Furbearer/varmint hunting?

[d.thomson]

Just this past summer up near the soux in nothern Ontario a black wolf went after a three year old boy, the eight year old sister whent to help, and the wolf whent onto her, the mother and brother scared it off with sticks and stones. The ministry of natural resorces hunted the wolf down it wasnt rabed just hungry. Wolves black bears are all opertunistic will go after the weak or young. If they have no fear of humans. If humans dont hunt these preditors and make them fear us than eventualy we will be looked at as pray. My 2 cent Fisher King

 

[barebackjack]

Your average person couldnt tell a wolf from a coyote from a coyote/dog if it bit him in the ass.
Ive handled literally thousands upon thousands of coyotes in the fur business, and the biggest one Ive ever seen was just shy of 60 lbs. That was a BIG yote.
Coyotes are lots of fur, when you skin em, you see where all that "weight" goes. Hell, the average fox only weighs 7-10 lbs. But they sure look bigger under all that winter fur.

On a varmint hunting note, I FINALLY GOT A BLACK POWDER YOTE!!!!!!!!!
And not just one, BUT TWO! When it rains it pours.
Numbers 34 and 35 for the winter. I can finally quit. (their starting to rub).

And funny, one of them is probably one-half or one-quarter dog. Ill post pics as soon as I get them from my mom. Ive trapped a couple coydogs, byt never shot one. Their pretty common on the reservation where theres alot of dogs that are allowed to run amok.

Heres the story:

Saturday was perfect calling conditions. Its been below zero here for three weeks, saturday finally warmed enough to where you could be out for more than ten minutes without freezing. We had a light wind, (rare here) so the call could carry.

Our first stand was in a pasture with about 80 head of cattle in it (if theres cows, there coyotes). I started in blowing a crittr-call jackrabbit in distress. I wasnt 5 minutes into the set when over the ridge comes a grey speck. I look through the scope on my .250 and sure enough, hes coming hard. He charges right into about 200 yards....and starts bulling up on us. Im thinking "great, gonna have to shoot him with the .250". Well, i slide out to the tip of the call to give him some squeeks, and just start coaxing him, 25 yards at a time. We had some cows come up on the hill to investigate the noise, and I think that put him at ease cuz he started coming at a dead run again, not even making a effort to cut our wind (again, rare here). So I grapped the ole GPR and got settled. At about fifty yards I whooped at him, he stopped, I squeezed, and when the smoke cleared, there he lay, dead as a doornail. He was the biggest dog of the winter up till now, about 35 lbs.

Second stand we called one in, bulled up at about 600 yards, and my pops dumped with his .308.

Third stand was on a ridge top overlooking a wide valley. Again, started calling with the tally-ho this time (wind had picked up some). About 15 minutes in some deer came burning up out of the brushy gulley off to our left. (Its no secret that deer get riled up by distress calls, but these two fawns had been running hard and long, tongues hangin). I get situated to cover the left, and way out about 800 yards I see a dark spot moving. I look through the scope, and its a doggie. I crank the scope up to high power and think "sh*t, its a dog". This thing had the face of a husky. (not that it would of mattered, I kill deer chasing dogs every chance I get). Well, I keep working him and he keeps coming. As he gets closer I can see he is obviously a coyote, but he definatly has some pooch in him. I lose sight of him as he drops down into the gulley. I know hes gonna move along the gulley and try to get our wind, so I get set up to take him where I think he'll pop up for one last look before heading for the downwind. Sure enough, he pops up. About 60 yards. I settle on him, and squeeze the trigger. He does the patented spin and squeel, Im thinking I grazed him. He turns tail and hauls ass back down into the draw, I jump up and grab the .250 and take off after him. I crest the lip of the draw just in time to see him pile up about 150 yards away in the bottom of the draw. .54 roundball right in the shoulder, coyotes are tough. Much tougher than a deer. Well anyway, when I get the pictures up, theyll speak much better than my description of him. But his face looks just like a husky. He outweighed the other one. Hes one of those "70 lb" coyotes that tips the scale at about 45.

At any rate, I was pretty excited, ive been trying to get a MLer yote all winter. Ive now taken them with hi-powers, shotguns, bow, pistol, trap, and MLer. Hmmmmm, what could I use next :hmm: Any ideas?

 

[Runner]

I my case, a 40 year fur buyer bought the carcass because he had never seen a yote that big. Yes, most guys would know the difference between a wolf and a yote once they are down. Wolves stink in a way that has to be experienced to understand. Your hunting dogs will crawl in their houses and hide from the smell. After skinning the big wolf Jim killed, dad cut a piece of the meat off and tossed it towards a hound that would tackle a 25 pound boar coon alone for fun. He dove into his house and would not come out until it was removed. The only thing he ever acted that way over was a cat that screamed and jumped out of a tree at the edge of the yard one time. Whatever it was, we heard it hit the ground in the house and that dog went under a Riviera that he did not fit under to hide. He acted the same way over a piece of the meat off that wolf carcass. There is no mistaking the smell if you ever smell it! Three men tried to skin that wolf. All three lost their lunch in the attempt. My cousin Mike finally got it skinned.
The coyote I shot would have been about the same size as the wolf Jim killed, and maybe a touch bigger even. I killed another big one in northern Mo and Ersel Brumbough sold that carcass.
The bounty when I killed my wolf was 25 for an adult and 15 for a pup. That was big money to a kid back then. I rolled the second one, but he kept going! I packed that wolf over a mile with that smell making me sick all the way. When I got to the car, dad and Jim would not let me put it in the car to take it home. They paid the bounty themselves so they could leave it there!
Again, I grew up with thousands of acres of mature oak woods around my house, and that is what I hunted and played in. I am just across the river from Valmeyer, 40 miles or so south of the arch in the broken ridge country. I can see the arch from my back yard on a clear day. They are tearing the hills down and building subdivisions today, but when I was a kid, there were areas within an hours drive of the house that were as wild as anything left in the US. I have never seen a bear, a pig, or a weasle in the wild, but I have taken or watched just about everything else that you can name that lives here. I am not a city boy or a book hunter. I grew up with trappers, hunters, and farmers that still farmed the old way.

