Nighttime coyote hunting and tactics for yote shooting

[Stinkyrat]

Hi folks!

So I think I found an area that has quite a few coyotes in the area as I saw zero deer poo and a ton of what looked like coyote scat (as well as some that was bigger, cougar perhaps? Not a poo expert)...

Anyways, how do you go about going after coyotes in a heavily forested area? There are quite a few closed logging roads in the area, just set up camp and do some nighttime calling right on the gravel? Or would it be smarter to do this during the day? Sorry for the ignorance, this just sounds like a fun trip to me and any tips or help is greatly appriciated.

Also, I have a few calls (snowshoe and a female call) but do any of you find better success with the electronic calls?

Thanks for reading!

Stinkyrat

[wraithen]

Stinky, I'm right down the road from you and if you're in the stomping grounds nearby, the coyote scat is thick but how many prints have you found? Also the cougars are really thick there. I have a foxpro but I can't get those things to get anywhere near me. If you figure it out give me a shout and we can team up for the coyote madness this year until Dec.

As far as calls, near as I can figure the mouth calls are better because you can adjust on the fly with them. I can break my buddies hearts with my elk call doing a raspy bunny dying, the foxpro just spooks them a bit  You don't need the electronics. The advantage I figured I would have is it would bring them near me but not focused on me. I figured that would get me the jump. Turns out I gotta get them in sight first somehow   

[sirmissalot]

I wouldn't do any night hunting this time of year, give it a couple months till big game seasons are over. At least I would.

Calling coyotes in timber is something I'd like to learn too

[wraithen]

Night hunting risks shouldn't be anything other than poachers being scared and shooting you over here. The gamies and/or local sheriff might appreciate a call though first. Most people in that general area won't give the sound a second thought.

[Stinkyrat]

Well I don't even think nighttime hunting is allowed right now through big game hunting season anyways, so this would be more of a spring/summer activity I think? I see tons of videos of coyote hunting during the day so I figured I'd give it a shot, but I have buddy (currently in Afghanistan) That does the nighttime thing and seems to have good luck with it, just can't get the details at the moment since he's a little busy!

As far as the poo goes, never seen tracks however it is fresh (still wet, flies landing, etc) so I know they are there. The area I am talking about is the DNR lands eastern to Eatonville down some of the closed service roads. Pretty creepy out there by myself, it was really foggy the day I went and could have sworn at one point I was being stalked. I was walking and stopped to listen to my surroundings and something behind me to my left took three steps and stopped. That's when an AR-15 with 120 rounds of screw you is quite comforting 

I actually took pictures while I was out there, I'll try posting them later today. But I'd definitely be down for a team-up trip out that way, I just bought some burlap camo to build a cover of sorts. Between that, foxpro and some calls I think we can get a few yotes!

Stinkyrat

[sirmissalot]

I was just talking about being legal, not safety wise. The way I've always read the regs as long as there is no center fire deer or elk season, you're good. Otherwise you'll be breaking the law. I hate Internet police, but I'm just saying what I would do.

[wraithen]

Sir, you are correct, I forgot that the area in question has stuff other than birds, squirrels, bobcat, coyote and cougar.  Stinky, I'm not sure which closed road you tried but walking those roads usually won't give you anywhere to make a decent stand. I've found a few just kind of slowly rolling down the road and looking for where trees look like they might thin out a bit. Did you circle around looking for tracks when you heard the 3 steps? I can hazard a guess and bet I know exactly what you heard. Just wait til she starts talking to you. It gets more interesting when you realize she's talking to her teenager on the complete other side of you. 

[MadHatter]

I don't think that it is illegal.  I know there was a push to make coyote hunters use rimfire at night, but I know that rule wasn't adopted.  I searched thought the regs and couldn't find any prohibition on hunting coyotes at night during modern season.  I do know that this has been discussed here before, the thought was that I could be out hunting (read as poaching) deer at night, and if I get stopped can just tell a game warden that I am "legally hunting coyotes."

