stand time

[sivart33]

when calling yotes how long you sit at each stand?

(there might ahve been a post simular to this but couldn't find it)

[SpokaneSlayer]

I've always heard 30 minutes is the norm.  It's kinda up to the dogs on how fast (or slow) they want to come in.

[tlbradford]

It varies a lot for me.  10 minutes minimum, up to 1 hour.

The terrain, how far your calls are carrying, confidence that an animal is in hearing distance, availability of other stands in the area versus the time I have set aside to hunt, weather, time of year.

All of these variables play a part in how long I sit there.  My longest stands tend to be big open areas on cold crisp days, late in the calling season, where the sound carries a long ways, and I am fairly sure that a coyote can hear my calling.  The other reason I make long stands is when I have a visual on a coyote that is a long way off, and I roll through a lot of different call sounds until I find one that interest the coyote.  I have had coyotes mousing in an alfalfa field take 2-3  steps at a time with pauses and looking around, from 3/4 of a mile away until they were within 100 yards.

I use short stands in a variety of situations.  Heavily wooded areas.  When the terrain is rough and steep and lends itself to softer calling before I head over to the next draw and set-up again.  Early in the calling season when yoy are fairly easy to call and respond quickly.  Moving into an area and making a short stand to avoid bumping coyotes that may be between myself and a historically good stand.  An abundance of territory to call.  New areas that I am calling for the first time.

Average stand time for me is 25-35 minutes.

[Gutpile]

I call for a minimum of 15 minutes. But the area dictates the length of time. If I'm in Bobcat country I do a minimum of 45 minutes. 90% of the time a coyote will come pretty fast if they're interested at all but they do get finicky. Last year I was calling and had one mouse his way up the draw towards me. He had zero interest in my calling or decoy was just content to keep mousing. I misjudged the distance and missed him but on the horizon I saw one sitting and watching. I tried about 4 different calls and it started trotting off. Then I hit coyote pup distress and she ran straight in from about 1/2 mile out.

Here she is.



2 points for this story regardless of what people say, even if you've shot it doesn't mean you've spooked every yote around, secondly you've really got to mix it up if the calls arent working. Coyote pup distress and howls were the ticket last year, but sometimes it's fawn, sometimes rabbit. You just never know.

[tlbradford]

2 points for this story regardless of what people say, even if you've shot it doesn't mean you've spooked every yote around,

Very good point made by gutpile and a big mistake for beginners.  I have shot at and missed a coyote, and called the same one back into gun range and killed it.  The second thing to remember is if you kill one 10 minutes into your stand, don't hop up and celebrate, keep calling.  You would be surprised how many time you will call and kill a second coyote after you have already shot one.

[Krusty]

This winter I shot at a coyote twice, once at 40 feet (too close to see in my scope and already moving fast), and once at 70 yards (moving straight away, Texas style)...

I sat there, knowing it was a good spot, and not wanting to snowshoe off yet, I decided to eat lunch, wait a while, change tactics and call another stand.

Low and behold, the coyote trots down the very path he'd used to escape, and sat down some 340+ yards away, and proceeded to try and figure out "what that was all about".

The adrenaline from the first go round hadn't worn off, and I really had trouble holding steady, which is just as well, without the range finder I dropped the bullet, my last one, low enough it wouldn't have been pretty, just to the right of his foot.

Rich Higgins, has used a similar technique, purposefully, moving to a vantage point where he could "snipe" over a finished stand.
Sometimes, as much as an hour later, a coyote would come to investigate.

Krusty

[Idabooner]

Rich Higgins, has used a similar technique, purposefully, moving to a vantage point where he could "snipe" over a finished stand.
Sometimes, as much as an hour later, a coyote would come to investigate.

Not a bad idea, several times over the years I have gone back to a call stand after a couple days and there would be coyote tracks in the snow that had come in after I left.

[Big10gauge]

15 minutes is our avg. We try to play the percentages. 95% of the coyotes we call and see come in before then. It also depends on how much territory you want to cover in a day.  15 minutes calling and 30 or 40 minutes hiking time to next calling spot cuts into a day real fast. We try to do somewhere between 8 to 10 sets a day. We also take the time to field skin each coyote before we move to the next set.