Coyote tracks in the morning show that baiting can bring them in.
are in much tighter cover and when we start calling, we soon learn that a coyote lives and dies by his nose. He will circle downwind of the caller and, most of the time, gets your scent before you ever see him. You really have to choose your setup well, and it helps to have a second shooter placed downwind to watch for the coyote circling the caller. I work for Kittery Trading Post,
one of the largest firearm retailers on the East Coast, and have put on a number of seminars on coyote hunting. I will be the first to acknowledge that I am not an “expert” when it comes to coyote hunting. I learn something every time I go out. The question I get all the time is, “How come when I call I never see a coyote? I use the same calls the experts use but I never see them.” I explain that most of the time the coyote makes you before you ever see him.
This dead coyote on bait was drawn in by a "free meal" but the free meal was accompanied by a hunter and rifle.
The other problem is that they have heard that call before. Probably a dozen times, judging from all the calls we sell. I think when they hear that same dying rabbit, they are expecting to see or smell a hunter. I realized I needed to find something different and better for coyote hunting. Enter the night hunting scenario. Night hunting for coyotes has
been legal in Maine for quite some time. State game agencies realized that coy- otes are difficult to hunt. Calling works, but only to a degree. The more pressure, the smarter coyotes get. There is one other method up here
that I haven’t mentioned yet and that is running them with dogs. The area where I hunt up north is exceptional for hunting with hounds, and the guys there who do hunt them probably kill more coyotes than any other group.
When the snow is deep, they will start early in the morning at the bait pile, and if the dogs cut a fresh track, they are off and running. The hunters use shotguns with buckshot, and while I haven’t tried this myself, I was told if you put a couple of pellets into a coyote, even if you don’t kill it, the dogs can overtake him. The deeper the snow the better as the coyote has to break trail, while the dogs follow. Sometimes they will “bay up” and give the hunter on a snow machine a chance to close in for a shot. Most of the time, the hunter can get ahead and wait for the dogs to push the coyote by. So with the night season open, I
would go out and freeze in January un- til the wee hours of the morning, trying to call in a coyote or sit over a bait pile and hope a coyote would show himself before I got cold and headed home.
A simple and inexpensive driveway alarm box can alert a hunter in a cabin that a coyote (or other predator) is coming in to the bait.
A rifle left ready makes it quick and easy for a hunter in the cabin to grab and shoot when the bait alarm goes off.
www.varminthunter.org Page 145
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