Make Your Stand Count Art Isberg
Once early snows fly in high country mountains, the game of varmint hunting changes with it in ways that give hunters a real edge. Here the author looks over a likely piece of country close to his home.
coyotes, bobcats, or fox, the Big Three of the varmint world, before you ever lift a call to your lips or a rifle to your shoulder, you must first possess or learn to possess one other vitally basic ability. That is to accurately assess all country in front of you to choose for a stand and your chances for it to produce animals at that particular time of the year. Is there a wind, what direction, what el- evation are you setting up in, is the sun in your face or at your back, on still days will warming air lift your scent, are you at, below or above the area you want to call over? As a general rule these answers and more take a good deal of time and experience afield learning the fundamentals of picking correctly. The goal of this article is to help point your way to that goal from my own four and one-half decades of predator hunting. I have pursued all three major preda- tors in everything from high country mountains to mesas, rimrocks, mixed country and thick brush fields to arid, western deserts. If we add to this the
R
egardless of what type of coun- try you set up in to call for
greatest game changer of all, weather, it makes this task easier to understand, carry out, and apply successfully wher- ever you hunt. Let’s start on top. HIGH COUNTRY
The advance of winter snows fa-
vors high country hunters in three very powerful ways. First, animals stay out longer each day hunting. Second, it’s always far easier seeing animals ap- proaching over a snowy background. And third, their tracks, droppings and recent use tell you if you’re setting up in productive country before you even start. Mountainous country regardless of where you hunt it always has one very important common denominator, which is widely scattered game, both large and small, that predators prey on. That fact alone means more often than not you’ll have to cover a fair piece of ground to score on coyotes, the apex predator in these tall lands. Yes, bob- cat and fox are here too, but coyote is King up high, and in greater numbers. The only exception to this rule would be those new areas where wolves are now wandering far from Yellowstone.
And this is what we all want for our efforts, a coyote on the run coming to my calls for an easy meal. That’s how I make “stands that count.”
National Park, for wolves will either kill or run off their smaller canine cousins.
When bobcat hunting in thick cover, choose areas with modest openings that force cats to show themselves as they close in. Also try to pick elevation, regardless of how small, to call from. You’ll see more using it and your scent will be negligible too.
www.varminthunter.org Page 87
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