By James Holbrook 

I have been setting here thinking about my first couple of years trying to learn how to coyote hunt. It got me to thinking in depth about the mistakes I made, the misinformation I got and the dumb advice I followed. I decided I would share some of what I have learned, to help you become more aware of all the misinformation on the internet, magazines, and other hunter’s advice.

  I know you have heard the old adage, “you can fool some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time”. This is, for the most part, true.

  I want to take you through some things though, that can throw a wrench in that adage.

  Coyotes, relatively speaking, are still a fairly new game to the Eastern United States. Although eastern coyotes have been here for three or four decades, they have remained in fairly low numbers and in many places there were just pockets of them scattered around for several years. It hasn’t been until the last couple decades that eastern coyote numbers have climbed to a fairly decent population, especially in the last ten years or so. Their numbers are still increasing, but we still don’t have close to the numbers like they do west of the Mississippi River.

  Every time I go out west, it amazes me how many coyotes I see from just the highways, not to mention when I get on the back roads. Seeing a coyote like that here in the east is rare to say the least.

  I see aspiring eastern coyote hunters asking questions all the time on the predator board forums. They get all kinds of answers from all kinds of people. A few of the answers are usually pretty good, many answers are plausible, but the majority of them are laughable at best. Now I’m not trying to cut someone down by saying that either. All that I am pointing out is that what might work for them in their area, barely has a snowballs chance in Jamaica of working here.

  Let’s get to some things that are generally true. Many say a coyote, is a coyote is a coyote. This is true for the most part, but how a coyote has adapted to its particular area is what makes them different.

  If someone tells you to use a rabbit in distress call, that’s pretty much a universal truth. Coyotes will come to just about any kind of distress sound, if they are so inclined. The difference is how they might approach that call. In areas where the coyote population is high and the food is scarce, those coyotes are more than likely going to come running like a greyhound to that call. Here in the east however, the coyotes have an abundance of prey and the coyote population isn’t as large, which will usually make a coyote react differently. Here, they are more than likely going to come in a little more cautiously and check things out a little better. More often than not trying to get downwind of the call to make sure that their nose is telling them the same thing as their ears. This doesn’t always happen, sometimes they show up in a hurry, but generally speaking, they approach slower than out west.

  An eastern coyote will also try to stay as close to cover as they can, usually they are in the cover, whereas many times a western coyote doesn’t have that option.

  Remember, eastern coyotes don’t always respond in the manner in which I am saying, but I will be speaking in generalities about what I have personally seen.

  It would be foolish of me, to tell you how to hunt your area when I personally haven’t ever been there. All I can do is give you some ideas and let you go from there.

  One thing I realized that I was doing when I first started hunting coyotes was listening too much about how it’s done out west. Having been raised out west I had to get that mindset out of my head. Generally speaking, western terrain and tactics are quite different than what we have here in the east. I think you will find that if you try and set up where you can look over a field and shoot a coyote at 500 yards that you are not going to see much. It could happen, but I doubt it. Try and set up where the wind is carrying your scent across an open field and call into the timber where you think the coyotes may be. This will keep the coyote in his comfort zone, which will make him more likely to respond, instead of hanging up just out of view.

  You also can’t see as far here in the hilly, heavily forested east as you can other places. This fact alone suggests we should stay on are stands a little longer than they do elsewhere. Places where you can see great distances, fifteen to thirty minutes is probably fine, since you can see them coming from great distances. Here in the east where you might only be able to see, at best, a couple hundred yards you need to be more patient. We’ve already established the fact that coyotes will more than likely approach you more cautiously here, then add in the fact that they will take longer to see due to less visibility, this makes fifteen minutes not nearly long enough. I would suggest staying a minimum of thirty minutes if not more.

This gives the coyote time to hear you, travel the distance necessary to get to your spot and then make itself visible to the hunter. If you don’t give them ample time to come in, then you are more than likely getting busted by coyotes and don’t even know it. I have called coyotes in before that took an hour to come within shooting range.

