Calling coyotes for stubborn bucks...

[wooly]

This may sound like a strange tale of coincidence to many of you, but the more I see it work..., the more I believe there may be something to it.
By no means am I trying to invent a new "deer hunting tactic" or strategy, but when things get slow in the deer woods, this may come as a pleasant surprise, and I just love trying new things to exploit any deers weakness!

I got two... maybe 3 short stories to add here to give this topic some credibility.

Last season on November 5'th while tucked in a blind not seeing a damn thing all day, I got bored with the hunt and decided to change tactics and quarry just before sunset.
Instead of breaking out my grunt tube, or rattlin' horns, or bleat can, for another set of "deer calls", I decided to switch things up a bit and try to coax a coyote or two to the set up.
So, I got on my howler and let a series of yote calls rip.

As you can imagine, my first thought when I broke the silence was that I was expecting to spook every deer in the vicinity of the area clear out of town as soon as they heard that hungry predator announcing his position.
What happened next even came as a bit of a shock to me.

I spotted a nervous deer emerging from the break where the goldenrod met the apple orchard. He was just a young yearling buck, but that was the most action I'd seen all day up until this point. I thought he was a doe until he got close enough for a better inspection. He made his way off towards the creek bottom never to be seen again until later in the season. Shot opportunity was well under 20 yards.

 

Since I was already in "photo mode", I got on the howler again....

Once again, it only took a matter of minutes and another deer was making his way past me almost on the same trail but out around 35 yards.
Some of you may remember the "fanged 6 pointer" with the canine teeth I found dead after season with the arrow sticking out of his guts. That was him, and that was when I got my only pics of him on the hoof.
Same deal with him..... nervous and jerky, and constantly looking back over his shoulder until he finally disappeared out of site of the blind rather quickly into the creek bottom as well.

Fast forward to last night July 28'th...I climb into the observation stand with camera (and 6pck) in hand and things are slow as can be. Not a deer in site and it's almost 8:30.
I figured WTF- with light fading fast, I may as well try to call in a summer yote for a few last minute hail mary  pics since I've been getting so many on the trail cam recently about this time of day.

I pulled the e-caller (Flextone Torch) out of my pack and ran "cottontail distress" for a burst but got no response or action.
Waited about 5 minutes and hit the "woodpecker distress" and still nuthin'...
Five more minutes passed and I was about to call it a night.., but for chits and giggles I hit the howler button.

Not ONE minute later, a bachelor group of 7 bucks (one out of frame) came barreling across the field towards me from over 300 hundred yards away.
They eventually peeled off and cut over to a secluded field about 100 yards out before dropping out of sight.

I never did see anything in pursuit of them out in the open, but I got a funny feeling I know what was going on there from one stand of timber to the next.
Is it even remotely possible deer hunters could use a healthy yote population to their advantage when the going gets tough, and the deer just don't want to move on their own?

I think it is!

Deer don't just up and leave a property to a new unfamiliar area to encounter a new and unfamiliar pack of dogs, and they are certainly not in jeopardy of finding themselves on the endangered species list on these properties.
Instead they use their keen escape and evasive (survival) maneuvers to keep them ahead of "the predators" as we've all come to know all too well!
I truly believe all the deer mentioned above were forced into range by coyotes closing in on my calls.

Don't believe me..... try it NOW from the edge of a property you CAN'T hunt if you know you have a good yote population in the area. You never know what will come running your way and what have you got to lose. Obviously like with any kind of calling, it's not gonna work EVERY time. But if it works that ONE time when nothing else is happening, well that's the only time that matters! I know it's now something I'll keep in my bag of tricks when things are slow.
I think too many times we concentrate on vocalizations that draw deer into our set ups with mixed results, without thinking about what puts them there in the first place.

One last quicky from last years successful January 9'th yote hunt.
Once again, I climb in my stand and get on the howler. ..... and not 5 minutes later a doe a 2 fawns are standing broadside in front of me not 30 yds out checking out their back trail.
They nervously make their way off, and within 10 minutes here comes Miss Yotie down the same trail they left on.
There won't be any further stories with THAT bitch in it,lol

Ahh hell...one more short coyote blurp as long as I'm on the topic from July 12'th of last summer..
I posted a series of pics from the observation stand last summer of a yote hunting fawns in the field when he jumped a buck by accident.
That buck made his way right under my stand when the yote decided to call off a short chase.

