Bare minimum for coyote hunt

[camper4lyfe]

My cousin has some land, and access to land, that has a pretty high coyote population as of late. We're eyeing end of February/early March, as that's when he's heard they're most active during the day (no night vision goodies, so night hunts are pretty much out right now).

In order to do daytime coyote hunt, what's the bare minimum in equipment you'd need to have at least half a chance of being successful?

 

[Podmonkey]

Pointy stick?

 

[camper4lyfe]

A rifle is a given, I'm thinking more calls, decoys, etc.

 

[Jaywmustang]

Good camo if u go during the day. I believe that time of year is mating season. I go at night, u could pick up a inexpensive spot light for night hunting.

 

[whauburger]

Trap them critters

 

[squib]

Bait (free on roadside)

 

[JamieZ]

Go early morning as soon as enough light breaks to be able to see through a scope or go at night right before sundown. For the cheapest way, invest into some mouth calls now such as wounded rabbit or female whimper. Buy them now and learn to use them. People shoot them quite often in NY state during daylight hours. There is youtube videos of them doing it.

 

[JamieZ]

Also read about coyote hunting and playing the wind. They have great smellers. Hunting so you're in a cross wind is the easiest with one or 2 people.

 

[FrankenCub]

You'd be surprised how many yotes you can call in now in the AM. Give it a try first thing in the morning. And as mentioned above, good camo which could be as simple as hiding in brush, a couple calls, and boom stick of your choice. And of course watch the wind. If you watch MFK Game calls on YT, half the time they don't even wear camo yet are killin em.
@Bushmaster will show up for some good tips too

 

[whauburger]

Wind is very important, they have insane smelling ability and get very weary when something us off...they will also try and circle to pick up a better smell if they have a sense of danger. Bait is good bc it will give a smell off. You can spritz your boots with fox urine as well to help mask your odor.

 

[thegatman]

A backup guy with a shotgun. They will sneak right up on you. Watch your back.

 

[fnfalguy]

Pants. Definitely pants. And one of those ACME catalogs.

 

[Carlos Hathcock]

Wind is very important, they have insane smelling ability and get very weary when something us off...they will also try and circle to pick up a better smell if they have a sense of danger. Bait is good bc it will give a smell off. You can spritz your boots with fox urine as well to help mask your odor.

They get tired when they think there's trouble? Good to know.

 

[JaguarJaguarGolf]

They will use terrain,vegetation and rock walls as a visual screen to sneak up on you.

 

[whauburger]

S3cond

They get tired when they think there's trouble? Good to know.

Sorry wary is the word I was going for. my phone tends to think it knows what I mean more then I do.

 

[Carlos Hathcock]

S3cond


Sorry wary is the word I was going for. my phone tends to think it knows what I mean more then I do.

than.

 

[Acer-m14]

go with a friend or 2 for back up .. get your camo on and roll in some deer gut piles .. should be good to go .. LOL .. just kidding but a crazy idea ..


from bushmaster PM's on this ...

This is the lights I used. In Red and Green. You need 18650 battery and charger, and scope mount. Search for the kit or buy separate.
https://www.amazon.com/Uniquefire-H...r=8-35&keywords=red+cree+ultrafire+flashlight

here is one with scope mount.
https://www.amazon.com/WindFire-Wat...D=51yiNXXoLIL&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=detail

Bushmaster's rig ..

 

[FrankenCub]

I doesn't hurt to get a night or two when calling and paying attention to the direction you think they will come from. Then hear a twig break behind you, as you spin around with your heart in your throat he's right on top of you. Who, at the moment, is more scared? You or he? LMAO

 

[Acer-m14]

years ago i used to go to New Paltz "the gunks" to rock climb and camp for a week at a time .. black bear area .. food up in the trees away from tent ..
well you know them college hippys like to rock climb too .. 3am my tent gets crashed into .. WTF!!! BEAR!!! .. no just a high drunk hippy who fell into my tent .. scared the F out of me .. now i don't really like being out in the woods at night alone with a gun or not .. i rather have some back up now ..

 

[Bushmaster]

Ahh the good old days before FUAC... LOL.. Ya taken a few Yotes, Fox in my days lol, The pics are ONE year supply from hunting NYS to border Pa season.

 

[Bushmaster]

A friend of mine who taught me Fox/Coyote hunting wrote this LOL. His name is Guy, mines Terry (coyote Ugly) Bushmaster. My first time out with bare minimum. There is a whole lot more to story he wrote but here is first part LOL...

Terry Goes Fox Hunting:

(For the first time)

The truck came rolling to a stop just off the road in a farmer’s laneway. Reaching for the keys to turn the engine off I glanced at Terry; looking for some sign that he might have changed his mind about roaming around under a night sky and searching for fox. He thought it was a joke that we would, in the pitch dark shoot fox charging at us with the gun in one hand and a light in the other.

