Finding Coyotes before Breeding Season

Finding Coyotes before Breeding Season

By Troy Hoepker

There’s an old myth that implies coyotes are almost impossible to kill during the months of December and January because of the constant intrusion and disruption from the orange army of deer hunters, which invade their territory during that time. The theory suggests that coyotes become strictly nocturnal and have full bellies from all the gut piles left behind, thus making them stubborn to investigate the sounds of a hunter’s call. They’ve been shot at, spooked, and smelled the scent of human around every bend. This changes them so significantly that they can’t be hunted successfully until breeding season arrives when they let their guard down once again.

Understanding the Myth
While there are some truths in these theories, there are also plenty of falsehoods. Coyotes are extremely intelligent creatures and they do associate life-threatening experiences with places, sounds and human scent. If a coyote is shot at in a certain location, chances are that they will avoid that location like the plague for a while. If they smell the scent of human in front of a dirt hole that they are investigating, then they will sidestep that spot for weeks. When they hear a sound and come running only to be shot at, then you can rest assured that they won’t fall for the same trick in the same spot twice. These examples of education differ from the general theories of hunting pressure in the form of deer drives during shotgun seasons or dogs and hunters invading the fields for pheasants.

Calling pressure and hunting pressure are two different things entirely. Deer hunting pressure, resulting in coyotes being displaced from their hide and being shot at, is completely different than hound hunters displacing that same coyote and dogging his trail relentlessly for miles. My point is that the hunting pressure from targeting a coyote in your hunt compared to the random chance encounter of taking a coyote while hunting something else does not relate to one another in most cases. Just because a coyote has a full belly from the gut pile he found during the night doesn’t mean it can’t be called when the sun comes up. Hunger is only one of the reasons coyotes investigate the sound of distress.

Coyotes can be called during the months of December and early January as well as any other time of the year if the hunter is steadfast in their stubbornness to not accept these myths. Long ago, I refused to accept the notion that general hunting pressure was the reason for my failure to call a coyote at a given set. Instead, I took ownership of my hunting skills to be certain I was making good stands and doing everything right so that “hunting pressure” could never be an excuse.

Understanding Environmental Influences
To be honest, weather and the changing environment of a coyote’s surroundings have more to do with this period of lack of success for hunters than does hunting pressure. From the time the first combines hit the field, prey animals world’s change drastically. Yes, a coyote knows it is prey when it encounters humans. This is why a coyote won’t be seen trotting across a wide-open harvested beanfield in December. The habitat that is safe for them has shrunken dramatically once the crops are out and changes even more once the snow has fallen. The same coyote that carelessly traveled across roads, and near homes with the protection of the lush green habitat of summer now analyzes every step in his travel route for his own protection as well as his ability to sneak up on prey during the winter months. Breeding season or not.

The Best Kept Secret to Calling
The number one factor for success of calling coyotes during these pre-rut months is not sound choice. It is making a coyote feel comfortable and safe while approaching your set. Sound choices can help with that feeling, but set location, wind direction and stealth are much more important. There are no magical sounds that draw coyotes like a moth to the flame in some hypnotic trance while their senses tell them something is wrong along the way. There is however a magical wind. One whiff of you in that wind and POOF, they disappear.

A hunter who slams the door of his pickup, walks over the hill in plain sight of the cover he is about to call towards for a couple of hundred yards and sets the caller down in the wide open field with the wind in his face and the road at his downwind will not consistently call coyotes in Iowa. After that hunter has given up, he may shrug his shoulders and utter something to the effect of, “These coyotes have been pushed around and shot at too much to be called in.”

Instead, what he should have done as he walks back to the truck defeated, was analyze everything that he did wrong. He was too loud getting in and exposed himself too much to the area of cover where a coyote might have been. He was asking a coyote to expose itself for way too long on a direct approach to the sound. Even if none of these things were the reason for failure, he was also advertising to the coyote in cover that there was no way the coyote could get downwind of the sound safely, therefore it never even tried.

It’s the “never even tried” part that haunts me. When you’re calling spots there’s usually coyotes within earshot. But why don’t they come? The coyote that never even took a step towards you, yet perks up to listen to the sound of every call is the one I learn the most from even though I can’t see him or wonder if he’s even there.

That is because I’m analyzing everything that I do.
A coyote with a full belly can be called just as a coyote living in a heavily pressured deer hunting section can be called. The trick is finding the area where it wants to be. That area usually involves a place with good prey habitat hidden from the road and includes travel corridors that hide a predator’s approach route to it. Lastly, it is also a spot that gives the hunter a place for his downwind scent cone to disperse to an area big enough and open enough to draw the coyote into once it arrives and can’t resist the temptation of smelling what he’s hearing. Calling coyotes is about tricking them. Making them feel dead-set confident that what they are approaching is the real deal and it’s in a spot they can get to safely and once there, they can successfully wind it and kill it. Picking the right ambush spot is more than half the battle.

I’ve proven this theory to myself many times over the years. There’s been times when I have found a new place to hunt and I try it from a logical place on the property and fail. I may try a new spot on the property and fail once more. I may try different spots multiple times when I finally try yet a different spot on the property and find success. The reason is because I finally found the spot where I made a coyote feel most comfortable to come hunt and the success continues for years in that spot. You have to be very inviting when setting the table.

Pre-Breeding Techniques
As winter begins and breeding season gets closer, family units begin to disperse, as momma forces her litter away. Young coyotes with unseasoned independence make plenty of mistakes while trying to carve out an existence. Therefore distress noises are still very effective. Those young coyotes are extremely wary when approaching distress sounds because they are constantly trespassing into the territory of another coyote. This makes a proper ambush site all that more important.

When using coyote vocalizations, remember that there is a large percentage of subordinate coyotes out there so friendly inviting sounds are more effective than aggressive sounds generally speaking. Those same young coyotes are likely to approach downwind so they can smell friend or foe. At the very least, they may stay on the fringe of cover to get eyes on the coyote they hear. In either case, you’ll want a set up that doesn’t allow you to get winded before you can shoot and have cover close enough upwind that allows you a shot at the hung up coyote trying to see your location. Lastly, pup distress sounds can be effective to subordinate and alpha coyotes alike. Maternal instincts bring alpha coyotes and subordinate coyotes come because they can’t look away from the sound of a fight.

The coyote has been the subject of many legends and myths throughout different civilizations and generations for centuries. This winter, don’t let the myth of pre-rut coyote hunting being too tough to keep you at home!