As luck would have it, that wasn't the last time I had an encounter with that exact same buck under one of my stands!
I guess the point I'm trying to make with this post is that coyotes aren't ALWAYS bad to the deer hunter, and sometimes they can even be helpful if you can force yourself to think that way!
If anyone else has some similar stories go ahead and post 'em up here. There's no better time like the off season to put all the pieces of the previous seasons puzzles together!

 

...and a few short months later that buck wasn't so lucky when he ran into the baddest azz predator to ever step foot on his turf.....ME,lol

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[stoneam2006]

I always carry my predator calls on me to use when the woods just seem to quiet. Never had deer come during the day but hunting yotes at night I've had countless deer come in to check me out while calling. That's what first gave me the idea. I think like most animals they probably want them out of their area and come to try and force them out. I'd bet coyote attacks on deer are very very rarely when there is a healthy adult around. Most pics with a fawn I bet are just happened to smell it and momma wasn't around so free meal. They say early season doe can be called in with almost any distress call bc of the fawns still being around...that tells me that they are not afraid of coyote...awesome pics and stories as usual Wooly

Sent from my SM-N920V using Tapatalk

[BizCT]

Similar thing happened to me like 4-5 years ago. Near 0 degree January day and I setup foxpro e caller. Not more than 2 minutes into a red fox distress call, 6 deer came running into the opening and stopped looking around. It was strange


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[fasteddie]

Enjoyed the stories and pics ! 

[grampy]

Very interesting concept wooly. I hope I never get so blind that I can't learn from others. We have both deer and coyotes on the properties I hunt. It never came to me to combine the two. But I'm going to give it a try! If it works, I'll be sure to post the results and give you due credit. Thanks for sharing! You have a great woods sense! 

[ATbuckhunter]

Did you try this in the woods or on the edge of a field? If mainly on the edge of a field, maybe the deer would go into the field so they can see whats going on or can see if anything is tailing them. Just a thought tough.

[Paula]

Good read!

[wooly]

3 hours ago, grampy said:

Very interesting concept wooly. I hope I never get so blind that I can't learn from others. We have both deer and coyotes on the properties I hunt. It never came to me to combine the two. But I'm going to give it a try! If it works, I'll be sure to post the results and give you due credit. Thanks for sharing! You have a great woods sense! 

Glad you found it interesting enough to consider trying grampy.

I know a lot of guys are hesitant to try new things especially when it comes to loud calling that WE perceive as threatening especially in the deer woods. I'm just the opposite and like to see how far I can push things before disaster strikes.

These animals all live together every day and night and have learned how to be in the same space at the right time, and when to get out of each others way at the wrong times.

I get a lot of crazy ideas from the bank load of pictures I've collected over the years. Whenever I add new ones, I compare them to the old ones to remind me of the encounters and possibly draw some parallels between them. Sometimes the meat of the patterns take time to sink in and recognize over a period of time.... sometimes years, which is why I like to have all my pics organized into chronological  and species specific categories the way I do.

It's really helped me to identify similarities in details that would have likely been forgotten over time. I've never been reliable enough to keep an updated and detailed journal of each hike or encounter in a printed format, but I can rely on my pictures to refresh my memory and show me things I may have missed or forgotten over time.

Although I found your "woods sense" comment flattering, what it really boils down to for me is having the ability to go back in time to compare each individual encounter through my pics.

I promise you.., some days I go out there and still make some of the biggest and dumbest mistakes known by the greenest of greenhorns... but I continue to learn from them all!

 

18 minutes ago, ATbuckhunter said:

Did you try this in the woods or on the edge of a field? If mainly on the edge of a field, maybe the deer would go into the field so they can see whats going on or can see if anything is tailing them. Just a thought tough.

I've tried both ATbuckeroo.

