Calling behind decoy dogs

[baileydr]

Hello all,
New to this site, but have been calling coyotes and fox for 3 years now. I am interested in trying out calling with a decoy dog and was wondering if there is anyone in southern Michigan that is currently doing this?

It looks like you guys have a great site here

Don.

[Jason Cox]

welcome good to have you

[lb]

"calling with a decoy dog"

That's not normally how it's done. You would do some locating and set up fairly close to a den and turn your dog loose and let him engage the coyote pair, luring them back to you, so that you can put a bullet in them. You wouldn't do any calling because that would switch the focus on you, rather than your dog.

[baileydr]

Mar 5, 2009 21:50:46 GMT -6 lb said:

"calling with a decoy dog"

That's not normally how it's done. You would do some locating and set up fairly close to a den and turn your dog loose and let him engage the coyote pair, luring them back to you, so that you can put a bullet in them. You wouldn't do any calling because that would switch the focus on you, rather than your dog.

Thanks for the input, I was going off of the movie I watched a while back, "Dogging Coyotes II" where it appeared they were calling the coyotes and the dogs were engaging the yotes while they were comming in. I'll have to pull it out and watch it again.

Thanks for the help.

[yoteler]

baileydr you are correct, that is what they were doing on the movies. I have all there movies aswell. I have used my Choc. lab the same way in Iowa and it worked good.

[lb]

Cal is a friend of mine, he sent me that video when it first came out, but I must have missed the calling part? Maybe I can/should send him an email? He is definitely the one that can clear up the question.

edit: I sent him a heads up to both email addresses I have for him, hope one is still current?

[baileydr]

Thanks Longliner, I would like to learn as much as I can about how this is done. I would think that if anyone can point me in the right direction, it would be Cal.

I thought they were howling to bring the yotes in, but maybe they were just locating??? I may be mistaken but it was my understanding that coyotes normally only den up when they have pups so through the winter months hunting dens may not be so productive. Here in michigan I am hunting farm fields (approx. 40 to 200 acres), and woods, so it is alittle hard to locate and move in on a yote like you can out west. There are not too many large sections of land that I can hunt that way. I was thinking of using a dog while calling to help close the deal when the coyote comes into the call. What I have ran into a few times is the coyote comes in and holds up in a thicket or out of range where I cannot get a good shot. I have not been hunting out west, but it appears to me that the eastern coyotes are a little more shy (probably due to the higher density of people were they live). I thought that having the dog on stand may help pull the coyote in to seal the deal.

I think that your right about not calling while the coyote is engaged with the dog as this would most likely have a negative effect, but most times I have to call the coyotes into the section that I am hunting before they can be seen. Unless your dog is out trolling for them, which would be great to, I think I would have to call them in. But if your dog is working out of sight, you would have to worry more about your dog getting into trouble and maybe ending up stretched.

I look forward to hearing what Cal has to say.

[Cal Taylor]

Generally I only use dogs during denning season like LB stated but I do quite a bit of calling. It is necessary to get the coyotes up and coming until they see the dogs. What the dogs really help with from then on is taking the coyotes focus off of me and keeping them there or bringing them back in for multiple kills. Coyotes are very aggressive and territorial around thier pups. Others have dogs that don't "work" coyotes back to the hunter but just hang out as a visual decoy only. I didn't have anything to do with the "Dogging Coyotes" series of videos, that was mostly Murphy Love, Merv Griswold, and Don Laughbach. I did a video with BassPro and Jerry Martin and one with Murphy Love called "Going to the Dogs"

[baileydr]

Thanks for the help Cal - I'll have to check out your video. What breed of dogs do you prefer for this? Coyote season closes here in Michigan in another month or so, but re-opens a few months after that so it would most likely work good then.

[lb]

Thanks Cal. Apparently I hardly got anything right? But, I know it's a denning season activity, for the most part. I sort of thought you did a few howls after setting up, but I didn't think you were "calling", if that means the use of distress sounds?

[Cal Taylor]

Actually your pretty right LB, I say "calling" but not in the sense of distress calls. The only distressI use is a coyote pup distress and howls.

I have several dogs, mostly curs. I do have a jagd terrier also.