I know this isn’t exactly big game hunting, but I figured I’d get more advice/experience on this forum:

I’ve been calling coyotes for decades and thought I was pretty decent at it. Several years ago I switched to a FoxPro and that has helped my success even more. But now I’ve got a couple coyotes in a few hundred acres of the lower part of our hunting area that I’ll get a glimpse of now and then (when I’m not calling), but I can’t call them in. At least one of them is a youngster. I’ve called in and shot several in that area over the years, but they won’t come in lately. These particular coyotes haven’t been called in and missed/spooked – they’re just not coming in. This area is pretty thick with piglets and fawns so I need to keep the coyote numbers down (maybe they’re just not hungry enough to come to the call?).

Because of the piglets and young coyotes, I typically have the best results this time of year using the sounds of piglets, pigs fighting and coyote pups. But those haven’t been working. I got to thinking that those sounds might be too aggressive for young coyotes so I’ve also tried jackrabbit in distress, baby cottontail, raspy woodpecker and fawn sounds during the last several stands.

I’m sneaking in, watching the wind, calling early and late in the day, using the same camo I’ve always used, calling 20 to 30 minutes each time, etc. I’m calling in the places that have worked in the past years, during the times that I’m seeing them on the trail cameras, etc. But I’m getting skunked. Any advice for other tricks that I'm not thinking of to get the attention of these wary coyotes?

Thanks,
Kyler

What's the chance they may have
been called in with the same sounds
and educated in another area from yours?

I expect you know first hand how much
they travel around. Something to think about.

Are you seeing them long enough to get a shot from "long range" (yeah, it's bullshit imo) Lots of guys don't agree these days.

Out here most farmers/ranchers and others just driving the roads will start slinging bullets
without much chance of hitting anything. That makes most wild animals run at the sight of a truck, even quicker if it starts slowing down.

Good luck busting them.

George

A few ideas.

First, can you call at night? Coyotes are often more brazen in the dark and you might draw them out in the open more easily with your current strategies.

Second, go odd ball on your sounds. Try weird stuff like vole squeaks, prairie dog, and other rodents. Throw sounds they are very unlikely to have heard. Just because you don't have those prey animals doesn't mean they won't respond. Late in the season here that's what I have to do. I've called in coyotes on springhare and snowshoe, neither of which are anywhere close to here. Also consider mouth-blown calls. The sounds are totally different than the e-caller sounds that most hunters use these days.

Third, try completely different times or places. Coyotes can be active all day. Go at a time when you have never called. Couple that with new sounds. Wait for an unusual wind direction and sneak in to a new location.

Fourth, have you considered baiting? Yes, there's plenty to eat, but coyotes are opportunists and will take the easy road when granted. Of course, sitting a bait site is boring and may take a while.

Fifth, trapping. Probably not legal in CA, but if so it could be effective.

I’m also thinking that someone else educated them maybe?
Or maybe so much food that they ignore calls by not being hungry?

Thanks for the good input.

No chance at a longer shot, pretty tight area, can’t see past 200 yards and if they hung around long enough for a shot anytime I’ve seen them there would be no need for this post.

No question they’re more bold at night – I’ve gotten a glimpse here are there in the headlights and have heard them barking. The neighboring ranchers in this area assume you’re up to no good if they’re hearing shots from your place in the dark, so since I offer guided hunts I don’t want to start rumors with shooting at night.

Around here ranchers don’t seem to put much stock into calling for coyotes so I doubt they’ve heard similar calls on other ranches, but they might get sniped at from a truck here or there.

I haven’t tried calling during the heat of the day, but I did get a super quick look at them among some cows in the heat last week so I should probably give that a try. I like the idea of trying different sounds too. I’ve branched out a bit from my usual favorites, but I should try some others also.

Thanks,
Kyler

Any local houndsmen who specifically run wild k-9's out there? A fox & Hounds club, tally ho kind of thing?

For unusual calls, you might want to try kittens, unless foxpro has started offering that sort of sound commercially.

Sound's like those coyotes have survived an encounter with a human, perhaps a human using a Foxpro.

Could someone have tried calling them without your knowledge? Perhaps on a neighboring ranch?

Have you tried handcalls on these coyotes? I can put emotions into a handcall, that e-calls don't have.

Even with lot's of food around, I'll call in coyotes. I had a 710 acre private duck club, that was loaded with small game, and wounded/lost waterfowl, and I usually got 2-3 coyotes each time I went, usually going twice a month, Oct-March.

Did you load any sounds on your Foxpro? 20+ years ago, I downloaded some sounds from another, well known e-call maker, and never, not once, called in a coyote with it, over a 2 year period.

I figure there was some sound on it that I could not hear, but, man, the coyotes sure could. Kind of like a silent dog whistle, humans can't hear it, but canines can.

