Post by qwagoner on Feb 11, 2006 19:21:05 GMT -6
I just wrote an article for the FTM about coyote responses and lack of them because little is written or understood about what really makes a coyote tic. Steve hit on a good point in the thread “Coyote feeding in Relation to Calling” He stated…
Coyotes come to calls for many different reasons. I call it a territorial response.
The Territorial Response is all encompassing.
They come to a call because they are hungry, but this is only a very small percentage of the time.
They respond out of greed.
They respond because of a desire to breed.
They respond due to a desire to protect their territory.
They respond due to a desire protect their pups.
They respond out of just plain old curiosity.
The food response is only a small part of the reason why they come.
I think these golden nuggets of information are too important to get lost in just one thread so I am starting a new one and hopefully it will snowball with some good hard facts about coyote response and behavior. I will kick things off.
Food is a constant motivator and that is why distress sounds are the “go to” call for most every caller. Coyotes will respond to calls for far more reasons than hunger as Steve C has pointed out. Something is dieing in there territory so when they check it out it can be for any number of reasons. An individual coyotes status in the family group will determine how it responds or if it will respond at all. When a coyote responds to a distress sound it expects a scenario.
Most long time callers have experienced many kinds of responses to the distress call. I have had pairs come in piping mad and I have had coyotes come in with their head down and tail tucked. They have run in, bounced in, walked in and snuck in. All of these different behaviors will tell you that responses are far more reaching than just hunger.
On the flip side there are just as many reasons that a coyote will NOT respond to a call, as there are reasons for them to respond. The basic reasoning given by armchair experts is that they have been educated, they are not hungry or they have seen or smelled you. The latter may be true but again the reasoning can be far more reaching than that. There are many other naturally occurring situations that will cause a coyote not to respond that have nothing to do with your calling ability. The bottom line is that coyotes will come if they want to and if they don’t you are SOL. LOL
The most successful callers are great generalizes. In that I mean that they take in the weather, time of year, time of day, moon phase and many other local factors into account before they set up their stands. Once the many factors are taken into consideration they will call selected areas with selective sounds. The sounds used are specific but yet generalized to appeal to the widest variety of coyotes. That is why the rabbit distress call is so versatile. It appeals to all age groups of coyotes no matter what place they hold in family group. The sound evokes responses from many different angles and that is what makes it so effective.
The more you know about the coyotes you work the more specific you can get in your attempts to call them. For the most part though I do not get too specific. The coyotes that I hunt are not hurting anything so time is on my side. I would rather move to a different area and kill coyotes than waste a few days picking on some that are not cooperative. Sometimes all they need is a little time or a seasonal change to come around.
Coyotes that were all but impossible to call in December may come in on the run in late January because of chemical changes in their brains. IE mating season. All coyotes are venerable to calling but not all coyotes can be called on any given day. It is a natural form of checks and balances. If they were truly hardwired to respond eagerly to calls we would have them all dead by now.
Coyotes are truly fascinating animals and are very much in tune with the natural world around them. We may never know to what degree but the more we know about them the more questions we have. Daylight hours, barometric pressure, the gravitational pull of the moon and phase all impact to some degree how a coyote acts and reacts. Throw in the coyotes individual physical condition, territorial boundaries, sexual maturity and or place in the hierarchy and it is enough to keep any hunter guessing.
Good advice would be to take in all of the logical factors and then act accordingly. Just don’t miss. LOL
Good hunting.
Q,
Coyotes come to calls for many different reasons. I call it a territorial response.
The Territorial Response is all encompassing.
They come to a call because they are hungry, but this is only a very small percentage of the time.
They respond out of greed.
They respond because of a desire to breed.
They respond due to a desire to protect their territory.
They respond due to a desire protect their pups.
They respond out of just plain old curiosity.
The food response is only a small part of the reason why they come.
I think these golden nuggets of information are too important to get lost in just one thread so I am starting a new one and hopefully it will snowball with some good hard facts about coyote response and behavior. I will kick things off.
Food is a constant motivator and that is why distress sounds are the “go to” call for most every caller. Coyotes will respond to calls for far more reasons than hunger as Steve C has pointed out. Something is dieing in there territory so when they check it out it can be for any number of reasons. An individual coyotes status in the family group will determine how it responds or if it will respond at all. When a coyote responds to a distress sound it expects a scenario.
Most long time callers have experienced many kinds of responses to the distress call. I have had pairs come in piping mad and I have had coyotes come in with their head down and tail tucked. They have run in, bounced in, walked in and snuck in. All of these different behaviors will tell you that responses are far more reaching than just hunger.
On the flip side there are just as many reasons that a coyote will NOT respond to a call, as there are reasons for them to respond. The basic reasoning given by armchair experts is that they have been educated, they are not hungry or they have seen or smelled you. The latter may be true but again the reasoning can be far more reaching than that. There are many other naturally occurring situations that will cause a coyote not to respond that have nothing to do with your calling ability. The bottom line is that coyotes will come if they want to and if they don’t you are SOL. LOL
The most successful callers are great generalizes. In that I mean that they take in the weather, time of year, time of day, moon phase and many other local factors into account before they set up their stands. Once the many factors are taken into consideration they will call selected areas with selective sounds. The sounds used are specific but yet generalized to appeal to the widest variety of coyotes. That is why the rabbit distress call is so versatile. It appeals to all age groups of coyotes no matter what place they hold in family group. The sound evokes responses from many different angles and that is what makes it so effective.
The more you know about the coyotes you work the more specific you can get in your attempts to call them. For the most part though I do not get too specific. The coyotes that I hunt are not hurting anything so time is on my side. I would rather move to a different area and kill coyotes than waste a few days picking on some that are not cooperative. Sometimes all they need is a little time or a seasonal change to come around.
Coyotes that were all but impossible to call in December may come in on the run in late January because of chemical changes in their brains. IE mating season. All coyotes are venerable to calling but not all coyotes can be called on any given day. It is a natural form of checks and balances. If they were truly hardwired to respond eagerly to calls we would have them all dead by now.
Coyotes are truly fascinating animals and are very much in tune with the natural world around them. We may never know to what degree but the more we know about them the more questions we have. Daylight hours, barometric pressure, the gravitational pull of the moon and phase all impact to some degree how a coyote acts and reacts. Throw in the coyotes individual physical condition, territorial boundaries, sexual maturity and or place in the hierarchy and it is enough to keep any hunter guessing.
Good advice would be to take in all of the logical factors and then act accordingly. Just don’t miss. LOL
Good hunting.
Q,
