High Percentage Set-ups

[Doc]

Can you describe the details of your favorite calling set-ups for foxes. How about coyotes?

Terrain (fields, brush lots, open woods, flats, hills, valley bottoms, elevated positions?)

Calling sequence ( timing, style of call, volume variations, etc.)

Time of day (night, morning daylight, afternoon daylight)

Do you use any visual attractants

 

[Chris B]

I’m still working on coyotes but I have the fox pretty well figured out. We always hunt fox starting right at sundown, as soon as it’s dark enough to shine the light (say an hour or so after sunset) and usually hit 3-4 stands, calling it a night around 10 pm. My favorite sequence is baby cottontail for 2 minutes on low, turn up the volume to medium and run 3 more min, switch to adult cottontail on medium for 5 minutes, and then switch to grey fox distress on high for 5 minutes. I let the fox distress run for a couple minutes on high and then I run the volume up and down for the remainder and that is usually when they come in. I’m a huge fan of “backyard” stands close to houses. We set up on a field that gives us atleast a 40 yd shot to the edge of the field. We always try to hunt close to thick cover/brush unless the landowner is seeing fox and then we will just go after them bc we know they’re there. I also run a foxjack decoy on every stand. We like either a crosswind or quartering-away wind, and place the caller out and upwind of us. Never call w a wind in your face, you’ll have a lot that try to slip in behind u.

A trick I’ve learned is that if I’m running fox distress and I catch eyes and it doesn’t want to commit after a couple minutes, I switch to a different fox distress and have had lots of luck pulling them out for a shot. If we shoot a fox at any time during our favorite sequence, I immediately switch to fox distress (or a diff fox distress if I was running a fox distress during the shot) and we have gotten 3 doubles this year


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[mxsmitz201]

All my hunting has been done around prime time in the morning and evening or any given hr after the sun has set.

The best set up for me this year has been scanning the corners of fields along thick brushy overgrown fields and thick woods.  For example say you have a 90 degree corner in a field I’ll set up somehwere along the 45 out in the field/cut corn.  Depending on the wind I’ll skew off that 45 a bit placing the lucky duck revolt accordingly with the wind, anticipating the coyotes or fox to come down wind of the call.  I’ve had consistent success calling dogs with set ups like this. 

One thing I’ve learned is they will always come down wind of the call if possible. I’ve had some pretty cool experiences this winter.  Once I sat in a field edge with a cross wind blowing into the edge I was in.  I had the call 30-40 yds out and away in the field and had a double come bursting out of the field edge I was in 20 yds away and attacked the call.  

I also had a set up where the wind was in my face blowing perpendicular to a ravine, a river, and a cul de sac of houses right behind me. I set up where the ravine and edge of the woods met a golden rod/brushy field.  I thought it was a great choice, and it was if only I shot right handed or had a partner. I set my call up in the golden rod patch directly upwind of me  50 yds away while I sat on the ravine edge scanning the golden rod and as much of the area in front of me and to the sides as possible.  Well I had a coyote about a half hr into the set come along the ravine edge and sit next to me 10 yds away in open woods intently looking at my call.  Sat there for almost a full minute until he caught my movement as I tried to confirm what my peripheral vision was seeing.  In this particular case I had the right idea, I thought I had enough distance between the call and enough cover in the general area around the call that I would catch the coyotes putting themselves between my position and the call, however it’s hard to top the cover, and the ease of access a ravine affords.  I typically hunt with a partner and this set up would have worked perfect in that scenario.  Solo, not so much.  

Calling wise, I started out this winter staying away from rabbit in distress because I felt like they are educated with it pretty good around here, BUT, every time I use it no matter where in a set I have dogs that make there presence known usually within seconds if it’s late in a set and within minutes if I start off a set with it.  I’ve had some good success with howls and breeding howls as well.  The instance above where they attacked my call was nothing but female breeding howls and answer howls.  

A pretty good strategy ive found is to get them in the area with howls etc. and then prey on their hunger and follow up with distress whether it’s rabbit, mouse, rat, vole, or lip squeaks. My experience has been that’s when they make themselves vulnerable to a 55grain vmax.