Try handcalls.

Good luck, and keep us posted.

They're educated.

Find someone local with a decoy dog or trap them.

Trying some other sounds and hand calls might add enough variety to work.

The main neighbor that hunts seriously is over 20,000 acres so I doubt they'd be hunting close enough to this spot to educate these particular coyotes. And there's a couple properties between them and us.

If they're educated it's probably my fault because most of the other nearby owners are absentee and don't hunt much. But I haven't missed a coyote that I called in that area for many years so if they're educated it was from my scent while calling.

Usually the youngsters are this difficult to outsmart.

Thanks,
Kyler

try some Fox barks.

Do you use any visual decoys when calling like the flipping furry ball and tail etc. They can help entice more timid critters into range. I like my fox pro but mouth calls when done right work better. Especially when you make those last dying breath I'm almost dead moans. Some dogs come in to aggressive calling and some are shied off by it. Had one come in to 10 ft making mouth squeaks off the back of my hand. I'd like to try soft sheep bleats some time.

Nothing against Foxpro, or any other e-caller, but, I believe many a living coyote has been 'Foxpro'd'.

By that, I mean new coyote hunters buy an e-call, go out and start calling, from a poorly selected stand, such as calling with a brushy creek-bottom 100yds downwind of them. Coyotes hear the caller, use the cover to approach and smell the hunter. Think that coyote will approach that e-caller, playing that sound, as easily again?

One of my favorite spots is a large chunk of public land, that gets hit often by coyote hunters. I do pretty well there, but I only use handcalls.

Sometimes, like duck hunting, it is the sound or pitch of the individual call. For example, a Cottontail Distress call sounds different if I use my old, Weems wood-barrel call vs. the Sceery AP-6.
I was hunting the public mentioned above one time, with a large sage flat in front of me. I started with my Sceery, and after about 12-15 minutes, nothing. I broke out my Primos Jackrabbit, started calling, and within seconds, a coyote got up about 300yds out, and started coming in. Killed her at about 75yds. I know she heard my Sceery, but it did not motivate her to come in.

This happens to me while calling turkeys, ducks, elk, etc. The ducks aren't responding to the acrylic tube, but they will to plastic, the elk don't respond to the tube call, but they will to the diaphragm, the turkeys respond to the box caller today, and tomorrow, or even a different turkey, wants to hear slate.

Good luck.

k-22, you are pretty spot on. In your previous comment you mentioned the emotion you can emit with the calling,and thats what I was referring to also with the mouth blown calls. You are right about the the variations in the calls and the realism you can muster out of them. It's what I call the art. In my younger days I lived in Id and would practice my elk bugling with my old Larry D Jones in the evenings at home. I learned to impress the elk in the Selway Bitterroots but don't reckon my wife or neighbors were that impressed. Now I enjoy the occasional outing with my adult kids calling coyotes in the Mojave Desert and foothills of the Sierras. I do the set ups and calling and they do the shooting. This year I'm going to try calling in a black bear. Thanks for your input. I hope Kyler tricks them yotes to the call.

To bad it is CA you can not use the most effective means of controlling coyotes.

Leg hold traps.

They work 24/7/365

Tried a lot of new sounds on Friday morning. Fox, vole, fawn, crows, cottontail and nuthatch sounds for about 35 minutes. No luck. Wind was good, made a quiet approach, etc. I've never had this much trouble outsmarting a stinking coyote.

I'm sure traps or snares might catch them, but I've seen too many non-target animals caught too. That defeats my purpose in this case.

Someone suggested trying in the middle of the day. It was 104 degrees on Friday afternoon. I couldn't convince myself they would move in that heat (only getting them on the trail camera in cooler parts of the day or night) and had too much other work to do. But that's still something maybe I should try. The afternoons are predicted to cool way down starting tomorrow.

Thanks for the advice. I might get time to try again in a week or so.

Two guys on mouth calls. Same calls but each person taking turns. Its ok if they sound a little different. At least an hour, hour and a half is better! If you can blow a call for that long no need for two! Had many a stubborn coyote show up trying to call a bobcat. Have known a bobcat is in the area and stayed on the mouth call two hours only to have a coyote show!

Coyotes figure it all out sooner or later, If they have been shot into and called by whatever, they just quit coming. Oh did I say some of them speak 3 to 4 languages, worlds smartest animal...Try trapping a 4 toed coyote!!

Try calling loudly, intensely, for about 30 seconds, then sit and wait, for about 3-5 minutes. Then repeat several times.

If those coyotes have been 'educated' by an e-call (continuous loop sounds), then changing things up might help.

My sequence is as above, and, using hand calls, has been pretty effective for me on hard hunted coyotes.

