# Any preditor hunters here?



## Sierra_Hunter (Feb 17, 2015)

Want to start getting into coyote hunting. I live in probably some of the best coyote hunting in the country. Really want to get better at calling.

Anyone else hunt coyotes?


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## shootbrownelk (May 18, 2014)

I don't actively hunt them, but I shoot them whenever the opportunity presents itself.


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## hillman (Jul 27, 2014)

Ahem. On the subject of predator hunting: During the Great Depression mine was a hillfarm family, just about as poor moneywise as a farm family can get. A significant portion of what cash came in (from peddling milk and selling potatoes and helping a slightly better off neighbor with his haying mostly) went into ammo for 'subsistence hunting'. Pa stated pretty strongly that If you can't eat it and it ain't after you or yourn, don't shoot it." Coyote any good?


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## Sierra_Hunter (Feb 17, 2015)

I've never eaten one. I peel the hides off and sell them. With a good pelt bringing as much as 160 bucks right now, I'm trying to get better so I can bring more home when I go out. So far I've only gotten one this year....


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## Sierra_Hunter (Feb 17, 2015)

Btw. I was also raised in a family where is we didn't kill it or grow it, we didn't eat it. I don't just go around killing for the fun of it right now since I'm only getting 10 hours a week at work, extra money from coyotes would really help out


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## hillman (Jul 27, 2014)

Sierra_Hunter said:


> Btw. I was also raised in a family where is we didn't kill it or grow it, we didn't eat it. I don't just go around killing for the fun of it right now since I'm only getting 10 hours a week at work, extra money from coyotes would really help out


Yep, Pa would definitely have gone along with that. (clarification: I was born 4 years before WW2. The family had moved to town that summer. I was born too damn late.)

No coyotes in Vermont at the time. No turkeys, no turkey vultures either. There were bears enough, but they hardly ever came close to humans if they could avoid it. The woods are changing, the critturs are changing. I'm changing (got old somewhere in there). Don't like hardly any of it.


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## hillman (Jul 27, 2014)

Getting back to coyotes, I suppose if you are calling them in, the range ain't likely to be more than, say, 150 yards? What gun are you using?


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## Sierra_Hunter (Feb 17, 2015)

Around here, it can depend. My dad makes shots out to 800 yards on a regular basis. I've been limited to 300 yards, as I was using a handi rifle in 223. I will be finishing a rifle tomorrow, that I built in 308 with a 24" barrel so I may be able to stretch it out a extra 150 yards and still have enough smack to knock them down.


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## ybnorml (Nov 26, 2014)

I've been known to drag some nasty roadkill around to "spread the aroma".....
Ain't long and they come feeding.....
.308 with hollow points will literally separate their head from their body...
Shot distance is less than 100ft.
I also shoot porcupines, skunks, groundhogs, raccoons, partridge, deer, and have been known to drop a bear.
All this from basically my back lawn.


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## Goldwing (Nov 5, 2014)

DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!

I talked to a crafty old guy about coyote hunting a few years back. He told me he had a secret weapon when it came to luring the wiley buggers in. He said that a day or two before he went to kill coyotes he would live trap the neighbors tomcat under his bird feeder. As you may have guessed he would leave the grumpy feline in the live trap upwind of his hunting stand. 

He claimed that when the cat would start meowing, the coyotes would charge in focused only on the cat and were easy targets. When the hunt was over the kitty got released near where it was caught none the worse for wear.

I know that this is wrong on more than one level. I don't condone it, I am just relating what an old guy told me. Take it FWIW.
GW


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## Sierra_Hunter (Feb 17, 2015)

ybnorml said:


> I've been known to drag some nasty roadkill around to "spread the aroma".....
> Ain't long and they come feeding.....
> .308 with hollow points will literally separate their head from their body...
> Shot distance is less than 100ft.
> ...


I'm going to be shooting a 185gn cast bullet at about 2200 fps so I don't destroy them.


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## Sierra_Hunter (Feb 17, 2015)

goldwing said:


> DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!
> 
> I talked to a crafty old guy about coyote hunting a few years back. He told me he had a secret weapon when it came to luring the wiley buggers in. He said that a day or two before he went to kill coyotes he would live trap the neighbors tomcat under his bird feeder. As you may have guessed he would leave the grumpy feline in the live trap upwind of his hunting stand.
> 
> ...


Sounds like something my dad would have tried way back in the day..


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## TurboHonda (Aug 4, 2012)

Sierra_Hunter said:


> I'm going to be shooting a 185gn cast bullet at about 2200 fps so I don't destroy them.


I think that is a good choice. It won't tear up the pelts.


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## Sierra_Hunter (Feb 17, 2015)

TurboHonda said:


> I think that is a good choice. It won't tear up the pelts.


The same bullet out of my old 30/06 at about the same speed worked quite well on Alaska coyotes which are a bit smaller then the ones we have here.


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## shootbrownelk (May 18, 2014)

Sierra_Hunter said:


> I've never eaten one. I peel the hides off and sell them. With a good pelt bringing as much as 160 bucks right now, I'm trying to get better so I can bring more home when I go out. So far I've only gotten one this year....


 The ranches I hunt are owned mostly by old timers who want the coyotes GONE. They never charge me to hunt because they know I kill them when I see them. Yes, I do save the hides, and hang the carcass on a fence near a gate so they know I took some out. Coyotes kill a lot of calves & lambs.


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## Bisley (Aug 24, 2008)

The '_Meateater_' guy on one of the hunting channels ate a coyote on one show. He rated it as not quite as good as javelina. Javelina is known to be pretty bad, in these parts, although an exceptional chef can improve it, they say. His recommendation for coyote meat was for survival only.

Still, I've read that some of the plains Indians considered it a delicacy, so I won't condemn it outright.


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## shootbrownelk (May 18, 2014)

Bisley said:


> The '_Meateater_' guy on one of the hunting channels ate a coyote on one show. He rated it as not quite as good as javelina. Javelina is known to be pretty bad, in these parts, although an exceptional chef can improve it, they say. His recommendation for coyote meat was for survival only.
> 
> Still, I've read that some of the plains Indians considered it a delicacy, so I won't condemn it outright.


 Bisley, the same plains Indians considered buffalo lice a delicacy...those coyote carcasses hung on the fences pretty much untouched, so a lot of wild critters don't like the taste either I guess.


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## hillman (Jul 27, 2014)

shootbrownelk said:


> Bisley, the same plains Indians considered buffalo lice a delicacy...those coyote carcasses hung on the fences pretty much untouched, so a lot of wild critters don't like the taste either I guess.


Not even the vultures and ravens?


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## Sierra_Hunter (Feb 17, 2015)

Not much will eat a dead coyote...


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## ybnorml (Nov 26, 2014)

I think a coyote will eat a dead coyote....


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## hillman (Jul 27, 2014)

I have no idea if it's common practice, but... if the coyote on the fence is draped so that part of the carcass is on the ground, the beetles and ants have better access. Those guys ain't fussy.


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