I've never gone out to do it intentionally, but like I said, now I'm starting to see some patterns from past random experiences since I started paying attention to what brought the encounters on in the first place since they were all well documented.

 

If I can ever get the hang of running and editing video with my camera(which I'm determined to), I would be thrilled to go out and bring back some actual target footage of what I'm talking about for you guys as soon as I could.

I know I could make it happen again given enough time afield, but I need to learn how to cut and splice pieces of vids together so you're not watching an hour of empty footage before the action starts.

If anyone knows a decent and relatively simple video editing program to get me started, that would be a great help in a step towards showing some of the behaviors and reactions that don't always show up in images. I still got some sweet footage from spring turkey that I still can't seem to figure out how to get it to run smoothly to post here. Every now and then I mess with it to the point of getting aggravated, before I hang it up again until next time I feel like getting aggravated,lol!

[ATbuckhunter]

17 minutes ago, wooly said:

Glad you found it interesting enough to consider trying grampy.

I know a lot of guys are hesitant to try new things especially when it comes to loud calling that WE perceive as threatening especially in the deer woods. I'm just the opposite and like to see how far I can push things before disaster strikes.

These animals all live together every day and night and have learned how to be in the same space at the right time, and when to get out of each others way at the wrong times.

I get a lot of crazy ideas from the bank load of pictures I've collected over the years. Whenever I add new ones, I compare them to the old ones to remind me of the encounters and possibly draw some parallels between them. Sometimes the meat of the patterns take time to sink in and recognize over a period of time.... sometimes years, which is why I like to have all my pics organized into chronological  and species specific categories the way I do.

It's really helped me to identify similarities in details that would have likely been forgotten over time. I've never been reliable enough to keep an updated and detailed journal of each hike or encounter in a printed format, but I can rely on my pictures to refresh my memory and show me things I may have missed or forgotten over time.

Although I found your "woods sense" comment flattering, what it really boils down to for me is having the ability to go back in time to compare each individual encounter through my pics.

I promise you.., some days I go out there and still make some of the biggest and dumbest mistakes known by the greenest of greenhorns... but I continue to learn from them all!

 

I've tried both ATbuckeroo.

I've never gone out to do it intentionally, but like I said, now I'm starting to see some patterns from past random experiences since I started paying attention to what brought the encounters on in the first place since they were all well documented.

 

If I can ever get the hang of running and editing video with my camera(which I'm determined to), I would be thrilled to go out and bring back some actual target footage of what I'm talking about for you guys as soon as I could.

I know I could make it happen again given enough time afield, but I need to learn how to cut and splice pieces of vids together so you're not watching an hour of empty footage before the action starts.

If anyone knows a decent and relatively simple video editing program to get me started, that would be a great help in a step towards showing some of the behaviors and reactions that don't always show up in images. I still got some sweet footage from spring turkey that I still can't seem to figure out how to get it to run smoothly to post here. Every now and then I mess with it to the point of getting aggravated, before I hang it up again until next time I feel like getting aggravated,lol!

Thanks for the write up wooly! Ill defiantly have to try this, this fall. Id love to see any video's you take as well. 

[wooly]

Give it a shot bud.

Just imagine where your bucks are hiding and anything in between you and the yotes gets pushed your way with a little luck.

They're (the deer) not going to run into an ambush they can see, or smell coming... but like it has been mentioned in a few threads around here lately, sometimes they don't pay attention to the sounds that lie ahead that ultimately get them killed simply because it's not the immediate threat.

If you go into it with the mindset that you already have a fleet of "deer dogs" in position to drive towards you, you just need to give the command and pull their strings a little bit and hope they cooperate.

There's no 100% of the time in hunting ANY critter, but you'll never capitalize on the lower percentage techniques if you never try.

[burmjohn]

Awesome story and pics

[Jaeger]

I went to the Sportsmans show in Uniondale long island back in the 80's and attended a Peter Fiducia (sp?) clinic where he claimed he could drive into the deer woods in a limo, wearing tux and tails and blare classical music and draw deer in.  Don't know if its true, never had the cash to find out!!

Deer are just very curious creatures if they are not previously spooked, even then, they have a very short attention span/memory.

 

JMO