I have always hunted coyotes at night, year round.  Lot of time I will take find gut piles during the day, and then sit on them at night for coyotes.  Taken several that way actually.  As for tactics, I use my hand calls and red light to look for eyes.  A good rule to remember is that predators will tend to look at you and you will see both eyes, prey animals you will only see one eye. This is not always the case, but a good thing to remember... Predators need binocular vision, thus have their eyes in the front of their head, prey animals (deer, elk, rabbit etc) need to be able to see predators coming and have their eyes separated and on the side of their heads.

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF300T using Tapatalk 2

[bobcat]

Look at page 76, item number 10, 2nd paragraph.

No night hunting during modern firearm deer and elk seasons.

[Stinkyrat]

Yeah bobcat is correct on this one:

"Coyote may be hunted at night
year round, EXCEPT it is unlawful
to hunt coyote at night during the
months of September, October,
or November in any area open to a
centerfire rifle deer or elk season."

Which is fine, its flippin cold around that point anyways! Well I think the area I was checking out may be a good one for getting Coyotes to pop out to visit, gonna head up there on Friday and I'll be sure to throw a report up on here for how it turns out. Went out with a scoped M16A4 styled AR last time and the area just doesn't call for that kinda distance. Think this time I'll be rocking the 1971 Colt A1 and try just straight iron sights.

We'll see what happens!

[bearmanric]

I got a call today asking these same question. Sounded kida fishy to me antie like. I just noticed the call came from New york. Said the same stuff as this post.  Rick

[MadHatter]

Look at page 76, item number 10, 2nd paragraph.

No night hunting during modern firearm deer and elk seasons.

Wow... Looks like I read past that like 5 times... thanks.

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF300T using Tapatalk 2

[Stinkyrat]

I got a call today asking these same question. Sounded kida fishy to me antie like. I just noticed the call came from New york. Said the same stuff as this post.  Rick

Not quite bud, definitely a gun totin' good ol boy that just moved back from Ellensburg. I'm stinkyrat on here, gunboards, waguns, ak-47.net and five-sevenforums. (well actually I am stinkyfert on five-seven.... they have a thing for ferrets over there ) but I sure am no anti.

Stinkyrat

EDIT: Hey while I'm on here, if I take my AR out for coyote, are you allowed to have a shotgun out with you at the same time? I only ask because if I see grouse, I'd just assume take em with a shotty over the AR. That and not have to hike all the way back to the truck to switch weapons if I didn't have to!

[yote]

I wouldn't do any night hunting this time of year, give it a couple months till big game seasons are over. At least I would.

 

[rynokron]

In the thick stuff at night you will most likely educate all the local yotes and never even know they were there. During the day setup so you can see the furthest down wind. Be ready for fast action. Shotgun works good for up close moving targets.

[Blackjaw]

Like someone else mentioned, when I go out at night I call the local WDFW Enforcement people and let them know where I am going. They always seem to appreciate it and I have never had one come out and check on me, and yes it is COLD in late Jan and Feb at night, but the hunting can be GOOD.

[KopperBuck]

I got a call today asking these same question. Sounded kida fishy to me antie like. I just noticed the call came from New york. Said the same stuff as this post.  Rick

Not quite bud, definitely a gun totin' good ol boy that just moved back from Ellensburg. I'm stinkyrat on here, gunboards, waguns, ak-47.net and five-sevenforums. (well actually I am stinkyfert on five-seven.... they have a thing for ferrets over there ) but I sure am no anti.

Stinkyrat

EDIT: Hey while I'm on here, if I take my AR out for coyote, are you allowed to have a shotgun out with you at the same time? I only ask because if I see grouse, I'd just assume take em with a shotty over the AR. That and not have to hike all the way back to the truck to switch weapons if I didn't have to!

I usually pack both when I'm just hunting coyotes. Full choke and T shot does wonders.

[Stinkyrat]

Well as an update, I went to sportsmans warehouse and purchased the foxpro spitfire for about $150 which wasnt bad. Then turned around and walked over to wally world to get batteries and go figure they had the primos turbo dogg for the same damn price! Sportsmans had the turbo dogg for $209. So I went back and returned the spitfire and got a price match on the turbo dogg. Appears to be a MUCH better unit, we shall see just how well it works around here tomorrow morning.