 

[jethro224]

Congrats on your ML success! :hatsoff:

How about a ML pistol? Then maybe an atlatl, blowgun, sling-shot, boomerang... :haha:

 

[bigbore442001]

I'll second the motion with a muzzleloading pistol. In fact, you could break it down to shooting one with a cap and ball revolver and single shot.

 

[barebackjack]

Hmmmm :hmm: Mler pistol, i like this idea.

I already have a homemade blowgun, but I think ill have to import some of them thar poison dart frogs from South America for chasing doggies.

 

[jethro224]

My next goal is to take a deer with a ML pistol. Kinda like you with the coyotes. I've taken them with slug shotguns, compound bow, recurve bow, centerfire revolver, flintlock rifle and caplock rifle. Now I'd like to try and kill a doe with my .54 Great Plains Pistol.
Here in Illinois the only legal time to use a ML pistol for deer hunting is during the Late-Winter Antlerless Only season. 3 days.
I tried it a year ago but all I saw was 7 antlered bucks. This past season they changed the rules around and confused me again so I didn't buy the right permit to try again. Waitin' for next season.
Seems like the ultimate deer(or coyote) huntin' challenge to me. With a gun anyway.

 

[barebackjack]

Definatly.

What would be the maximum ethical range to shoot with a MLer pistol......20-25 yards? Now THATS a challenge!!!!!!!!! Especially for doggies.

 

[jethro224]

I figger about 25 yards would be MY max range. But I'll try for 10. It would be sorta like traditional bowhuntin' with a pistol... More huntin', less shootin'.

 

[redwing]

Would some one please post a picture of a "Coydog". Here in Wyoming we have lots of coyotes some wolves and a damn lot of dogs.
I have never seen one, would like to very much. We have State and federal preditor control agents living here. They have never seen one. I have checked with the fur buyes, never seen one.
I would like very much to get a picture from you fellows who are trapping them. We would all be amazed.

 

[barebackjack]

As soon as I get the pictures from my mom Ill get em scanned and put up here.

 

[Herb]

One winter on the Ouray National Wildlife Refuge south of Vernal, Utah, on the Green River, I saw a dead deer out on the ice. Reading the sign, a coyote chased this buck out of the willows out onto the ice. He was joined by several others. The buck slipped, more coyotes came from the willows. They cleaned him up. A 27" four point mule deer buck, nothing left but the head, antlers, bones,and the hair against the ice. No broken bones, good marrow. This was a healthy big buck they ran down and killed and cleaned up. My Biological Technician, Mike, would not believe coyotes ate deer. I said, "maybe they mistook him for a rabbit."

 

[Tim Clark]

Yup, the legendary "Jackalope." Just the biggest one those coyotes ever saw. Didn't matter though, it tasted like chicken!

Lots and lots of myth and fiction surrounding these creatures today and through a heavy fog of "history." Ironically, the myths are propogated as truth by those that have no first hand knowledge, while those who have actual facts are scorned as the ignorant, uneducated, simple, superstitious folk that only deserve to be silenced.

At least in my experience...

 

[Bountyhunter]

http://www.apetsblog.com/pets-journal/coydog-coyote-dog-hybrid.htm

This is one of many sites that will come up on a coydog search. Point of such being that a coyote/dog hybrid is not a true hybrid as in horse/donkey=sterile mule. Dog/coyote crosses are fully fertile and capable of breeding.

My dog, a boxer, left home and ran with a coyote pack one spring. Later in the year, boxer cross coyotes began showing up. The coyote hunters called it to our attention and the next year, more coyotes with boxer characteristics showed up around our ranch. We called in all the coyote hunters we could get and they intensely worked our area for several months taking a couple dozen boxer cross coydogs out of the breeding pool. Several hundred coyotes, feral dogs, and crosses were taken that year in our area, and that was the end of that problem. We shot the boxer so that he did not run with the coyotes any more.

Due to the natural movement of animals moving into lesser populated areas, the existing population simply moved into the lesser populated area, and by the next year, there was no observable difference in population.

With respect to an earlier post of removing all predators, do a search on the Kaibab project of the 1920's where Arizona removed all predators from the Kaibab Forest on the north rim of the Grand canyon and the deer population exploded and ultimately died from starvation as a result of habitat destruction. Ecofreaks messing with the natural flow of wildlife is not a new problem. Coyotes still kill domestic livestock. Cougars and bears still kill domestic livestock in my area here. Wolves will kill domestic livestock given the chance, I just dont have wolves here.

Orders from my superiors and most of my constituents, are to kill all coyotes and cougars on sight. Coyotes--can do. Cougars are a game animal and the permitted take is one per season year. Want a cougar? Come on down. It'll cost ya about $300 for a license.

TANSTAAFL, I'm still chuckling about that wolf radio collar in the back of that truck heading to Mexico.

 

[sidelock]

For another coyote story look up my post of 02/11/07. :thumbsup:

 

[duke21]

hey walksalone!

just now saw your fine looking rig on here. maybe that scope isnt period correct, but it looks mighty sweet to me. Your other pictured items also deserve an ATABOY!!!!

again, real nice!!

duke21