I have trapped furbearers since I was in my teens, but I only started fox hunting a few years before taking my job at Copco Publishers, always fox hunting alone and rarely going too far from the truck. A practice I have often referred to as “self preservation, or truthfully… a coward”


Predator hunting is typically done at night; when predators are on the hunt scavenging for food, and when their activity is at its peak. Using an electronic call, we mimic different sounds a fox might find enticing, scanning the field with a light defused by a red lens to light up there eyes and hoping to bring them within shotgun range


When hunting at night your aspirations are mostly the same as one would have hunting during the day light hours. Be one with nature, take in the beauty of the world that thrives outside our windows, the sounds, the smells, and ultimately bag your quarry. The difference at night is, the only thing you’re one with is your gun, the woods are bathed in darkness and you see nothing, the sounds always make you want to turn tail and run, your breathing is to labored to smell anything, and sometimes you’re praying; your quarry does not show up… at all.


Laughing to himself, obviously amused with the thoughts of shooting something in the dark Terry grabbed his gun from the back of the truck, a single shot 12 gauge with about an 18 inch barrel, I got the calling machine and closed the truck door as sudden as that we were standing in the complete dark and Terry was no longer laughing.


The evening was cold and clear without a breath of wind. The field I chose for our first hunt was a cut cornfield on Town line road in Canandaigua backing up to the backside of a large wal-mart store. The field was cut in half by a hedgerow that ran about ¾ of the way down the middle making it in a sense two fields. At the farthest end from us was all over grown brush and at the end we would make our stand; was a hedgerow that ran parallel with the road and all tangled weeds beyond that.


Having chosen the best spot to make our stand I quickly ran the calling machine out about twenty feet in front of us and about twenty feet or so to our right hand side, pointing the speaker towards the left corner on the opposite end of the field, hoping that if a fox came in it would be broadside when it ran by us… hitting the play button I quickly ran back to the hedgerow.


The calling machine was a regular cassette player I purchased at Wal-mart along with a roll of wire attached to a horn type speaker and I had two Johnny Stewart cassette tapes, dying rabbit and gray fox pup. The light was a 12 volt spot light with red cellophane taped to it and was wired to a small car battery that I carried in 5 gallon bucket.


Settling into the hedgerow I informed Terry when the call begins I’d shine the field and he’d shoot if anything came in. Just then the night filled with the screams of a dying rabbit and the air filled with a feeling of dread. I began sweeping the light back and forth across the field searching for eyes as Terry stood at the ready with the gun.


Minutes felt like hours as the light continued sweeping the field, only now, with an additional degree of urgency. The longer you're on a stand the more the unknown plays with your mind, after all, it is the unknown we were calling to and you never know what might answer that call.


With several minutes passing by and with nothing moving we decided to pick up the call and try another field. Before I could even take one step, we heard it, we both froze, didn’t move a muscle. A noise that could bring the biggest hunter to his knees… a twig snapped behind us. During the daylight hours this situation would most likely be a good thing, you would have heard or saw what ever was approaching, but at night, the noise from the calling machine would drown out the noise from any animals approach and under the cover of night we had no clue what just snuck up behind us.


Is it a fox? Is it a coyote that’s only feet behind us? It sounds heavy…“One gun, one light, two hunters… someone’s not going home tonight.”


Terry and I swung in the direction of the noise landing the gun and light in the same spot. Standing there was a gray fox, motionless, so still you could swear it was in taxidermy’s studio setting in a winter landscape. Terry whispered, what do I do? Thinking this is not the time for trick questions… Shoot!” I blurted out. The shotgun went off and when the smoke cleared, laid one dead fox and one excited hunter.


On the way back to the truck one might think Terry had been fox hunting his whole life; with that fox slung over his shoulder he began mocking my homemade calling machine and light system, asking me why such a long speaker wire; and what about that car battery? “Oh let me guess,” he says, “you throw it at the fox when you run out of shells …right?” Laughing and amusing him self the rest of the night, Terry it would seem was hooked on fox hunting and I was glad to have the company… most times?


With the end of the 1986 hunting season behind us and a cold winter ahead there wasn’t much left to do but wonder what next season might bring.

