In this episode we talk with John Bair who has spent his life chasing Coyotes. John grew up in a ranching family and learned at a young age to hunt coyotes and over time has become an authority on the coyote. John has also spent years competitively calling coyotes at a World Championship level. In this episode we cover many calling techniques, methods, and tips for becoming more successful in the field. We also cover a lot of lesser known facts about coyotes and coyote hunting including hunting with dogs, and coyote habits. This is a fun episode so sit back and enjoy your time with John Bair.
Disclaimer: this podcast has been transcribed from the original audio and likely contains errors. This transcription does not reflect the views and opinions of Epic Outdoors LLC. Please consult the original audio with any concerns.
01:29:04:03 –> 01:29:07:17
Coyotes are some of the smartest critters known to man, and most
01:29:07:17 –> 01:29:11:23
Likely they’re gonna be where their cover or they feel comfortable, you know, sneaking in,
01:29:12:07 –> 01:29:14:07
You, blink your eyes and they’re gonna see you.
01:29:14:20 –> 01:29:15:29
Anything to do with Western Big Games?
01:29:19:08 –> 01:29:19:23
Welcome
01:29:19:23 –> 01:29:22:28
To the Epic Outdoors Podcast, powered by Under Armour.
01:29:23:29 –> 01:29:59:23
Hey everybody, Jason Carter and Adam Bronson here from Epic Outdoors, with another Epic podcast. Got an awesome guest. It’s actually our first guest that we’ve ever had on twice, and so anyway, we’ve got the legendary John Bear on the line. Before we get started, I did want to, you know, let everybody know that of course, under Armour sponsors these podcasts, we’re super appreciative of them and all their support over the years. We’ve dealt with them for many years on a variety of different levels, and they continue to support the hunting industry and we’re super proud to, to be affiliated with them and, and look forward to a lot of new products they’ve got coming out here shortly
01:29:59:27 –> 01:30:46:10
Here at Epic Outdoors, we publish a Western hunting publication nine months a year. The, the Epic membership includes nine issues of the magazine, where the first six months of the year are totally geared to breaking down all the Western states, draws their application process, their deadlines, units kill rates, drawing odds, everything that we feel is very important for you to make a calculated decision on whether you apply for that state or not, and how you want to apply for trophy for more opportunity hunts. But, but do it from a a current year perspective. We also have, you know, a bunch of different articles in there from biologists, from the states, hunter, next Door articles, what else Jason? Yeah,
01:30:46:10 –> 01:31:33:17
The a hundred dollars subscription, you know, includes consulting. So we deal with our clients on a regular basis over the phone, help them develop their hunting plans and any, anything to do with Western Big game. Once guys draw tags they can call in. We’ll put ’em on a list, give you a list of members who’ve hunted in the past or help you find outfitters. And so, and, and we’ve got a, you know, lot of experience across the west and, and it might be that you draw a unit that we’ve got experience in, we have no problems helping you. So anyway, this is just a very interactive service, a hundred bucks a year, try to be all inclusive on Western big game. And, and of course on it from a trophy perspective, you know, we, we all like the big stuff and, and so we really try to, you know, capitalize on, on the changes that are happening and some of the different great opportunities out there.
01:31:34:09 –> 01:31:43:08
Yep. So if you’re interested, you can find us on the [email protected] or call us at (435) 263-0777.
01:31:43:27 –> 01:31:47:14
Anyway, thank you to Under Armour. Thanks to John. Hey John, you on the line?
01:31:48:16 –> 01:31:49:06
You betcha.
01:31:50:04 –> 01:32:07:16
Hey, we just wanna, you know, tell you thanks for taking a hour or two outta your schedule and visiting with us over the phone. Of course. When we had John earlier, we talked a lot about the wildlife board and conservation groups and the good things that come from selling tags and expo tags and different things.
01:32:08:27 –> 01:32:12:19
You’ve taken that hat off recently, haven’t you? The Wildlife Board hat? Yeah,
01:32:12:22 –> 01:32:25:23
They, yeah. My, well, my six year term actually expires here. I’ll be officially off the board here in a few more weeks, but as far as meetings and, and on it, then it’s all wrapped up. So
01:32:26:01 –> 01:32:32:11
Yeah, you’re still getting hate mail, hate emails and that for two weeks, but nothing you can do about no meetings or anything.