Kyler I remember when I hunted the Peachtree Ranch one of the oldtimers there actually used to drag a shot out shoulder or rib cage from a deer along a ranch road for about a half a mile or so then nailed the meat to an oak tree and used I believe a deer bleat to call the dogs in. He was pretty consistent getting the dogs. I never hunted coyotes with him but I dont have any reason to not believe the man. He did this in several areas of the ranch and it seemed to work.

Pet rabbit and a shock collar……. They’ll dodge bullets to get to it

Sometime you just can't call them in. I kill a lot of coyotes for the farmers and ranchers here in the valley and there has been quite a few times that I've run into coyotes that would not respond to any type of call.

If a rancher really wants the animals taken out, that's when the hard work begins. I'll get out Google Earth on my computer and map out all the possible travel routes for the areas that I think that they're in. Then I'll find overlooks for those areas and possible gun positions and then set up before dawn and again at dusk in those places and try to get them on their daily travels.

On a few of these "smart dogs" I've spent three of four weekends before finally getting a shot. Some of these I've taken at over 400 yards and there are a few that I've never got. ... yet.

Don't use a telemarketer call, they'll hang up on you for sure.

Six beers usually does it, but then there's that chewin off your arm part ...

I agree that FoxPro is much less effective than it was 15 years ago - esp in AZ around Phoenix. My suggestions:

1. Get a decoy; that works wonders but often causes them to come in at a dead run.
2. Make sure you FoxPro speakers are not blown out - makes the sounds very unnatural.
3. Try a hand call.
4. Try bird distress if you have not already

Are you calling in birds of prey? If not, your calls are probably not effective.

The only thing I know is change your area if you can other than that try some of the black magic suggested and see how it does...I just ran a trap line at that point on my ranch in far west Texas Big Bend, back in the day when furs were money..

There was some good advice here - Thanks!

I've been doing some calling since posting this question. Got three coyotes this morning....

Of the tips listed above a few I hadn't been doing seemed to help:
Specifically using sounds from animals that don't occur in this area/aren't typical prey species added to the variety of sounds and seemed to work. I guess a small animal in distress sounds like a free meal whether it's a very familiar sound or not. I'd probably gotten a bit stale using my favorite 10 or so calls. Now I'm trying to rotate among 30 or 40 different sounds, using about 4 or 5 minutes per sound and waiting up to 25 minutes total (I'm sure longer would be better, but patience is NOT one of my virtues).
I've been consistently calling in hawks and crows so I guess the speaker is okay. A red-tail nearly stole my decoy today, but flared at the last second (sure made me jump).

I thought adding a mouth call in among the electronic call sounded like good advice, but so far I haven't gotten anything to come in while trying that.

I've always used a decoy and I really like how it keeps the the coyotes from looking for anything else. I don't ever remember being spotted after something was committed to coming in to the decoy (it let's you switch guns, quickly reposition, etc. without being spotted). Today on a double coming in, the second one stayed interested in the decoy even after his partner's mission was cancelled. As stated, a decoy often bring in things on a dead run so you have to be really quick and it's taught me to keep a shotgun on my lap - along side the long range rifle. I do a lot of clay shooting - so I don't mind a quick running shot on a fully committed contestant. It might be a bit too wild and hairy for some folks.

In my case my decoy cost about $25 and the speaker/caller cost $250. For my first time out with the electronic pair several years ago I put them right together and when a coyote tried to steal the decoy I had to do some fancy shooting to NOT hit the call while taking out the coyote. That first electronic rodeo taught me to put them a decent distance apart. At those prices, shooting the decoy wouldn't be too bad, but I'd hate to blow up the call unit.

Another question for you folks that have called a lot of coyotes: Have you ever had much luck when the wind is blowing the wrong direction? I'll plan my stands out ahead of time and if the wind is blowing toward where the coyotes would typically come from (often I call around springs) then I almost always skip that stand, thinking my cover is blown before I even start calling. But have any of you still had coyotes regularly come in even if the wind is blowing to them (I would assume NOT)?

Thanks.

a white tail deers nose is about 20 times better than a dogs.
a coyote will come in close enough to get shot in the wind, the real problem is seeing it when other things are moving.

quote:

But have any of you still had coyotes regularly come in even if the wind is blowing to them (I would assume NOT)?

Not me.

Many years ago, I spotted a coyote coming to my call from dead-down wind, on a ranch 2 track. I got him lasered at about 800yds, and was scanning him as he trotted in.

At 490yds, he blew off the road into the sagebrush.

So, at 1/4 mile, he got my scent, and he did not hesitate to leave.

I can fool their ears and eyes, but I do not think I can ever fool 'the nose'.

Fighting crows and magpie sound along with some dead animal scent. Set up afternoon, shoot at dusk.