 

  When getting advice from people, here are a some questions that I started asking myself, before I ever tried it.

 

  Where does this person do most of their hunting?

If they are hunting in similar terrain that you hunt, that’s a plus. You don’t have to necessarily discount the advice from people that hunt different terrain, but be aware that what they are telling you might not work where you hunt. Advice from a guy that hunts the prairies of Kansas will probably be of very little use to you when you find yourself sitting on a heavily forested hillside, trying to call in a coyote.

 

  How long has this person been hunting terrain similar to yours?

Some will give you advice that hunt similar terrain as yours, but rarely even see a coyote. This could possibly be due to several reasons, but the main reason I have found, is the fact that they are just starting themselves or only have one or two seasons under their belt. That’s rarely enough time to be a seasoned coyote hunter. Don’t discount their advice, but don’t take it as written in stone either.

 

 How successful is this person at calling eastern coyotes?

Many folks have been coyote hunting for years in terrain just like yours, but rarely connect with one. This could be due to lack of time to hunt them, but it could also be a red flag that they aren’t very good hunters. Maybe they move too much on stand, smoke while hunting, have sinus congestion and do a lot of sniffling to give away their position. Whatever the reason, it could be worth your time to find out.

 

 How dedicated are they to eastern coyote hunting?

Many of us are passionate about our pursuit of coyotes and pursue them with almost all of our spare time. Others are just filling in the gap between deer and turkey season. Nothing wrong with that, but getting advice from someone that doesn’t pursue coyotes, except for a month or so out of the year may or may not know much about hunting coyotes.

 

  Do they really hunt coyotes or are they simply reading about it and then writing about what they have read?

There are a lot of “armchair” hunters that spend very little time in the woods and get almost all of their information from books, videos and the internet. Although they may be very knowledgeable about hunting coyotes due to their studies about the subject, are they really very good at hunting coyotes themselves. Much can be learned by these guys, but at best it will be merely academic knowledge and not first hand. This can lend itself to information being passed along that sounds good on paper, but rarely works except maybe in certain parts of the country. First hand knowledge is always best.

 

  This question will be tough to answer, but with a little time and investigation you can find out.

  Why does this person hunt coyotes?

Some guys hang around the coyote hunting world to try and sell you something. Others are killing coyotes by whatever means necessary to make themselves out to be good coyote hunters in other peoples eyes. Many will even flat out lie to you, why they do that is beyond me, but whatever the reason is, I know they will. Maybe it feeds their macho side, I don’t know.

If a guy hunts coyotes in your kind of terrain just for the love of coyote hunting, you rarely see them bragging on themselves and they are good at hunting eastern coyotes……….listen to them.

 

  These questions, as well as others, will help you decide whether or not you want to take the advice of what a person or writer is advocating.

 

   Here are a few other bits of advice.

  There are several guys that kill coyotes every year while deer hunting, or turkey hunting, feeding their cattle, trapping them, hitting them with cars, etc. This doesn’t make them a good coyote hunter.

These are incidental kills and have nothing to do with calling a coyote to the gun. I am not trying to vilify these guys in anyway, I am just simply pointing out they might not be your best source of information. A guy that traps coyotes may know everything there is to know about a coyotes habits, which will help you as far as where coyotes hang out, but won’t do you much good on the other aspects of calling eastern coyotes.

 

  One last side note that I always try to express to everyone I talk to about hunting the eastern coyote. Try and find someone that is fairly close to you that is somewhat successful at hunting coyotes in your area. They don’t have to be experts (very few are), they just need to have some experience with this kind of hunting. If nothing else, you will learn what not to do, but if you are fortunate to find one that really knows what he’s doing, then your success rate will go up very rapidly and your enjoyment in the field will increase substantially.

  Remember, the internet and the predator magazines are full of self proclaimed experts, guys trying to sell you something to get your money, and flat out ignorant people. Be careful of the advice you get from them and with that having been said, you can either heed this advice or not, it’s up to you.

 

Happy Eastern Coyote Hunting,

James Holbrook