As more of you seek to experience the thrill of a coyote trotting into your call, it’s increasingly obvious the field is getting crowded.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that more of you are excited about predator hunting, but it also makes the final objective of a coyote encounter more challenging. With more pressure, your local coyotes are simply smarter. You need to set yourself apart to experience success in this crowded playing field. Start by considering these proven coyote-duping strategies to outsmart pressured coyotes.
These wily old dogs aren't dumb. You can't be, either.
1. Find Coyote-Rich Topography
Grab a quick edge over the competition by beginning your scouting from home with HuntStand. Use its many helpful map layers. Your goal is to find property, public or private, where you can walk away from the crowds. Why? Regardless of what you might expect, most coyotes experience calling pressure. By hunting away from roads and remote corners, you might just call to an uneducated coyote.
Walking away from the crowds is actually fairly easy if you’re in shape. Make that your goal. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, less than 5% of adults participate in 30 minutes of physical activity each day. Only one in three adults engage in the recommended amount of physical activity each week. That equals more than 80% of adults who don’t meet the guidelines for muscle building and aerobic activities. Don’t be on the wrong side of such jarring statistics.
Learn how to mimic authentic coyote sounds.
Coyotes don’t require moleskin for their nimble paws — they’ll quickly depart an area before daylight to reach refuge cover from expected human activity. They can cover miles in minutes, and that’s why you need to hike farther. When coyotes feel pressure, they begin to act like deer. They travel in cloaked corridors, move more at night, and lounge well away from danger.
Using the 3D map layer in HuntStand Pro can be one of your most valuable assets. Identify your hit list of killer looking coyote spots in HuntStand, drop markers, and start preparing for boots on the ground.
Mark Kayser
HuntStand Pro ContributorAs you look for those isolated, roadless parcels, note all that might include steep slopes, briar thickets, or rugged river breaks. Nasty topography beckons coyotes that have felt the burn. Using the 3D map in HuntStand Pro can be one of your most valuable assets. Identify your hit list of killer looking coyote spots in HuntStand, drop markers, and start preparing for boots on the ground.
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Take good entry and exit routes while in the field for coyotes.
2. Master the Wind
As more hunters go after coyotes, these fast learners better understand vehicles and noise. Factor in human presence, and it all adds up to danger. Make your access into their homeland as invisible as possible.
Nothing gives you away more than approaching with the wind blowing into potential predator cover. Check the HuntStand HuntZone for future wind forecasts and take that into consideration as you plan the approach to every setup. Park far enough away so coyotes aren’t alerted by your vehicle noise — and never slam doors.
Next, stay out of sight. Use low spots, such as ditches or creek beds, for a hidden advance. The 3D map in HuntStand is great for planning your movements as well. If at all possible, never silhouette yourself. Instead of hiking over a hill, try to sidehill to give yourself a background to blend with. If you must silhouette, do it under the cover of darkness, or swiftly. In every approach, it pays to eliminate your own scent with a quality scent elimination product like Max Fresh Earth Spray by Scent-a-Way. Give your boots an extra blast to ensure any coyote crossing your access path doesn’t catch a whiff of you along the trail.
Finally, if your first set is in the morning, utilize the cover of darkness to boldly cross farther into good predator calling country.
Use HuntStand before, during, and after each coyote hunt.
3. Find the Perfect Setup
You will need to do a final onsite setup location assessment, but you can begin your initial calling site review at home. You set yourself apart from the crowd by never missing a coyote appearance. Here’s how that happens.
Pull up satellite imagery of your hunting area in HuntStand. Next, take into consideration all the map baselayers provided, to help you decipher if you have an elevated location — a serious advantage that offers several open shooting lanes, coupled with a wind advantage. Consider topographical contours, tree cover, property boundaries and predominant winds, among others, as you evaluate site potential with hunting app help.
Openings could be in the form of fields, woodland glades, cleared utility rights of way, farm lanes, senderos, old forest roads and the like. The only prerequisite is that the openings give you an ample view for shooting, yet don’t allow a coyote a veiled avenue to get downwind.
