Best call/setup/hunting tactic in general for the eastern hunter

Birdsandspurs

New member
What would be something you'd consider a game changer for you? Weather it be a call a scope certain types of setups and so forth. Also specify for each season as I'm aware things change. By no means am I coyote killing pro like some of you likely are but have done some calling with success in spurts. Had a fx3 but it pissed me off so many times with remote not working to the caller I just sold it and went with all open and closed reed calls . With that said I find it hard to make sets here that will be of much value and produce due to crazy winds from all the hills and hollers,and so many ways a coyote can come I just feel I over think it. What say you

Also can you direct me to a call maker here who makes reasonably priced calls as mine are in need of being replaced.
 
Last ...first.. I do not know of a callmaker here who would disappoint in their product price or effectiveness of the calls.I have calls from several and use them all through the season.
Because my calling is mostly cold weather work , I prefer open reeds cause they don't freeze at -20.
I do use a Foxpro from time to time as every setup is different. different tools for different jobs.

The game changer for me is wind. Coyotes use the wind all the time. Wind direction is important to me as it will help determine how I set up to accommodate a coyote trying to come in downwind. We've all had wind direction change while on a stand....luck of the draw. We deal with it.

But when the tumbleweeds start to roll, I head for home. I hate calling in big wind and when it's -20 in the mix as well, I'm done.
I have called in that stuff and killed a coyote or two over the years in it, but I hated it.

I usually call wide open country, but sometimes when she blows a gale, I'll head into the thick stuff, where it can get 'Western' quickly.

Something else I seldom see that gives me a rash is some tool who sees my truck stashed and decides to follow my tracks through the snow to see 'Whatcha doin?' ARRRRRRGH!!!
 
How would you deal with small woodlots and opens fields with hills and hollers abroad? Wind can switch and swirl often and man what a pain. Our country isn't near as open and so forth here as you guys in Midwest/west so it's a different game here as I know your aware. I will say yes I'm a very avid outdoorsman and I know how to hunt per say but the idea of educating ancoyote is nothing I prefer to do there a lot of sets I just don't even make.

It's tuff because they can appear from anywhere around here and be in your lap in a split second. Do you find that late evening, early morning or night being more productive? We always hunted late evening into the night. Seemed to have more luck at night but what I ran into so many times was when I shined the animal shooter got on it then when I light it back up the dang shooter won't shoot. It's like they wait for the perfect shot and in my experiences it seems about 2-3 seconds is all we get to shoot. I've always been the caller/light man and never had anyone to call to allow me to be the shooter.

Also with it spring of the year what you find being most successful with the coyote starting to den?
 
Hunting the thick stuff requires a different strategy for sure, but it is easy to overthink this whole coyote killing thing.

Sometimes you have to do something that doesn't seem to make sense. When an experienced hunter sets up in thicker or mixed cover, a hunter who is not experienced in calling predators will set up in the cover. He'll get himself dug down into a little hidey hole so the coyote can't see him. This also means he just gave the coyote the advantage. He can't see the coyote either. He also can't smell him or hear him, but the coyote can do all these things.
Set up on the edge of the cover where an open field meets a fenceline, bushlot or hedgerow and start calling. I'd bet that 99% of the time a coyote will come in and you will not see him. In areas in the east where it could take a few days before you get a shot, this is very important.
Set up in the middle of the open field. Get in and setup with as little movement as possible.Set up so the edge of the cover is in range. Get prone and start calling. The coyote will move along the edge and you'll see him easily. As long as you keep movement to a minimum and only move when he's moving, he likely won't see you.

It's hard to do....hide in the wide open...but it works.

Coyotes are usually more active dawn and dusk but I hunt and call all day long and have killed them all day long, including howling at noon.
 
Originally Posted By: RedfrogHunting the thick stuff requires a different strategy for sure, but it is easy to overthink this whole coyote killing thing.

Sometimes you have to do something that doesn't seem to make sense. When an experienced hunter sets up in thicker or mixed cover, a hunter who is not experienced in calling predators will set up in the cover. He'll get himself dug down into a little hidey hole so the coyote can't see him. This also means he just gave the coyote the advantage. He can't see the coyote either. He also can't smell him or hear him, but the coyote can do all these things.
Set up on the edge of the cover where an open field meets a fenceline, bushlot or hedgerow and start calling. I'd bet that 99% of the time a coyote will come in and you will not see him. In areas in the east where it could take a few days before you get a shot, this is very important.
Set up in the middle of the open field. Get in and setup with as little movement as possible.Set up so the edge of the cover is in range. Get prone and start calling. The coyote will move along the edge and you'll see him easily. As long as you keep movement to a minimum and only move when he's moving, he likely won't see you.