01:32:32:14 –> 01:32:34:28
I’ve never seen anything new on Facebook about John.
01:32:35:09 –> 01:32:40:07
Oh. Or, or Instagram or the web or chat forums, or
01:32:40:12 –> 01:32:46:29
I’ll send you some. Yeah, it’s, it’s good. I tell you, that’s, that’s one thing you get involved like that you learn who your friends are pretty quick. That’s
01:32:46:29 –> 01:32:56:12
Okay. And especially your enemies, John, especially your enemies. That’s right. Well, good. Well, you know, you’re not doing much if you don’t have hate. You realize that.
01:32:57:14 –> 01:33:01:06
Oh yeah. If you, yeah, if you don’t get somebody mad at you, somebody ain’t doing their job, so
01:33:01:15 –> 01:33:21:03
That’s right. Well that’s, we’ve, we’ve, I know Jason and I and all of us here as well as a ton of other people in Utah, appreciate your six years there on the board, leaving there as the chairman and, you know, see, I guess who’s gonna, who’s gonna replace you, so to speak, but been great for Utah Wildlife as far as I’m concerned.
01:33:21:04 –> 01:33:22:13
Yeah, me too. Well,
01:33:22:28 –> 01:33:45:09
Well I really appreciate it. It’s been, it’s been an honor to be able to serve and, you know, it’s, it’s quite the experience. You always sitting back watching those meetings, I always thought, man, you know, just do this and do that. It’s an, it’s an easy decision until it’s your decision. I mean, we have a lot of passionate sportsmen and people love wildlife here, and that’s why they live here, so it’s all good. Yeah,
01:33:45:09 –> 01:33:58:13
That’s right. Well, we’re not just gonna let you sink back into the private sector and, and do nothing. I mean, just wondering like if you’re like the lead candidate for the director for the state, or what’s your next gig gonna be?
01:33:59:00 –> 01:34:25:26
Yeah, I don’t, I don’t think that’s, I don’t think that’s in the governor’s plans. I, the deputy, the deputy director is, is stepping in to take over Mike f and he’s a great guy. And so good, he’ll be the next director is director, she’s onto the US Fish and Wildlife Service and Utah won’t skip a beat. Mike’s a great guy and will do a great job and he’s got a lot of good staff around him and I don’t think they’ll skip a beat. So
01:34:26:07 –> 01:34:46:22
Good well’s. True. At least, at least, you know, I guess you could just go back to killing coyotes and turning ’em in for 50 bucks a piece. And so anyway, that’s kind of why we wanted you on here today. We just wanna visit about coyotes, which, you know, I know Adam and I kill ’em every time we see him, or at least we shoot at ’em, but yeah, well
01:34:46:22 –> 01:34:56:14
That’s, you know, that that’s the, that’s the important part of the equation is, is making it count when it comes time to pull the trigger. So,
01:34:56:18 –> 01:35:05:01
Yeah, you know, we, oh, anyway, we just had never had a podcast about dogs and, and hunting them and calling them and different things and so just thought
01:35:05:05 –> 01:35:39:28
Kind of getting to be that time of year in some regards too. And, you know, but I don’t know, you know, we’ve known you for a long time. I don’t know, I don’t know. You’ve always liked to hunt coyotes, like it seems like you have been, you know, I’m gonna say in the last five years or so, you probably always have hunted them like everybody. But maybe tell us about like your background and ranching. I mean, we know where you come from, you’re proud of that Sam, Pete country and, and I know you’ve got a, an affinity for the woolie bugger the sheep. You got really soft spot in your heart for bully buggers, and so maybe that’s where the Yeah.
01:35:41:18 –> 01:35:46:13
Oh, I, yeah, I’m the, I guess might
01:35:46:16 –> 01:35:46:23
Say,
01:35:48:08 –> 01:36:55:28
So I, I grew up in man on a, on a sheep ranch. My dad worked on a big sheep ranch for a family there. And my grandpa and my great-grandpa, both ranch sheep in Colorado for a long time, then moved out here to Utah and my great-grandpa was actually a trapper on the desert land and livestock before the l d s church owned it. And he, they ran a bunch of sheep up there and he, my uncles worked there, the sheep burgers. And my grandpa was a great-grandpa, actually was a trapper there. And as long as I can remember when I was a little kid, I knew my great-grandpa really well. And I grew up just down the street from him. And every Sunday afternoon he’d come over and have dinner with us and that was my favorite part of the week. After that, we’d go sit on the back porch or in the front of him and he’d tell me stories about trapping and hunting and hunting coyotes and lions and all the bears and all the cool stuff he’d dealt with as a trapper. And of course, dad growing up in the sheep business. And that, I mean, killing coyotes was just part of life. You
01:36:56:01 –> 01:36:58:04
Were bred, they hate coyotes, basically.
