2022 / 2023 was a tough coyote calling season for us.

derbyacresbob

derbyacresbob

Well-known member
Around here the coyotes didn't have hardly any pups in the spring of 2022. We had 3 years in a row of drought conditions. We ended up only getting 18 coyotes. During the 2021 / 2022 we got 49 coyotes.

We didn't get to hunt as much as we wanted to because of all the rain we got. But I am happy to get all of the rain we have gotten so far. We have more ground cover growing right now than we have had in the last 8 to 10 years.

The bird, rabbit, rodent and coyote populations should be much higher in 2023.
 
Just the opposite here. We have the most coyotes I have seen in a while. Seems like one behind every bush. I just wasn't able to get out as much as I would like early season, been a busy year. but making some ground up now though.

Good news for you is coyotes are extremely resilient. Couple of years and they will be back. Rain and prey base will help.
 
Amen, tough here for other reasons, medical and my daughter having to move off the ranch, I spent the whole month of Jan redoing a fixer-upper condo she bought. I keep saying there is always next year but I'm running out of those too.
 
That is a bummer but do suspect as mentioned above, the prey and preds will respond quickly to the water you are now getting. Hope, for many obvious reasons that you are out of the drought cycle.
 
We've been in what the weather people have been calling a mega drought. Over a decade. The guys that study tree rings say the worst drought in 1,200 years! A few years ago, everything just caught fire and burnt up. Literally millions of acres of sage habitat burnt up and gone - forever. We've had years in a row of no spring green up. Everything looking as dead and dry in April as it should in November.

Finally had a wet summer. But all those burn areas, all that grew back is cheat grass. What was once oceans of sage, is now oceans of nothing.

We're having a good winter now, following a good summer. The areas that aren't burned and gone forever are going to have a fighting chance this year, if we can just get another wet summer.

But coyote numbers aren't even worth talking about. We had a better year this year than the last several, due to that wet summer providing some sustenance for the coyote litters. I can say, I killed more this year, than I used to in a good weekend. But the several years prior, I can't say that - my yearly totals didn't add up to what used to be just a good weekend.

- DAA
 
Congrats on the 18 that made it in the bag! Some years are definitely better than others. Next fall the hunting should be great with all the rain we've been getting. Fingers crossed!
 
The weather really hurt my early season production. In South Dakota in late November it was warm and dry, with no frost in the ground. That resulted in coyotes that were not hungry and weren't very call responsive. And then it got worse. Back here in SW Montana we had big snow in late October and huge drifts to the point that I couldn't even get to most of the places that I normally call. This was the first year I didn't get and elk in a while. I just couldn't get to where they were. I could glass herds of 500 or more from 2 or 3 miles away but couldn't get to them. Tough year indeed. Only 26 coyotes and 2 bobcats. LOL, I just realized I killed twice as many rock chucks last year as coyotes.
 
yeah, but the coyotes you do call in are usually captured on high quality photos.

i think our coyote population has been steady the past couple years.
 
Originally Posted By: Infidel 762i think our coyote population has been steady the past couple years.

from the looks of your pictures and videos i would say you have a very good population.

from the looks of your pictures and videos i don't know how in the world your population stays good.
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Originally Posted By: Infidel 762yeah, but the coyotes you do call in are usually captured on high quality photos.

i think our coyote population has been steady the past couple years.

The coyote population went way down from last year. I have seen this happen 3 or 4 times. When we have drought for 3 years the few coyotes that are left don't have pups, or very few pups.

Out of the 18 coyotes we did get this year, only two of them could have been pups from this last spring. When you can drive on 20 to 30 miles of private ranch roads and don't see any coyote scat in the roads there are not very many coyotes.
 
The DOT dropped a road killed elk at one of their gravel pits a week ago. Checked it yesterday. Not one coyote track. No cat tracks either. Two golden eagles though which was pretty cool!
 
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Interesting, topic how coyotes handle dead animals. BrianID and I hunted an area that looked really good. Near the stock pond there was Javelina scat and about 100 yards away a long dead cow with not a bite out of it. A few miles east of there I hunted by a stock pond and near it was the carcass of a cow that had been gnawed on right down to the bare bones. Go figure. I've seen a number of dead cow in the field that haven't been touched and then come across a spot where the rancher has been hauling dead cows to and they are stripped bare.
 
Several years ago one ranch I hunted had a huge bull died just inside the gate to a pasture that was off limits to us. Got permission to move the carcass into the next pasture which I was allowed to hunt. Drug the bull through the gate and dropped it a few hundred yards into the next pasture and nothing touched it! Not even the birds.

Asking around, the only semingly reasonable reply I got as to why this might be the case was that the carcass was tainted, possibly by some medication that may have been administered or from whatever malady that had caused it's death. Never did find out for sure.

ETA: This is the remains of a zebra (IIRC) a few days after we moved it to a location about 1/4 mile from the bull around the same time period. Shot several coyotes off of it??
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Regards,
hm
 
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Originally Posted By: AWSInteresting, topic how coyotes handle dead animals. BrianID and I hunted an area that looked really good. Near the stock pond there was Javelina scat and about 100 yards away a long dead cow with not a bite out of it. A few miles east of there I hunted by a stock pond and near it was the carcass of a cow that had been gnawed on right down to the bare bones. Go figure. I've seen a number of dead cow in the field that haven't been touched and then come across a spot where the rancher has been hauling dead cows to and they are stripped bare.

Over the years I've observed the exact same thing and always wondered why and what I've kinda found out is cows that get sick and are pumped full of antibiotics then die are usually left alone. Cows that die from natural causes or have to be put down because of an injury is a buffet!

Two years ago I hunted on a large cattle ranch in Montana that had 5 dead cows in a pit. Only 2 had been ate on, they was also towards the bottom on the pile, the other 3 hadn't been touched. The 2 that had been ate on died of old age naturally. The other 3 had been sick and pumped full of antibiotics.

I had a long conversation with the rancher about this and he said the ones that are full of antibiotics will eventually be eaten by coyotes but they usually have to be really really decayed before they start into them.
 
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