It's hard to do....hide in the wide open...but it works.

Coyotes are usually more active dawn and dusk but I hunt and call all day long and have killed them all day long, including howling at noon.

Without a doubt I'm the rookie you spoke of always tried to hide good good. We killed a female and a male set up on small flat in middle of a hay field calling into a line thicket. I thought it was bald
Face luck but you saying that makes me think to. Thanks for clearing that up.

Also speaking of howling at mid day. When I was in Alberta Mulie hunting this last September and even when I was in Missouri bowhunting coyotes would just howl seemingly all day long and you would see them just out roaming around all
Hours of the day. Here at home that doesn't happen and yotes don't seem to howl till dusk or throughout the night.

In the spring with denning what kind of calls you prefer? Also on the howling I'm somewhat up to par on the howling and what they mean.....I think haha.
 
Pups will be out and about in a few weeks. I don't call til the fall unless a neighbour has issues calving. Pup distress and challenge work well for me when I do call this time of year.

I use a ghillie suit a lot. It works well for setting up in the open fields.Had coyotes come within feet many times. Buddy had a magpie land on his boot while we were calling and he was wearing his ghillie. Magpies are like crows for anyone who isn't familiar. Very smart.

What part of Alberta were you hunting mulies?

We have a spot that we make sure we howl at noon if we are in the area. Killed many coyotes there.
 
I can't much help you with tactics as I haven't payed too much attention to the wind as of recent and seem to kill more when I don't over think my set ups.


As far as gear. I would look hard at a cs24c these days as they can be had for $399 and are in my opinion one of the best predator calls ever made. Also started hunting recently with a good tripod setup and it has made a big difference. There are some good threads on here on the tripod setups.

Are you hunting with thermals or nv?
 
I have an asat leafy suit I figured I'd give a try this year. When pups start yippin and howling how close are they usually to their den. Say in July how far will they follow their patent around from the den?

While in Alberta I was staying right outside of Airdrie. We traveled about 3hrs east and huntered in a river valley for about 3 hunts till I killed my Mulie then cam back and hunted elk for the next 8 days. I seen so many coyotes just out roaming around not a care in the world. It was so odd to me caus at home here you ever see that nor hear them breing as vocal here as was in Canada and Missouri too. Heck hear them howl about anytime of day. Also got to make it to banff for a evening. Very awesome. If didn't have a farm here I would move to Alberta no questions asked.

If you can get them to howl what's your next move. Try to close distance and set up on them I suppose?


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I think you need to have a mind set to hunt coyotes in heavy cover, it is my favorite way to hunt them. There isn't a bigger rush than a coyote at your shoelaces. It doesn't have to be forests either, waist to shoulder high sage, russian olives or willow bottoms up here or thick manzanitas or greasewood down south. After doing this for a long time you look at a spot and almost tell which way a coyote is coming from.

If it is thick I carry a combo gun or drilling, never know when you'll get one staring at you from out of shotgun range. In clearing in the cover where shots can be longer I will carry a rifle. All my guns are equipped with 1-4 or 1.5-6 scope with large FOV's to be able to track coyotes through the brush and still see an opening ahead of them for the shot.

Calls, I use e-calls almost exclusively in cover, hand calls involve too much movement and using a hand call will focus a coyote directly on me and at close range it doesn't give much time to shoot and takes one hand away from the gun. Coyotes focus so much on the location of the sound that I've set a caller in a bush with a decoy on the another branch of the bush and have had a coyote jump up in the bush and grab the caller and ignore the decoy, has happened twice to me. I like a caller that has sound coming out of the call in one direction(no speaker in the rear no rotating speaker). I can focus the sound to where I want to see the coyote and find they mostly come strait in from the way the caller is facing even circling to get to that point.. As far as sounds go I like small sounds in heavy cover baby cottontail, vole/shrew/mouse, birds, kittens.

Stands like this aren't uncommon in heavy cover, A minute into the stand a coyote comes in [beeep] bent for elections and I roll him with the shotgun, reload and keep calling two more come in and I roll one with the shotgun too far back up he comes charging straight at me and I kill him at six feet with the rifle barrel I lay my gun on the chair and walk out to the caller and here comes number four. Fun stuff and everything is under 30 yards.

