Messages

Kit,
I call coyotes using mouth and electronic calls and by using bait. I started two years ago on a whim. I picked up a call and took a ride until some tracks crossed the road following some deer tracks. I walked about ten yards from my truck and started calling using a Lohman Circe adjustable call. I called for about 30 seconds every couple of minutes for about 3 minutes, then quit. About three minutes later I saw something coming through the thigh-dee snow.. It was a coyote up the hill about 50 yards away in the trees. I got the gun on him and never got a shot as he went behind a tree and back down the opposite side of the hill. I've been hoked pretty bad ever since.
When we kill a coyote we skin them for the pelts.
I  hunt them because it is challenging. It seems like the coyotes always know where the private land is here. There is plenty of public land, but they go into super sneak on that. It is also a good way to get out of the house with my son or friends and do some late season hunting.

Redrover

AZ,
we just got about  8 inches yesterday and last night the wind started howling and we got about 12 inches from Lake Superior. If the wind stops, the snow will stop. So it will be awhile before the coyotes can get out of the swamps.  Until the snow settles we have hockey.

I talked to one hunter up here and he  said they hunt the rivers. the coyotes use them pretty much. So maybe the roadkill will be along the river.

redrover

Hunted Friday Evening over a roadkill when a huge snowstorm pulled in and finished that.
Hunted Saturday. Nothing. Walked into the spot and scouted. It is loaded with snowshoe hares so it will be a good spot once the snow really gets in here. We're getting another huge snowstorm tonight so we'll be up to about a foot of snow and we got two more roadkills to put out.
Do you guys get any snow out there in Arizona?

Redrover

I have a question.
If you were in the same situation which would you rather have

Shotgun and slugs

or the 7mm mag?

Redrover

P.S. I'd take the shotgun and slugs

I tried baiting last spring at the very end of our season on March. I had a roadkill I tied up into a tree. We let it sit a few days and hunted it in the evening after work. Our first night there by partner had about a 200 yard shot and missed. I couldn't see the coyote till he pointed it out . His shot was pretty close though, just a little high.
two nights later I went back and had about a 125 yard shot with no moon and no stars. he was going toward the bait in a  start-stop  fashion. My shot was when he started moving again then I took four more whle he ran faster and faster.
After that they quit hitting the bait (I don't know why LOL).
After a couple of weeks I took the bait down from the tree and came back the next day. the bait was taken that night and totally eaten.

I am going to try meat scraps from the grocery store this winter as I will be able to get them by the box as often as I like that way I can keep feeding them.

It is the in-the-dark-shooting that is the challenge though. Depth perception is tough at night; even with a full moon and our gun range closes at dark so practicing is tough too.

Good luck,
Redrover

Are you still using bait out there off of your deck?
If yes, have you ever noticed a particular time the coyotes come in?
Good shootin,
Redrover

I'm also thinking about the woodpecker call myself. There are plenty of em around here. I am also going to try using a fawn or deer istress and use a small deer decoy.

Also I'm on the lookout for roadkill. I just found out where the local road commision leaves theirs. That seem like the best call once things get tough and there is snow on the ground so they don't stink you up.

Redrover

I definitely agree with that 1st statement about QDM being a choice.
That's exactly what it should be; a choice.

But if QDM is implemented like it has been in these experimental areas.
The doe permits go out like candy and you see no deer.
When anyone from our camp (which went 90% on bucks this year with only 2 spikehorns out of ten hunters) talks to other camps now who complain, we tell em, "shot all your does eh?" and they are finally starting to nod their heads in agreement.

QDM is upsetting the balance. I'm not saying tht for you, but up here it does.
Yet there are those who believe it will help them to fnally ag that huge buck.
Tsk. Tsk.

As far as hunting south where the farms are. If you want to hunt under a block permit you'd better have $50.00 because that is what it will cost at least to hunt that farm. Even though they receive my tax dollar as a subsidy for their losses.

As for the comment about Insurance companies, if we are to appease insurance companies there will be no deer. Then they can keep the money we give them so they can grow even larger and help us be even safer. (that will be great).

All I've talked to are angry landowners and public land hunters who complain of no deer in these areas, but plenty of coyote and wolf tracks.

Most people want to in some way be successful when they go deer hunting so if there are doe permits they are using them. That is the inherent weakness of QDM. If there are no does to be bre there are no deer. Like these areas where it is already being forced on people.

QDM seems like symptom of a general downturn in hunter skills. Many hunters have been talked into thinking they are going to drive out to the woods, park their car and blast this ten point if QDM is implemented.

If we want all these big bucks who are so valuable to the gene pool why aren't they the ones being protected. I would think that would be best for the herd.

Many deer hunters are spending too much time in stores buying gear to sit over bait or just sit. There is nothing wrong with our choice like that when you hunt. But someone telling me what to shoot when we both know what they are there for just irks me.
Maybe that is beause hunters in general are getting older.

If you want a buck
you may have to get up and walk
you may have to get some guys together and form a drive
you may have to get out of your blind that's been the same place for ten years.
You may have to scout as early as September (that's late)

I don't see a lot of that anymore.
Only hunters of all ages and skill evels who want to sit and complain.

