![]() During denning season (March through May), when family bonds are strongest, it is the most reliable sound you can use. My son Tyler and I use whines and yelps on almost every single stand. At certain times of the year, a case could probably be made that you’re appealing to their hunger, too, since several studies have documented coyotes cannibalizing pups. With the press of a button you can target social interaction, territorial instincts, and protective maternal/paternal instincts. These nonaggressive vocalizations–often made by pups–are probably the most effective sounds in a coyote caller’s repertoire because they trip so many behavioral triggers at once. READ NEXT: Best Coyote Calls Whines and Yelps Call in dogs closer than ever before. His go-to call is the long-range Ruffidawg jackrabbit distress call. ![]() “Darkness is a huge safety net for a predator.” Johnson has developed his own line of open-reed and closed-reed hand calls, and uses a wide variety of distress sounds depending on his setup. “I think predators that have been laid up all day and maybe didn’t have a chance to fill their belly during the previous night’s hunting might be willing to come investigate my sounds as darkness falls,” he says. He prefers the half hour just before dark. Les Johnson is perhaps the best coyote caller in the country, and he relies entirely on prey distress calls. to 2 p.m., and then dusk, each of which got about 20 percent of the vote. Only 10 percent of respondents in a recent poll of about 1,400 coyote callers said dawn was best. Spend at least 30 to 45 minutes on stand.Īnother important factor is the time of day you target coyotes. The takeaway? One of the biggest mistakes you can make with a distress call is leaving a location too soon. One wary old alpha pair (the male was 10 years old) waited 17 hours before approaching the calling location, and then spent 45 minutes at our stand site sniffing around. They would later approach our stand area to investigate. Upon hearing the initial prey distress cries, the test coyotes would usually run to a downwind position without exposing themselves and remain there until we left. Every six weeks the coyotes were trapped, whereupon their collars were fitted with fresh batteries, and the tracking information in them was downloaded and reproduced in a computer animation. In 2005, a predator-research biologist gifted me with a major opportunity when he invited me to call coyotes for him at the Idaho National Laboratory research area, where he was studying a large number of GPS-collared coyotes. He’ll wait downwind of the coyote howl before slowly slinking in, wary nose to the air. A pressured coyote, however, will take much longer to approach a call. An unpressured coyote will often come in quickly and boldly to almost any distress sound. The manner in which a coyote approaches a distress call depends on its security level, which is influenced by its latest experiences. Knowing this, it doesn’t matter much which sort of prey distress call you use–most modern electronic callers offer everything from a whitetail fawn to a house cat–as long as you set up within a coyote’s earshot. Studies of stomach contents have found that coyotes will swallow almost anything that they can get in their mouths, including rocks, plastic packaging, harness buckles, and even the occasional rabbit. Getty ImagesĬoyotes are nature’s great omnivores. ![]() Prey Distress Prey distress calls will bring coyotes slinking through cover. ![]() Follow these expert tips and strategies on how to call coyotes. So don’t just start pressing random buttons on your e-caller. Understanding exactly what the different sounds mean to the coyotes you’re calling will make you more effective. Coyote behavior changes throughout the winter and through their breeding period. But if you really want to step up your game, you need to first understand what makes coyotes tick. Thanks to the prevalence of electronic calling devices, anyone can become a decent coyote caller with the press of a few buttons. If you want to call in coyotes, you've first got to know what makes them tick.
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