Lee and I have been partners for nearly two weeks now. I’ve been busy but when he called and said he was ready to make a day of it I said I would be at his house in the morning at 6:00.
I told him I hoped he had laid out a good route and places where we would not have to wade mud. I am really getting tired of all the mud.

Lee laughed and said bring my mud wading boots as he could not guarantee no mud at this time of year.
I arrived at his place just at 6:30 trucks clock and a light was on in the house. The yard light flicked twice and then stayed on. So I shut the truck off and went inside. Lee says pull up a chair and how you want your coffee? He sat a cup in front of me and says how do you want your eggs I know you haven’t ate breakfast. I tell him I had fixed my breakfast at home but if he wanted to fix me some thing then a slice of that home made bread toasted and slathered in butter.
I got the slice of toast yum.

I asked Lee why he was dragging his feet didn’t we need to go to make the first set as it was getting light. He laughed and said we are just going out back to make our first set. Heard them I thought 2 nights ago he said. Took his caller out and ran the siren sound full volume to figure out if they were on his side of the river or not. Said they are on his side so we were going to set up in his back 20 next to his 32 acres of woods along the river.

He finished his breakfast then we got in our camo, walked back across a hay field and made our set just as it lightened enough you could see the trees in the woods.
We had decided it is hight time to run the mating sounds so we went with a female in heat looking for a mate.
That took a full 5 minutes to pull in a pair of coyotes. One a youngish male and the other a youngish female possibly last springs pups attempting to form a new pack. Both had good fur yet, figure once we get several days in a row of nice weather they will start shedding fast.

The deer on my place are already starting to shed. Picked up a wad of white hair just the other day from a bed. I use this hair to tie into fishing flies.

We get the two coyotes back up to the shed Lee has then throw our gear in his truck and head out to a farm only 5 miles up the road. Lee knows the owner well as he sells hay to them. They board horses for people in cities and near by towns that do not have a place to keep their horses. They maintain about 4 miles of trails to ride on with leased land and their own.
After 30 minutes of mating sounds we didn’t see any coyotes.

Now coyotes have even made the local news here. Many people having sightings in urban areas and reporting them.
The state DNR was telling people thru the news media to take in all pet food at night, keep trash in a secured area as the coyotes could smell food scraps in it, and do not let your pets out in the evening before bed alone nor in the early mornings either.
The DNR lady said it is coyote mating season is why they are sighting so many coyotes now.

We did 5 more sets with in 30 miles of Lee’s farm and got 4 more coyotes, Lee had some hay buyers that were to come at noon. Lee wanted to be there while they loaded the hay (small rectangle bales.) figured a half hour for them to load 200 bales depending on how many the buyer brought to help load.
Lee’s, Ann fixed us roast beef sandwiches to eat for our dinner along with all the coffee of iced tea we wanted.
I wasn’t needed for the count so I started in on the skinning of the coyotes we had placed in Lee’s shed.

Took the 3 men about 45 minutes to get the trailer loaded and tied down for the ride to their horse farm.
I don’t care what any one says working with hay is hard work any time of the year.

After they had left we again hit the road. It is over cast and the wind is changing to a more north wind than any thing.
Glad I had dressed for the changing weather and also brought a change of coats.

Lee had mapped out several sheep farms for us to hit. They tend not to have muddy fields near wood lots where coyotes may be lurking.
We were able to pull a single male from the first place and then nothing the next 4 places.
The 5th place we switched back to the lamb in distress sound. That brought up a double for us to drag back to the truck.

Next we hit on a couple dairy farms, here we did have to deal with a little bit of mud about 20 yards to cut across a cut corn field to a hay field to walk back to the wood lot. We had decided to run the female coyote in heat for no more than 15 minutes then go into a distressed Piglet
sound.
We decided the female coyote not finding a mate was still going to be wanting some food.
It worked at about 20 minutes we got two more female coyotes to come in.

By the time we finished a set at 3:00 PM the wind was really strong, was bringing tears to the eyes. Once we got back to the truck we decided we should just call it a day just as it started a cold rain.
That is Michigan in the sprin, expect the same till the end of April.

Al

I would hardly think I coyote would be worth skinning at this time of year.

I would give up trapping mid February because the hides were going bad.

But it is always worth reducing their numbers.

Possiable where your at but here in Michign it has been very cold untill the last few days. All the hair is thick and tight on these coyotes.

Al

Wow, bet you guys spent half the night
skinning those stinking dogs.

All the fur's good?

Enjoyed the story.

George

Ya I would guess about that if we had did it at night.

We always hunted them until we found
the hair was going bad. Then unless
we just wanted to reduce the population
the guy I hunted with would quit.
I kept on many times til my health went
to hell and I can't get out there any
longer.

George

Good story! Thanks. Brian

Yes, enjoyed it very much as well!