Where to find coyotes

For that, you need a rifle that reaches out fast, shoots flat, and hits where you point it. A free-floating barrel benefits accuracy. It comes in both. I prefer the. For glass, go with the Leupold VX-2 x40mm. Leupold offers the clearest glass and reliability for the price. The windy West is the perfect place to go low tech: Tie a feather to a stake or twig and let it fluff, ruffle, and blow in the breeze 5.

These days, coyotes live on the edge of, and even in, suburbia. You can be part of the solution. The good news is that suburban coyotes are underhunted.

Leave a card identifying yourself. Promise to refrain from using a high-powered rifle. Instead, stick with shotguns, rimfires, or light calibers like the. And if a landowner has reservations about even those firearms, offer to use a crossbow or better yet a high-powered airgun. Hunting only at dawn and dusk solves some of these issues, and those are good times for coyote activity anyway.

Another trick is to hunt populated suburban and exurban areas only on weekdays, when fewer people are about. These dogs are highly opportunistic and often quite competitive with one another, so they are usually going to come in fast to rabbit and other distress calls. If a coyote comes in and you shoot it, stay put for five minutes and call again; there might be another dog in the vicinity.

Property lines can be tight in these areas, so hone your skills with squeaker calls in case you need to coax a coyote through a fence or across a road and onto land where you have permission to hunt and shoot. When a smart citified coyote gets coy on you, you have to give him a little bit of soft love. The suburban predator hunter needs versatility in his arsenal, and a mouth call such as the Primos Hot Dog has it.

You can make coyote yips and howls when the mouthpiece is attached, or remove the mouthpiece and make distress calls imitating birds, cottontails, squirrels, and fawns. The low magnification is perfect for closer-in suburban hunting situations. Habitat will make or break your coyote hunt. But knowing what coyotes need to make a living is only part of the equation.

Identifying land features that optimize your ability to remain hidden make up the rest. I use a quick scoring method to rate the sign and landscape, so I know in a flash whether a place is worth hunting or not. Good locations have a set of fresh tracks—that earns a single point.

When you find a spot that is criss-crossed with coyote tracks, give it 2 points, then figure out the best way to approach the location using cover to reach an elevated vantage point. Their pelt can be sold or used in crafting, and their meat can be consumed, though it is considered stringy.

They can also be found around the town of Armadillo in New Austin. To get a perfect Pelt you'll have to find a Perfect Coyote and use the right weapons to kill it.

Coyotes are mangey dogs that sometimes hunt in small packs. They scare easily though. Keep your distance and pop a shot off from a distance with either a Repeater with any ammo, except explosive, or a Bow with Regular Ammo to get a clean kill. Find a good shooting position. When hunting coyote, you'll want to find a well-hidden position where you comfortably remain still and stay on the lookout for upwards of half an hour at a time.

Look for rocky outcroppings, knolls, small ridges, or plant cover at the edge of a field. When you've found a good spot, settle in and stay quiet, scanning the direction from which you'll have the best shots at coyote. Camouflage can help you keep yourself concealed from wary coyotes in your shooting position.

Consider investing in a quality set of hunting camouflage before embarking on your trip. Wait 15 minutes, then use a call. After you've settled into your shooting position, briefly stay still and quiet while remaining on the lookout for any signs of movement in the area in front of you.

If nothing presents itself after about 15 minutes, use a call. Calls are small tools that imitate the sounds of certain animals - you should be able to find them at any hunting shop.

For attracting coyotes, your best bets are to use calls that imitate the distress sounds of their prey and the communicative howls and yips of coyotes themselves. Rabbit squealers are reported to work well, [9] X Research source but you may also want to have a selection of other distress calls at your disposal, so you can cycle through them.

Try to use calls that are appropriate for the location and time of year that you're hunting, based on the types of small prey that are common in the area. As with most types of hunting, coyote hunting is a waiting game.

Be patient - coyotes are unlikely to show themselves immediately. After you make your calls, wait minutes before making another. You may want to cycle through your different calls to test the effectiveness of each.

Between calls, stay vigilant, looking for signs of movement. If you don't seem to be having any success, wait 15 more minutes, then leave and proceed to another site. It's a hunting superstition that the prey presents itself right as the hunter is getting ready to leave. Use bait or a decoy optionally. If you're having trouble luring coyotes into shooting range, consider using an artificial decoy such as an old stuffed animal or a commercially-available decoy or an actual dead animal rabbits work well.

