Looks like a bad winter......

[growalot]

for the deer was a fantastic winter for the yotes!....Not only am I picking up sightings regularly on the cams but they are driving both the dogs and my self crazy howling and yipping just behind the house every night.

So this has to beg the question...When the DEC made their grand plan months ago to have a doe only first 2 weeks of the bow season in "high density doe areas" such as ours...had they taken into consideration...... not only the deer and this rough winter...Possible lower births but the fact the yotes had a mighty fine food supply in deep snows and starving deer causing their numbers to increase with great litters to feed.....making fawn prediction increase. BTW fox are very prevalent as well.

 

Now if this passes and can't be implemented until the 2016 season...What are they going to do to get a handle on what numbers really are? Especially if this winter is yet another bad one and of course then you have a population of yotes  whose offspring will be breeding next spring. Once passed would they drop it?

[landtracdeerhunter]

Our coyote numbers are up as well. Come October 1st, I'll pass the doe and gun for the coyote all through the season. Hope the pelts are worth something. Maybe taxi a nice one myself. My own DEC. Plan.

[DirtTime]

That's a good question grow. Two years ago while at camp in the NZ we heard coyotes take a fawn ( that was pretty disturbing to hear in the middle of the night to say the least ), and heard them on and off all night everytime we were up there. Last summer they lit us up and 8:30pm one night and the next night at around 1:30am. They were close, within 100 yds. Has to be a den, but we can't find it. My buddies father told me to kill any of them I see. I would love to do that, but in the sumer there's no season. He has chickens, goats, and other animals he raises, so he wants them gone. He had a trapper up there for 3 years and the trapper got nothing! Not even a straying pup!

Coyoye numbers are way up everywhere. We need an all year season on them to reduce the numbers.

 

The really odd part is, in many areas the snow was deep and I really don't get how the damn hell dogs were able to gain in numbers so much this past winter.

 

 

[phade]

I know not everyone agrees, but when the red fox start disappearing Grow, that's when you really need to worry about yotes. I've seen greys co-habitate, but that's largely a difference in defense mechanisms from red fox.

[wooly]

I like coyotes!

After last winter, it became pretty obvious this areas habitat needed a few years to regenerate some new growth to support our deer herd.

Now that the deer #'s and many other small game species have been cut down considerably by both means (weather and predation), the yotes will move on to everyone elses areas where critters are decimating the landscape through over browsing and overpopulation.

 

We needed the break in deer as much as I (or any other deer hunter) would hate to admit it.

No deer hunting for me this year to help re-build the local herd. and help it bounce back some.

I got plenty o' meat in the freezer from times when deer were plentiful, but the decrease lately cannot go overlooked unless you're willing to take matters into your own hands..... even if that means sitting out a season or two from doing something we all enjoy. (hunting deer)

[NFA-ADK]

...Rob 

 

Hard winters on Deer can equate to good eating for coyotes or Hell Dogs as you put it, lol.  I kind of like that name for them! 

[DirtTime]

I get that. I meant I find it odd that the hell dogs seem to be able to get through heavy snow and strive. Then again, I have watched my Husky go through 3 feet of snow like nothing. She looks like a fish swimming but she does it.

 

I have no issues with the antherless restrictions. But, I also don't want to turn grows thread into yet another battle about that topic. So, I am trying to lean more towards hunters being able to slap the hell out of the yote population all year.

[growalot]

Phade..I agree and have seen it here..they do tend to cycle...but I believe the amount of food available to sustain pups for both are at a all time high....early spring = still weakened deer and I'm going to speculate more than a few still births and smaller weaker fawn...Turkey were definitely on the menus from many remains I found. I Believe they are also much more vocal because both are in the area.

Edited July 13, 2015 by growalot

[G-Man]

Sponges stuffed in bite sized casings and rolled.in bacon grease, placed near trails.in winter are.more effective than any trapping

.. or.so I've heard

Edited July 13, 2015 by G-Man

[Doc]

Coyotes are a lot like the TV ads for medications. Each one comes with a long list of terrifying and life altering side effects. They can solve a problem of over population of deer, and help to bring nature more back in line with a balanced situation. But along with that comes the side effects of turkey predation, livestock and pet predation, and the fact that without adequate control of their own populations, they themselves can become forces that unbalance the natural coexistence of many elements of nature.

 

 

[Doc]

Grow-

You asked the question as to whether the DEC has taken into consideration the ugly winter that just passed or the potential of consecutive ones that may come when they put in motion their grand and glorious deer management manifesto. Well, unless they have a well polished crystal ball, I don't see how they could read future events. Also they seem to have such a panicked fixation on slamming the deer population, that I think they see whatever devastation that might have been caused by local weather impacts as well as the resulting increases in predation as a welcomed bonus. 

 

But, in fairness, I will say that they did have the foresight to make some of their policies dependent on the prevailing conditions of the herd and habitat as each hunting season approaches. Do we have confidence in their observations, calculations, conclusions, etc.?  Well that's a conversation for another thread. But my understanding is that many of these elements of the deer management plan are contingent on need that they feel exists at the time of the printing of game regulations. So if you have confidence in the principles and science used by the DEC, you have to believe that their efforts to crash the deer herd are warranted and justified. I am not offering my opinions on that here in this thread, but I will say that I generally have a skeptical nature.

 

[Jaeger]

Here in the north west catskills, we've got coyotes galore.

 

But we are also finding a LOT of deer carcasses and parts, mostly starvation over the winter but also weakened and taken down by coyotes I think.

 

I found one dead doe that washed down the stream, or died at the edge of it, and froze into the ground and snow.

 

The coyotes picked at her all winter, like a frozen purple top turnip eaten down like an ice cream cone.  The finally got the carcass parts out and pulled them all over  the place.

 

Deer hair for fly fishing anyone!!

[genesee_mohican]

I'm seeing a lot of deer, fawns, lots of twins around me. For the past few years it's been coyote central and I hear them howling nearby at night every week, but I've not heard them in 5 months now.  The red fox are still here and I'm sure the coyotes will return.