01:36:58:07 –> 01:37:43:21
Oh yeah. I don’t, I don’t ever remember not, not loving to hunt coyotes. I mean, but I can remember the first time I ever shot one, I was probably 11 or 12 years old, we finally called one in, and it was out across the big old, big old safe brush flat out on the sandel desert. And I seen it come in. I told my dad, there’s a coyote right there, you know, I was trying to be quiet, of course I was excited and I was trying to tell him where it was, and I guess my instructions weren’t very good. He couldn’t see it. And he told me to shoot it, and then I leveled off on it and killed it. I idea it was probably 150 yards. It seemed like a thousand yards to me at that age. The only, the only kinda I had at that time was no seven mm Remington mag.
01:37:44:21 –> 01:37:46:07
I bet that opened him up. And
01:37:46:29 –> 01:38:26:17
I’m here to tell you, that was a, that was a user-friendly predator gun. I remember that bugger bit me and kicked me so hard. I hope we didn’t call anything in the rest the day trigger. But you know, that was the, from that time on walking up to that coyote there and we had one of our sheep dogs with us that was out there getting after him a little bit. And man, it was just addicting after that. I just, and we’ve hunted coyotes my whole life. I mean, there was a few years where we had a few years, I guess about 12 years where we had lion hounds. And so we’d spend most of the winter hunting lions and then we’d just hunt coyotes in the summer. So we, and we’d hunt ’em all year round,
01:38:26:20 –> 01:38:43:26
So. And so is it, is it just with like, whether you got on social media, we got on social media, I mean, it seems like you’re crazy about ’em. I mean, have you always been crazy about ’em or is it just the last five years? I mean, or is it just that we’re we know you a little better ’cause we’re following your posts and
01:38:44:04 –> 01:38:47:15
Maybe you’re using the dogs with them too? Maybe that’s where we’re seeing it
01:38:47:28 –> 01:39:01:08
Probably the last six or seven years. We’ve probably got a little more serious about it than we, than we have been in the past. I mean, we’ve always done it, but it seems like we we’re a little more serious here around about
01:39:01:09 –> 01:39:07:07
It. Now would your, would your wife use the same word as you serious or would she use another word to describe your Kyle hunting addiction?
01:39:08:25 –> 01:39:14:05
You know, I don’t, I don’t know. I got, you know, I can tell you a little story about my wife. I,
01:39:14:10 –> 01:39:14:29
Let’s have it be
01:39:14:29 –> 01:39:16:22
Careful, careful. No, no, let’s have it,
01:39:18:13 –> 01:40:06:19
She, she gets home from the gym last year. So I’m loading up, loading up a dogster on up on the hill and I said, you wanna go away from me? I said, I’m just gonna go up and look around. And of course she had her gym clothes on and she’s like, yeah, all ride with you. Well, we get up there and I fire up the siren and the hower and have some coyotes answer just across the canyon. I says, well, let’s just walk over there. She says, well, you know, I don’t know. I says, here, I got a camel jacket you can put on. So she’s got bright orange shoes on and bright orange gym pants and bright orange tanked top, basically blaze orange, everything in a big ammo coat. I let her wear and we go over there and call in a pair and she thought it was great watching ’em come in and just thought it was all, it was all nice and, and we killed these coyotes and drag ’em back the truck, take pictures with him.
01:40:06:20 –> 01:40:35:13
And she acted like she really liked it. And then the next time I said, you want to go again? That’s all right. She says, you can go sit in the brush. That’s what she calls it, sitting in the brush so you can go brush all this. But you know, it’s, it’s, it’s just, I don’t know, it’s just something that I grew up doing and I think the more you do it and the better you get at it, I guess the more you’ll like it and the more you do it more so. Yeah. And of course social media kind of spreads the word a little bit. So yeah,
01:40:35:29 –> 01:40:36:03
I
01:40:36:03 –> 01:40:40:19
Mean, I didn’t, I didn’t know, I didn’t know Jason was the big buck master until I started
01:40:41:12 –> 01:40:42:02
Social media.