 

[Bushmaster]

I doesn't hurt to get a night or two when calling and paying attention to the direction you think they will come from. Then hear a twig break behind you, as you spin around with your heart in your throat he's right on top of you. Who, at the moment, is more scared? You or he? LMAO

95% of my pred hunting was at night time calling from about 10:00pm till about 6:00am. Weekends kind of suck going out early because more cars are out and party drinkers are out. Day time tactics are way different than night calling in preds with small farm fields here NYS from hedgerow to row, They tend to run the hedgerows and NOT cross open fields to the pred call so much. Your time of year (month and area) depends on type of calls to use also with feeding/mating etc... Most of my time was spent during day driving around hunting areas to hunt for night time calls. Noting areas to pull off at night. In winter some spots have ditches WAY deep in snow or water flowing under them when ya get out of truck to cross in to field.. Come night time the call spots look way different. I would right down the roads for call spots, and give each call spot a name that went with that AREA to remember, (things like windmill, blue house etc..) When I get home I hope to have 25-50 call spots listed to night time call, then I list them on a sheet in a order to hit each one at night in a smooth circle driving. I did things like pull off road to my spots when other cars are passing to silent my pull off stop, I keep inside dome lights etc.. off as door opens, I click door closed only one click softly. I scan field with light before ever hunting it, (so many times I scanned and gave death kiss to take Fox before ever entering field with E caller). Never shoot a Fox/Yote and pack up, I called in up to 5 grays at single stand before. ( one of my spots was called 5 grays to remember). Just one of my favorite call spots was ANY railroad tracks. Most all my calls were homemade by myself then edited from blowing up balloons squeaking sounds out to razor blade scratches on glass, real life baby cries, blade of grass mouth squalls etc... Many Hours, days.... till I perfected my calls the way I wanted them to sound, Then my buddy did the edit for digital calls. I could go on for days with my 40 years experiences pred hunt talking.... Keep in mind new hunters, Night time can be dangerous at times, always BEWARE.... for MANY REASONS !! I had drunks at 2:00am etc... at my truck, I have been at gun point with LEO before, etc... Keep in mind three people are out at wee hours night other than YOU hunting, (Cops, Drunks, Criminals...) The store or home down the road from your call spot could have just been robbed! your out in fielded with a gun and a light... Think about that!!! I been there before in that situation... There was a time we got sick of cops white lighting us and field, so we made a nice sign for truck window, said something like (Police we are Coyote hunting, Please do not white light field). I had yotes/Fox run right across my legs before sitting down with bipod LOL on railroad tracks. I had a gray fox one time I went to pick up I shot and it grabbed my pant leg, I FREAKED out, was hitting it the gun stock lol, Scared the crap out of me, I have stories nobody would believe other than another old pred veteran hunter who's been there LOL.. Nothing !! I have not done or tried in pred hunting Fox/Coyote... Any help questions just ask. Like I said I only scratch the surface here, done it all TRUST ME !! I remember the times N0#2 shot was not legal at night with lights, I would scratch off the number on shells LOL, Get pull over and in my mind talking to cops, or DEC I kept thinking 2's 2's !!! LOL now pretty much all goes,

 

[Bushmaster]

My cousin has some land, and access to land, that has a pretty high coyote population as of late. We're eyeing end of February/early March, as that's when he's heard they're most active during the day (no night vision goodies, so night hunts are pretty much out right now).

In order to do daytime coyote hunt, what's the bare minimum in equipment you'd need to have at least half a chance of being successful?

Your bare minimum during Feb is Mating season, Concealment, DOWNWIND, no movement, If you do entice one to come in during day? You may never even know it, they will hold up just inside hedgerow or woods edge looking out across field for YOU or Female etc... Your slightest move blows it... You might think ya never called one in... But he/she is there just inside edge watching. Use decoys etc... in day, you also inside edge, NEVER in view during day in NYS Eastern Coyote. Challenge calls etc.. mating season Feb

 

[Bushmaster]

Just to mention to few pred hunters why I would use challenge calls not normally used mating season.. The poster mentioned high yote population in area, Coyote is like big Buck deer, not standing for others in area. Think (simple) out of the box pred hunting... No over the counter calls everyone else uses, (other than Johnny Stewart Gray Fox Pup Distress) LOL

 

[Bushmaster]

Here, download best call ever, Night time pred hunting!!!.... MP3 for E-Callers. Ya have 48 hours then I lock the download. choose download.

 

[zzrguy]

I have had luck by setting up a a leg hold with coyote lures and bait in the dirt hole and the Yotes were coming in regularly over the next few hours till one stepped in the trap.

 

[Jaywmustang]

Here, download best call ever, Night time pred hunting!!!.... MP3 for E-Callers. Ya have 48 hours then I lock the download. choose download.

Do I need that app? I am challenged when it comes to this stuff

 

[FrankenCub]

Thanks, Bushmaster
I don't have an electronic call but I may be able to mimic that with my yote call with some practice. Play that clip for a bit, try my hand with the call, repeat...
If anything I can annoy the hell out of the neighbor

 

[dubleuhb]

Can't figure out how to listen to that, downloaded the app but says no results found when using link.

 

[FrankenCub]

Shouldn't need an app, just download from the arrow. At least it works that way on my end.