You might also have to be creative in gaining high ground to spot incoming coyotes. In open farm country, that high ground might be a slight rise of less than 10 feet. It might also include setting up in the hayloft at an abandoned farmstead. In the Great Plains or West, you have options that include high creek banks, ridges, canyon lips, and even deserted storage tanks from booms and busts in oil country. Don’t forget about treestands or box blinds, especially if you’re using an e-caller.
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Deploy some scents to paint the full calling and decoying picture.
4. Focus on Food-Based Opportunities
As coyotes get more education from weekend warriors, become an advocate of switching up your calling game plan. You might even consider a silent ambush approach — and wait for the predators to come to you. Since that could be a low-percentage hunt, switch up your calls when playing in a crowded field. To give your calls more life, carry hand calls.
How do you know it’s time to switch sounds? If you experience nothing on two to three sets, it is time to try something new. Most hunters use rabbit- and rodent-in-distress calls because these work early in the season, and match the diet of most coyotes. Nevertheless, even those sounds will soon begin to fail, so switch it up.
Expect coyotes to come from unexpected places.
During the winter, coyotes love a large meal, so the sound of a fawn in peril can grab attention. They also like easy meals, and distressed birds can provide incentive. Game birds like turkeys, or the distress sounds of a woodpecker, have equal appeal to a hungry coyote searching for fast food. Adding the sounds of aerial scavengers attracts coyotes as well. Think of jays, ravens, magpies, and crows. Coyotes routinely use the flapping visual to key in on a new carcass.
Don’t forget about domestic livestock. A variety of barnyard species live in all corners of America, and coyotes absolutely know their whereabouts. Cattle, horses, pigs, chickens, sheep, and every other barnyard creature tempt coyotes hoping for a quick bite. Coyotes also cruise around areas where farmers occasionally toss farmyard critter casualties. Call or spy on these areas to catch a bold graveyard shopper.
Use a good lightweight two-dimensional decoy to draw the attention of distant coyotes.
5. Paint the Full Picture
Finally, consider a decoy upwind of your carefully chosen setup location. This attraction creates a compelling diversion for coyotes to investigate now — instead of making a huge downwind swing behind you.
The Johnny Stewart Executioner Electronic Game Call is a great tool in a coyote hunter's arsenal.
Place your fake 100 yards or more upwind, next to your electronic caller, if that is your sound-maker. Even if you utilize hand calls, an upwind decoy can stall a coyote into investigating the bobbing and dancing jig of a furry, faux prey. Some electronic callers even have decoys built in. For e-calls, look to the pros at Johnny Stewart.
Paint the full picture with some Coyote Urine by The Predator Bomb.
Scents also work great in combination with a decoy. Coyote scent can make any approaching coyote stop for an investigative whiff, thus giving you a standing shot. Plus, it works great to mask your foot odor that might have been left as you placed your decoy or caller upwind of your calling site. Hang a soaked wick of your favorite predator scent by Predator Bomb near your decoy to complete the trifecta of foolery, which includes calling, decoying, and scent deployment.
Montana Decoy's Song Dog Decoy offers a great visual for sly incoming 'yotes.
While incorporating coyote scent and vocalizations into your setup, you can also place a coyote decoy out in front of you. Coyote decoys come in all shapes, but Montana Decoy’s Sitting Coyote or Song Dog Coyote are easy-packing, light, and realistic enough to fool any coyote looking for the rival yapper in the neighborhood.
The Tenzing Day Pack 2100 is a great selection.
One final note on gear: The problem with acquiring a collection of great gear is transporting it all to the field efficiently. That means you will need ample room, plus some predator-focused details in your choice of backpack. Tenzing can help with that.
With a little luck, you just might bag a big 'yote.
The current popularity of coyote hunting is a no-brainer boon to the sport, but competition means you need to set yourself apart from the crowd. Think a bit outside the box, don’t be afraid to change it up, and you’ll experience consistent coyote success this season and beyond.
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