Where are the fawns ?

[Rattler]

And contests usually take the average yotes.  The really big ones are the hardest to hunt and are rarely taken during the contests.  The best time to take one is when the fawns are dropping, and NY won't allow yote hunting at that time.

As far as bobcats go, they will take a fawn if the opportunity presents itself, but since bobs are not numerous, they're impact on deer is very small.  But I'll take them whenever I get the chance as well.

[chrisw]

48 pounds.  Contests have weighed 60 pound yotes around here.

48 is a big yote, but a far cry from 60. I follow a fair amount of coyote contests. PA has quite a few, a 60# coyote is like a 200" buck. The average weight of an adult coyote is 35lbs. Do you actively hunt coyotes or shoot them only while deer hunting?

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[rachunter]

8 hours ago, The Jerkman said:

Cute

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All these years hunting and I only saw one piebald doe while hunting, I'm not sure i'd shoot an albino doe or a buck smaller then a six pointer.

[Rattler]

17 hours ago, chrisw said:

48 is a big yote, but a far cry from 60. I follow a fair amount of coyote contests. PA has quite a few, a 60# coyote is like a 200" buck. The average weight of an adult coyote is 35lbs. Do you actively hunt coyotes or shoot them only while deer hunting?

If you read any of the links I posted and some of the other posts here, you will see yotes in this area average 45 pounds, not 35.  A 60 pound yote here is not a unicorn, just not taken as often as the average yote.  If a pack of a half dozen yotes pushing 50 pounds runs down a deer, any deer, that deer is dead.  Fawns are merely a snack for these predators, unless it's a female feeding a den full of pups.  A coyote pup can consume a whole newborn fawn every day.  If there are 4 pups in the den, that's 4 fawn a day.  Figure how many days there are in the fawning period and multiply by 4 and you get an idea how many fawns the breeding females can kill every season.

Every coyote area is different.  The Catskills are a far cry from PA farmlands and even the Poconos.  The yotes up here are big.  I hunt them whenever possible and I'm not using my .223 Rem when I do, as I have found it sometimes  isn't very effective.  They can run off when hit in the lungs with the .55 grain .22 caliber slug.  I use my 7mm-08 and sometimes my .30-06 with 150 soft points.  Even then, they have run 75 yards before stopping to howl as they finally expire.

Over the years it has become clear to me, the more coyote in the area, the fewer deer.  I just wish more people here would hunt them and NY would allow yote hunting year round.  Too many deer hunters let them pass when deer hunting too.  

[chrisw]

If you read any of the links I posted and some of the other posts here, you will see yotes in this area average 45 pounds, not 35.  A 60 pound yote here is not a unicorn, just not taken as often as the average yote.  If a pack of a half dozen yotes pushing 50 pounds runs down a deer, any deer, that deer is dead.  Fawns are merely a snack for these predators, unless it's a female feeding a den full of pups.  A coyote pup can consume a whole newborn fawn every day.  If there are 4 pups in the den, that's 4 fawn a day.  Figure how many days there are in the fawning period and multiply by 4 and you get an idea how many fawns the breeding females can kill every season.
Every coyote area is different.  The Catskills are a far cry from PA farmlands and even the Poconos.  The yotes up here are big.  I hunt them whenever possible and I'm not using my .223 Rem when I do, as I have found it sometimes  isn't very effective.  They can run off when hit in the lungs with the .55 grain .22 caliber slug.  I use my 7mm-08 and sometimes my .30-06 with 150 soft points.  Even then, they have run 75 yards before stopping to howl as they finally expire.
Over the years it has become clear to me, the more coyote in the area, the fewer deer.  I just wish more people here would hunt them and NY would allow yote hunting year round.  Too many deer hunters let them pass when deer hunting too.  

I have zero issues with people shooting coyotes, trust me. I kill every one I have the opportunity at during season. It's the dragon toothed, oversize, wolf howling, bloody moonlit coyote image people try to portray that really gets me. Theyre a large fox, that's all. The people that are putting this bloodthirsty image out there are the ones who are scared of coyotes. You speak as if you have no real knowledge of coyote behavior but you're the one who's always speaking about them. Coyotes can become overpopulated I suppose, but let's remember they are territorial and lock up a large tract of land as their own. This is the reason you don't see packs of 15 coyotes. So when you say something like "we have large packs running these hills every night" you sound foolish. And it's always, "Well if we had a year round season I could kill them all!" Well where are you during their lengthy season?? Sitting on the couch complaining about them? Or out hunting them? When I brought up the deer fawning period the last time and mentioned "Predator Swamping" that is nature's way of ensuring some little ones survive. This is also why it's important to for a quick, intense rut in the fall, so that the fawning window is that much shorter. So, in other words, that coyote that gets a fawn every few days if it's lucky, only has 15 days to do it, not 30. I apologize if I'm coming off as trying to belittle you, that's not the case at all. I'm just so sick of the countless threads every year that have a bunch of hyped up misinformation and blaming coyotes for a hunters own dismal season. Coyotes are an important part of the ecosystem and frankly a damn impressive and pretty animal and I'm glad that I have the opportunity to witness them in the wild occasionally. I hope you have a good season, no hard feelings.

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[Rattler]

My knowledge of coyotes comes from written info as well as years of first hand experience.  I've personally seen many things that prove the book smart information is absolutely wrong, at least in my neck of the woods.  I would say I'm not working off of misinformation as much as coyote lovers are.  No one here is scared of them.  We just see them as vermin.  I was here 45 years ago and never saw a coyote then.  We didn't need them then, and we don't need them now. 

When I say a "large pack"  I'm talking 5 or 6.  That is very common around here and there are quite a few of them spread around.  They are territorial, but when overpopulated, their territories are smaller and the deer in those territories are fewer.  These packs run down and kill perfectly healthy full grown deer.  They are not like fox, they are like wolves. 

The only thing that prevents me from hunting them more is the need to invest in night vision equipment and spend more nights without sleep in the woods trying to hunt them.  This isn't long range field shooting up here, these are big woods forest areas.  Hunting them isn't easy, calling isn't very effective and shooting them through thick woods isn't easy, especially when you can hardly see farther than 100 yards.  We don't have a quick rut here either.  The Catskills are vast and the deer density sparse.  Many deer are bred in December.  Fawning season here goes on over a two month period, though not at a constant rate.

No hard feelings or offense taken when people talk about yotes from a general perspective of available literature.  What I'm saying is, not all areas follow the book and not all yotes comply with the established norms.  Many areas do not follow the rules.  This area of the Catskills happens to be one of them.  People who have never been here and lived through one winter, don't understand what's really true.