Place your bait or decoy an ideal shooting distance away from your hiding place, then return to your hiding place and wait. If possible, use a distress call that matches your bait or decoy. If using a dead animal, you may want to cut it open to allow the scent of its innards to escape. This scent is especially strong and should, with luck, improve your chances of attracting coyotes. Part 3. Make a clean kill shot. Though it is very unusual for hunters to kill coyotes for their meat, some prize their pelts for their softness and beauty.

If you intend to hunt coyotes for their fur, plan on trying to kill every coyote with one, clean shot. This serves a dual purpose - not only will it minimize damage to the coat, but it minimizes the chance that the coyote will be able to run and hide before dying, wasting the kill and leaving you without a pelt. A coyote's vitals are fairly far forward on its torso - its small heart lies in the lower portion of the torso just forward of the animal's forelegs, while its larger lungs are slightly above and behind the heart.

A shot in the area above one of a coyote's forelegs is likely to hit one of these organs. A shot to the head is also very likely to kill a coyote in one shot. However, coyotes' heads can be fairly small and hard to hit. Even if you don't want a coyote's pelt for instance, if you're simply killing the animal to eliminate a threat to your livestock , try to make a clean kill shot. Shots to an animal's vitals are the quickest, most humane way to kill an animal. Messy kills can prolong a dying animal's suffering.

Make sure the coyote is dead. As you approach the coyote you've shot, look for signs of breathing or movement. A coyote that's wounded, but not completely dead, should be put out of its misery as quickly as possible with a bullet fired safely into its head or, if you're very confident in your abilities, by slitting its throat.

Be careful around wounded coyotes - though it's very, very unlikely for a full-grown person to be killed by a coyote let alone a dying one , it may be able to inflict a bite. If, by some chance, you are bitten by a coyote, get medical attention.

Even if you're not seriously injured, you will want a doctor to ensure the bite didn't carry any disease. Act quickly after the kill.

As with all game, time is a concern after killing a coyote, as its body will begin to attract bacteria after death. Nearly all hunting resources recommend field dressing a killed animal immediately after killing it for the best chance at preservation. Though there is no need to be frantic, if you're interested in taking a coyote's pelt, it's best to start field dressing or skinning the animal as quickly as you can to ensure its overall "freshness".

The weather and environment you hunted the coyote will make a difference in how quickly you need to move - generally, colder temperatures allow dead animals to "keep" for longer. Survival rates of adult coyotes in the Chicago metropolitan area are similar to estimates for coyotes living in rural Illinois. Rural Illinois is dominated by row-crop agriculture and hunting of coyotes occurs year-round without any regulatory constraints, such as bag limits.

Large metropolitan areas, on the other hand, provide more year-round protection since there is no seasonal loss of habitat via crop harvesting and a lack of intensive hunting pressure. Given the large areas traversed by coyotes and the number of roads regularly crossed during their activities, this is not surprising. Some of the roads crossed by coyotes in this study have average traffic volumes of more than , vehicles every 24 hours. Other causes of death have included shootings and malnutrition; disease is primarily due to mange; and sometimes the death is just too complicated to determine a reason.

Few coyotes make it through their full potential life spans, unlike Coyote 1 who died of natural causes despite existing in a heavily urbanized area. Coyotes typically have a highly organized social system, even in urban areas. This consists of packs, or groups, of coyotes that defend territories from other coyotes.

In Cook County, coyotes have been identified as living in packs as well as traveling alone solitary coyotes. Packs are usually composed of an alpha male and female pair, and a few other coyotes. Genetic analysis of coyotes has revealed that nearly all pack mates are close relatives, except for the alpha pair. Observations during tracking, helicopter flights, and trapping have revealed that the coyotes in this study maintain their territories as groups. Group size in protected habitats is typically five to six adults in addition to pups born that year.

Territories have very little overlap, so the coyotes defend these areas from other groups. In rural areas, especially where hunting and trapping are common, the group may only consist of the alpha pair and the pups. Although coyotes live in family groups, they usually travel and hunt alone or in loose pairs. In this way they are different from wolves, which sometimes leads to the impression that coyotes do not form packs since they are usually seen alone.

In addition to resident packs, the urban population also consists of solitary coyotes that have left packs and are looking to join groups or create their own territories. Between one-third and one-half of the coyotes studied each year are solitary animals. They can be either males or females and are usually young coyotes six months to two years old but can also be older individuals who have left packs.