Hunting The 'Yotes
Of The Salt Lake Desert Thomas C. Tabor
The surprising beauty of the Utah Desert area is something that many people don’t expect.
Lake Desert of Utah. This area is unique in several different ways, but in particular for its vast size and the great predator hunting opportunities. In order to take advantage of what this area had to offer, our group had traveled there from various parts of the country to meet at the Salt Lake City Airport. None of us had hunted coyotes in this area before and we were all eager to get started. For this hunt we decided to take a dif- ferent approach. Rather than operating out of a single base camp we decided to stay mobile. The western desert area of Utah is enormous, and by frequently changing locales and adjusting for the circumstances we encountered we could cover more area, possibly increase our number of setups each day, and, we hoped, have more shooting success. In order to
I
believe one of the best-kept secrets in coyote hunting may be found in and around the area of the Great Salt
A typical Utah desert landscape consists of small junipers, sagebrush, and piñon pines.
do that we essentially lived out of the back of our trucks. The plan was to travel light enough to take our camp with us each day and settle in at a new campsite each evening. Our camp consisted of sleeping bags, cots, food stored in a couple of coolers, and a tiny portable barbeque. On some occasions our evening meal consisted of hot dogs warmed on the barbeque, and other times, when we got to our camp late, we just ate a cold sandwich, potato chips, and drank a cola. It wasn’t what I would call fi rst class accommodations, but there were some inherent advantages in this style of desert hunting. While Utah’s western desert areas see a signifi cant
amount of hunting pressure for species like deer and ante- lope, it seems little attention is paid to the coyotes that make their home there. We saw virtually no sign of other predator hunters, and outside of the local farmers who occasionally
Our typical high-country setup often involved positioning ourselves along the edge of a canyon. Doing so provided us with a good view of the ravine and canyon bottoms below.
Page 12 July — September 2011
Dave Dolbee beat me to the punch with his Ruger Model 77 chambered in .204 when he got this very nicely pelted early season desert coyote. He made a perfect shot using Federal Premium TNT Green ammo at about 175 yards.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196 |
Page 197 |
Page 198 |
Page 199 |
Page 200 |
Page 201 |
Page 202 |
Page 203 |
Page 204 |
Page 205 |
Page 206 |
Page 207 |
Page 208 |
Page 209 |
Page 210 |
Page 211 |
Page 212