the first 20+ years I varmint hunted. I've also tried amber and green. Trust me, you will kill more coyotes with a white light than with colored ones, because you will see them better. Provided, of course, you have some means of varying light intensity. My Olight SR90 only has low and high settings, but that's good enough.