Camo, as far as it isn't dark camo most is ok with me, I have some Natgear, cheap walmart, and a couple others, if its cool I'll put on a gillie jacket but if it is hot I roll up my sleeves, leave the gloves in the truck and just enough face mask to cover my white beard, It doesn't seem to make much difference as to what camo I have on .

I like a three leg folding chair rather than sitting on the ground , I can see farther into the brush and don't worry too much whether ther is a bush in front of me as they will get shot befor they get to it or after they pass it, I dont get back in a hidy-hole but do sit with a bush or tree behind me as I like to have a least a 180 degree field of vision and to swing the gun.
 
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Originally Posted By: reaper4I can't much help you with tactics as I haven't payed too much attention to the wind as of recent and seem to kill more when I don't over think my set ups.


As far as gear. I would look hard at a cs24c these days as they can be had for $399 and are in my opinion one of the best predator calls ever made. Also started hunting recently with a good tripod setup and it has made a big difference. There are some good threads on here on the tripod setups.

Are you hunting with thermals or nv?

I'll look into cs24c. But thermal Or NV. Negative, I cannot see spending that many of thousands of dollars for it. Because for 1 I don't know what I'm exactly looking at and 2 I'd want the best because buying just low Side of things never seems to work out for me so I just try to by best of the best when I buy.

Does the thermal and nv really increase chances [beeep] for the money I mean seriously. I have always just used red lens spot light and swap Batteries on a million candle power. Never had anyone teach me so I've had to learn on my own. The up to date nicer things I'm not aware of. I've spoken with the gentleman at high tech red neck about the armasight nemsis and maybe the pulsar I think was called? Think talked about a actual scope and a clip on version for my current rifle scope. But again i don't know enough about it to justify it
 
Originally Posted By: AWSI think you need to have a mind set to hunt coyotes in heavy cover, it is my favorite way to hunt them. There isn't a bigger rush than a coyote at your shoelaces. It doesn't have to be forests either, waist to shoulder high sage, russian olives or willow bottoms up here or thick manzanitas or greasewood down south. After doing this for a long time you look at a spot and almost tell which way a coyote is coming from.

If it is thick I carry a combo gun or drilling, never know when you'll get one staring at you from out of shotgun range. In clearing in the cover where shots can be longer I will carry a rifle. All my guns are equipped with 1-4 or 1.5-6 scope with large FOV's to be able to track coyotes through the brush and still see an opening ahead of them for the shot.

Calls, I use e-calls almost exclusively in cover, hand calls involve too much movement and using a hand call will focus a coyote directly on me and at close range it doesn't give much time to shoot and takes one hand away from the gun. Coyotes focus so much on the location of the sound that I've set a caller in a bush with a decoy on the another branch of the bush and have had a coyote jump up in the bush and grab the caller and ignore the decoy, has happened twice to me. I like a caller that has sound coming out of the call in one direction(no speaker in the rear no rotating speaker). I can focus the sound to where I want to see the coyote and find they mostly come strait in from the way the caller is facing even circling to get to that point.. As far as sounds go I like small sounds in heavy cover baby cottontail, vole/shrew/mouse, birds, kittens.

Stands like this aren't uncommon in heavy cover, A minute into the stand a coyote comes in [beeep] bent for elections and I roll him with the shotgun, reload and keep calling two more come in and I roll one with the shotgun too far back up he comes charging straight at me and I kill him at six feet with the rifle barrel I lay my gun on the chair and walk out to the caller and here comes number four. Fun stuff and everything is under 30 yards.

I like a three leg folding chair rather than sitting on the ground , I can see farther into the brush and don't worry too much whether ther is a bush in front of me as they will get shot befor they get to it or after they pass it, I dont get back in a hidy-hole but do sit with a bush or tree behind me as I like to have a least a 1800 dree field of vision and to swing the gun.

When you say you can almost look at a spot md tell What way a yote I'll come from. What specifically willDraw a coyote to come out in certain places? About the e caller some of the prices i see on these foxpros 😳. When I had the fx3 it was the hot commodity and It didn't impress me with the aggravation I had with that remote. Again hard for me to justify dropping big coin on a caller after that experience. It's like i mentioned in a thread the other day. Some can't justify 3$-4$ per shell but can have 5000-10,000$ tied up in NV and thermal alone others don't mind 2000$ guns or 500$+ calls.