Hopefully between me, turbo dogg and Mr. AR-15.... We'll get something down range in the sights

I'll take pictures and let you all know how it goes!

Stinkyrat

[rynokron]

Just my opinion but foxpro is better.

[bearmanric]

Excited got my wicked lights yesterday. Bad azzed lights. Foxpro is way better. Rick

[Blackjaw]

+3 on the Foxpro being better, unless they have upgraded the turbo dogg on the last year or two. Let us know what you think, esp. about sound quality and the distance the remote works from the call. I have only seen one and was not impressed with the things I mentione, but maybe they have improved.

[Stinkyrat]

And back! Didn't get a coyote, after I had gotten set up a couple folks walked up and were setting up elk camp right by my area. So I went off and walked the closed roads for grouse and didnt see a single one till I was driving out of the forest. He was 5 feet from my truck and flew off to the trees on my right. By the time I got up in there off the road with my shotgun loaded he was looong gone. Next time

Are you guys sure you are talking about the Turbo dogg or the older power dogg? The turbo dogg IMHO made the foxpro spitfire look and feel like a cheap pile of crap. What was your field experiences (I say that, not trying to be rude by any means but there is a difference between flinging internet opinion/preferences and actually getting out in the field and trying both to determine a honest preference) with it that made you think the foxpro was better? I thought it was good sound, came with more sounds and had hunts that changed between sounds better than I ever would have, but I've never tried the foxpro so that is all I have to go off of too. I'll try and get a few pictures up and show you atleast what this one did for me.

I guess the real test is when it brings in something to shoot at!

Stinkyrat

[bearmanric]

They dont make the Spitfire any more. The Wildfire replaced it. Johnny stewart has awsome sounds. Rick

[Stinkyrat]

They dont make the Spitfire any more. The Wildfire replaced it. Johnny stewart has awsome sounds. Rick

You would be correct, sportsmans warehouse still has the spitfire instock though at clearance price which was why I was buying it. I almost drove to cabelas to pick up the wildfire however I saw the turbo dogg and it looked pretty decent for the price and had a lot of similar features.

EDIT: Ok, here is my 'review' for this turbo dogg. Not that I have a ton of experience with it, but I can atleast show you a few pictures and what not.


This would be the turbo dogg. The remote will lock onto the back of it, which makes it a little easier to pack around and not lose part of it. Not sure if this is a feature of others, but it was pretty nice to see that.


I tied some 550 cord to attach it to my ruck. Doesn't have a handle like the foxpro did, but I think I'll survive without it.


Fuzzy picture but shows the remote. LCD screen on it is pretty nice and everything feels solid and durable. Again dunno how great a foxpro is, but this just felt a whole lot more durable.


Screen showing one of the 'hunts' you can choose from. All I did today was press the play button and it runs through about 20 minutes of calls with pauses inbetween as shown. For those of us that are new to this whole thing, the 'set it and forget it' feature is kinda nice. In the bottom left you can see the volume level, it goes from 1 to 100. I set it at 25 and that was really flippin loud!


Back side of the dogg. Shows power button with the accessory jacks on the left and right of it. Not the most informative, but atleast you can see what I saw. Seemed like a pretty decent unit. Again as long as it brings in predators thats all that matters!

Stinkyrat

[wraithen]

The only thing that I wonder about that is how that remote displays in extremely cold conditions and what kind of range you get with it. All in all it looks like a great unit. I am not trashing primos product by any stretch when I say this, but there is a reason people are super loyal to foxpro. They fix anything any time and always try to make things right. Whether you drop them off a cliff or they sent you a bum remote. They even have people lurk on tons of forums to see what problems are and I've seen them try to fix any issue that's come up. That primos though does look like a great product. It's far and away better setup than the spitfire, but that's why I got the wildfire. Super easy to add stuff to and reprogram the remote and when I make sure to put batteries in it and take it off mute it works great. We can meet up and make a good comparo this november. You're in my neck of the woods anyway 

[Blackjaw]

Yeah, the one i saw/[layed around with was Power Dogg not the Turbo. Keep us posted with field reports when you get a chance.

[motg9_6]

wlidlife technologies makes a great call. amazing sound and volume.