Whacked them Saturday!

[Gern186]

Let's just say Saturday was a real good day for hunting the yotes.... I started out in the dark at around 6 am and located a set of tracks from a pair of coyotes I have been trying to kill for a month now. I found their tracks and followed them from section to section for about 7 miles until I narrowed down their location. By 8 am I had them located in a section with only a small woods and a decent 160 acre corn stubble field. Just my uncle and I were hunting and we got set up. He pushed the woods out and I blocked along a ditch 1/2 mile away.....out came 1 yote and he came within 50 yards of me......

A damn fine looking yote to start the day.

The other one ended up leaving the section and we tracked it 3 miles to the northwest and I went in on its track, followed it on the downwind side for about 1/2 mile and jumped it out of it's bed in a deep ditch. It only made it 10 yards before the #4 BUCK caught up with it!

Sorry for the shitty cell phone picture.

A buddy called me and said he saw 2 other coyotes about 15 miles away, we went over there as fast as we could get there and ended up killing both of them also!

I will try and get these coyotes all lined up for a good picture before taking them to the buyer.

That makes 16 coyotes for the year so far....

 

[rrr]

Damn! Sounds like a lot of tracking. That's sweet man, you really do whack 'em

 

[Beentown]

What kind of price are you getting? I skinned ours from Sat and I am going to hang it in my parents cabin.


Beentown

 

[Gern186]

They only bring 5 bucks for a whole yote.....if they are skinned maybe a little more. It's a damn shame though, they are truly beautiful animals. It usually costs more in ammunition to kill them than you get for selling them!

Oh well, we don't hunt them for the money, just for the thrill of the tracking and the chase.

 

[Gern186]

Damn! Sounds like a lot of tracking. That's sweet man, you really do whack 'em

Yeah that's a lot of tracking. I tracked the same pair about 11 miles on Friday and never caught up to them...... that's how I started out looking for them Saturday morning, I found their tracks coming out of the section we had them in late Friday. It's amazing how many miles a coyote will travel in this open country in a single night of hunting.

 

[Mike]

You are a true professional at this game. When you say you track 11 miles, you are driving some of that distance, correct?

 

[Gern186]

You are a true professional at this game. When you say you track 11 miles, you are driving some of that distance, correct?

Some of it. If the snow is just right and the wind isn't blowing you can use your low beam headlights on your truck to check roads for crossing tracks. The sections of ground around here are 1 mile x 1 mile square. Like I said, the conditions have to be perfect for this kind of tracking, but when it is you can narrow them down in a short period of time and figure out what section they are in......then it's just a matter of figuring out how to get them in that section. There might only be a few days per year that the conditions are right for this type of tracking because the wind virtually blows nonstop around here in this open country and the tracks get covered up quickly by blowing snow.

Other times I will think I have them located in a section and go in on a track and come to find out that I missed the track leaving the section somewhere else..... where it really gets confusing is when you have multiple tracks coming in and going out of a section, then figuring out which tracks are coyote or fox or someone's dog, or you get into an open area where the wind blows the tracks shut and you are left standing there guessing where they went.

 

[Gern186]

Some of it. If the snow is just right and the wind isn't blowing you can use your low beam headlights on your truck to check roads for crossing tracks. The sections of ground around here are 1 mile x 1 mile square. Like I said, the conditions have to be perfect for this kind of tracking, but when it is you can narrow them down in a short period of time and figure out what section they are in......then it's just a matter of figuring out how to get them in that section. There might only be a few days per year that the conditions are right for this type of tracking because the wind virtually blows nonstop around here in this open country and the tracks get covered up quickly by blowing snow.

Other times I will think I have them located in a section and go in on a track and come to find out that I missed the track leaving the section somewhere else..... where it really gets confusing is when you have multiple tracks coming in and going out of a section, then figuring out which tracks are coyote or fox or someone's dog, or you get into an open area where the wind blows the tracks shut and you are left standing there guessing where they went.

It's also very difficult to see tracks crossing the roads on cloudy or overcast days. The absolute best days are when the sun is out with no clouds.....the tracks jump right out at you and you can see them going down the road at 50mph.

 

[Gern186]

You are a true professional at this game. When you say you track 11 miles, you are driving some of that distance, correct?

Back to that question, sometimes you don't know where that coyote started his rounds at, so you have to start walking tracks to figure things out. You might have 3 days worth of tracks if the wind don't blow and sometimes you can't tell a 2-3 day old track from a 2 hour old track. I walked 4 sections Wednesday and 5 sections on Friday and never even saw a coyote.....they were just ahead of me. Right now when they are breeding they will be up and moving in the daylight hours.....not uncommon at all. This means that you could have them located in a section and go in on the track only to find out they are up and moving ahead of you to the next section before you catch up to them.... this happened twice last week, if you are by yourself or only have 1 guy watching it's very easy to miss seeing them.

 

[Gern186]

Went last night and sold all the fur I had accumulated over the last few weeks.

The foxes brought $12 each for large males, large coons brought $10 and all of the coyotes brought $5 each.

 

[moundhill]

why is it that coon skins are higher than yotes?

 

[Gern186]

Darn good question....it's been that way as long as I can remember. Some buyers around here won't even buy coyotes.

The largest coyote in the group that we sold was 43 lbs.