A lot of these people are people who I grew up with
The ones in favor of QDM here seem like the same ones who always wanted to change the rules so they could compete at whatever game we played.

It seems people never change.
At least in my neck of the woods.
I suspect they are like that everywhere.

Redrover

It is ironic that Texas and The Upper Peninsula of Michigan share weather related stresses to the deer population. But Quality Deer Management is the answer to nothing. Right now in the Upper Peninsula there are three QDM test areas.

I have a friend who was out with his son out last year on the son's first hunt in one of these areas and in comes a spikehorn. The difference in this spikehorn was that it was miraculously an old deer who had regressed that and had a poor chance of survival through the winter. He had to tell his son no to that buck. I think that's bad.

You're not welcoming people to the sport telling them no. On the other hand I have friends who have hunted for years and stalk or sit in a stand after scouting before season and kill very nice bucks. I think it takes work to get a quality buck and no amount of special wildlife management is going to change that. I can't play golf. Should they change the rules? No.

People I have spoken to who hunt these experimental quality areas are in their third year and most are saying no to QDM as the deer hunting is regressing. Why? the does permits were handed out like candy and that unfotunately nets a lot of button bucks. One camp I heard from unwittingly shot mostly button bucks with their doe permits last season. That doesn't make for a good future.

Passing up an opportunity to kill a legal buck after working all year to get some time for yourself or, worse yet, to bring your son or daughter along to teach them to hunt is unsound for deer hunting as a sport. The future of deer hunting is not how big a deer you shot.


Letting a legal buck go should be the license holders' choice. Not being able to shoot a deer because his horns are not large enough is superficial wildlife management and opens up deer hunting to an anti-hunting group being able to skew non-hunters to the average hunters motives.

I suspect it is private landowners who go for QDM for the most part, Because if you hunt on public land you know where those quality bucks are headed.

We are lucky up here because a "poor boy" can still shoot a nice buck. There is still quite a bit of public areas.
Our cold, crappy weather also keeps some hunters indoors.

Redrover

You've got some great points there Alboy, but if you take a look at the map you'll notice that the Upper Peninsula of Michigan lies directly south of Lake Superior. Our hunter kill is actually estimated to be only 1/3 of the total deer taken by the winter each year. We have total snowfalls in the 120 inch per winter range and we have broken snowfall records 2 out of the last three seasons. We need every doe we can get up here. So I guess things are a little different down in Texas. I've seen pictures of those young, huge bucks down there. I shot a 3 1/2 year old 8 pointer this year that had a little basket rack . All the other bucks were in the 4-6 point range and we had some spikes in the bag also, but one thing you'll notice is since the last few winters the raacks are small mini racks or they are mishapen and ugly. That is not genetic it is due to climate and diet. We also have wolves thrown in now and a very healthy population of coyotes to take the young of the year. I didn't see one yearling doe this season; no one in our camp did. I suspect the wolves have a little quality deer management program of their own going on up here and all we can do is wait till they're off the endangered list.
As for that apacalyptic human example I used: if it happens I'll call you and we'll hit the road to start that insemination idea. That sounds pretty good. LOL
Good hunting
Redrover

We call them "cutshells" in Michigan.

Not so common anymore, but highly illegal. We had an old Volkswagon we'd shoot cutshells at in the old days similar to AZ's test fridge with similar results.

No blown barrels back then on our 870s,

but I don't make them for my Benelli these days....

redrover

Wow, the new site is very nice. I hope those bad people are rooted out and punished severely for what they did to Hunters Life.

Our deer season in Michigan is almost over. Coyote hunting has been closed for the firearm deer seson to protect the wolf population so they can chainsaw through our deer herd (their day will soon be here though).

We just ordered our new Foxpro last night and all the calls, guns and knives are cleaned and ready I'm finished deer hunting and just waiting.

Barring my son's hockey games, I will be out there heavily.

I do have a question though:
Have you all experienced in areas with higher  pressure an unwillingness by predators to respond to rabbit distress calls, and if so which distress calls have you used with success for predators?

I have heard about using a woodpecker distress but I am unsure how to accomplish it with a mouthcall.
Any other alternative calls?

I have been adding some coyote voalizations but have been saving them for this later season as  know a lot of the other people around here are just using rabbit in distress mouthcalls.

Thank you,
Redrover

I think that this thread is skewed.
I prefer neither a spike nor a huge buck. I have a license to kill a buck with 3" antlers or better. I think it should be the choice of the hunter to hunt "first come first serve", or scout early or wait out that big buck. I think the opportunity is there for  each style hunter around the U.S.
The only year our camp ever went without deer was the year after the dnr had doe permits in our area.  I think areas with large populations should have doe harvests that alone in trouble areas will increase the quality of the herd, but again that is for management of the herd, not a certain segment.
The only thing I am convinced of so far with quality deer management is the taking of does and the allowing of bucks to go to next season makes the total deer population unbalanced and unstable.
If a disease happened that killed 90% of the population of the world, how would the human race be safer and likely to return to saffe levels; with the survival of more males or the survival of more females?
I think a lot of hunters have the attitude that if Quality Deer management is in place they can pull off on any road and connect with a huge buck. That is unrealistic.
I am for a stable, healthy deer population, not a unstable artificial buck population.