And the setups yourntalking about sound like what could be around here calling into clear cuts and so forth
 
I personally hate most Foxpro remotes, I do have an early CS-24 with the numerical keypad and won a Foxpro Crossfire with the numerical keypad that work well for me but the CS-24 remote is in for the second time as it won't turn off and on for the second time. These seem to work for me as I hate sitting on a stand scrolling through the list to find a sound, with the numerical keypad I can just punch in the number of the sound I want and don't have to put on my reading glasses.

My all time favorite call is the Minaska M-1 Bandit with a straight numerical keypad after a while you don't even have to look at it to run it. I've had the first one since they first came out with them and it has operated flawlessly and I bought another that is near the same vintage from another hunter that was retiring and it has been flawless also.
 
Just looked up the m-1 bandit and the cs24 foxpro. Seems person is gonna be around 400$ for a solid call isn't he? And also the scrolling sucks I can see where the numeric pad can be a huge benefit
 
As far as night vision and thermal vision, you can keep it, there is so much beauty to see out in the field that that is a great part of my hunting experience. Running around in the dark looking at green images of critters isn't my cup of tea. If I can't fool them during the day they get a free pass. I don't even like to get up in the dark to duck hunt. I drove truck for three years at night and you can have it, it ruined my health and nearly my marriage.
 
Originally Posted By: AWSAs far as night vision and thermal vision, you can keep it, there is so much beauty to see out in the field that that is a great part of my hunting experience. Running around in the dark looking at green images of critters isn't my cup of tea. If I can't fool them during the day they get a free pass. I don't even like to get up in the dark to duck hunt. I drove truck for three years at night and you can have it, it ruined my health and nearly my marriage.

Seems it's a large expense for maybe not the most repaying dividends!

When do you have the most success? Like redfrog all day? I've rarely called Of mornings with me halfing to milk and such it's tuff trying to milk and then go make a couple sets and try not to smell like a dairy barn
 
All day also but if it is going to be hot, I hunt for furs so that isn't often they seem to shut down when the temps get up to T-shirt temps.

I wouldn't worry about smelling like a dairy barn, if your stand is good they should never smell you.
 
I figured they [beeep] down when it got warm and I kno colder the better but again back to the wind situation. The way these little ridges and so forth are here with thermals and all in affect it's hard to say wat the wind is doin 100 yards down wind of me. If was flat like Missouri or Canada was shux it'd be easier haha. That said guess that's why not many around here do it because it's a tough play
 
Originally Posted By: BirdsandspursOriginally Posted By: reaper4I can't much help you with tactics as I haven't payed too much attention to the wind as of recent and seem to kill more when I don't over think my set ups.


As far as gear. I would look hard at a cs24c these days as they can be had for $399 and are in my opinion one of the best predator calls ever made. Also started hunting recently with a good tripod setup and it has made a big difference. There are some good threads on here on the tripod setups.

Are you hunting with thermals or nv?

I'll look into cs24c. But thermal Or NV. Negative, I cannot see spending that many of thousands of dollars for it. Because for 1 I don't know what I'm exactly looking at and 2 I'd want the best because buying just low Side of things never seems to work out for me so I just try to by best of the best when I buy.

Does the thermal and nv really increase chances [beeep] for the money I mean seriously. I have always just used red lens spot light and swap Batteries on a million candle power. Never had anyone teach me so I've had to learn on my own. The up to date nicer things I'm not aware of. I've spoken with the gentleman at high tech red neck about the armasight nemsis and maybe the pulsar I think was called? Think talked about a actual scope and a clip on version for my current rifle scope. But again i don't know enough about it to justify it I can guarantee you nv & thermal will increase your seeing coyotes. As far as killing coyotes, depends on your shooting ability. You won't believe what is out there at night till you buy nv & thermal. Send me a pm sometime if you want to talk about it.
 
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Birds and spurs, the new the cs24c uses the tx1000 remote....most in the industry that are not affiliated with another call will tell you that the tx1000 is the best remote out there.


As far as NV and thermal go, it's a ton of money for an optic that is no question. It all depends what you want to spend and how serious you are. In the east, it's extremely unlikely to win any big contest without thermal or NV or both. If you are not a competitive hunter you may not want them. As for time of day in the east, I will do a red fox set in the early morning b or evening hours but for coyotes, you won't catch me out there calling during daylight
 
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