01:40:42:11 –> 01:40:42:27
I didn’t know out
01:40:44:08 –> 01:40:49:09
Great sheep guy until I start following him on social media. So I guess that kind of tells our secrets.
01:40:49:12 –> 01:40:50:29
That one is a little surprising, but
01:40:51:26 –> 01:40:53:09
It catches everybody off guard.
01:40:54:23 –> 01:40:55:01
Yeah.
01:40:55:16 –> 01:41:20:25
Oh, shoot. Well, well cool. That’s awesome. Maybe talk to us a little bit about, since you’ve been so involved with Utah and the division and, and all of that. I know we’ve got, we’re fairly anti predator here in the state generally speaking, but tell tell us about kind of Utah’s efforts to control these populations and, you know, if you’ve seen a, a difference in the deer populations and the overall, you know, health of the herds here across the state.
01:41:21:04 –> 01:42:20:24
Well, you know, the, over at B Y U, we got some great young biologists over there, Randy Larson’s, one of them. And he’s done a very extensive study on, on mule deer and on the effects of coyotes on mule deer. And he came to the wildlife board last year and showed us that on the areas where we really concentrate on pawning, ground predator control, our farms are our fawn recruitment’s. Actually up the first couple years it was up quite a bit and then it kinda leveled off a little bit, and of course those numbers go up and down biology and back science. But the first couple years where we really hammered coyotes on some of these units, the fa recruitment really, really showed. And Utah has really made a concerted effort to get after senators, specifically the coyotes. We got a oun on ’em here, $50 and a coyote.
01:42:21:18 –> 01:43:27:04
Now, I, I don’t think all the coyotes that get killed are actual pawn killers. I mean, a lot of guys go out in the winter out on the desert and shoot coyotes, and I do too. I mean, it’s, it’s a great time to hunt ’em. And, and it’s when they’re, you know, the pups are starting to get out on their own early in the, the fall and early winter, and it’s a great time to hunt, but I don’t think a lot of those coyotes are real fawn killers. But the ones we concentrate on, on the fawning grounds, maybe the higher country coyotes, the ones around the foothills. And that, I think those definitely have an impact on our, on our deer population. And the, you know, and the, the deer study has shown that a lot of the fawns, you know, a huge percentage of the fall mortality comes from coyotes. And so if you can get out in the fawning grounds and, and get those breeding pairs, you know, you can, yeah, you can definitely, definitely help out the deer herd and the studies at B Y U that they’ve done have definitely, definitely shown that. And Utah’s, like you said, we’re pretty mean to our predators here, especially with coyotes.
01:43:27:23 –> 01:43:46:22
I I know some of those same studies back when I was at Utah State, so this’s been, I dunno, 10 or 12 years ago, 15, I don’t know how old I’m getting, but anyway, they were doing some on Dtt and other parts of the state and the You got a lap dog dog there with you. Yeah,
01:43:47:24 –> 01:43:54:17
It’s a little dump that thing We’ll turn it, we’ll turn, I know you getting 50 bucks off it.
01:43:55:00 –> 01:43:55:29
Okay. Just checking. That’s
01:43:55:29 –> 01:43:57:12
My, that’s my wife’s coyote dog.
01:43:57:26 –> 01:45:10:05
Okay, I’m just checking. Well, anyway, these same studies, I, I remember reading ’em and that they, they’d do implants on the coyotes and, and, and track ’em year round, obviously. And look at the peaks when prey base would switch from say, small mammals, you know, mice, rabbits, all that to when you had a breeding pair that had a, an active den, how the prey size, obviously the demands for protein meat would go up because they got six to 10 miles to feed. And I’m sure Randy’s been involved in that too. And, and how that, if you can disrupt that breeding pair after they bred, or right before right as they’re ping or right after they do, you can have a much bigger bang for the buck, so to speak, by just killing, like you said, coyotes in November and December and, you know, I we’re, we’re all shooting coyotes in November, December, but April, may, June you get a lot more bang for the buck. And, and that’s a little bit unconventional, but it might lead us into some of the strategies you’re gonna get into here in a minute in terms of, you know, types of calls and types of year, you know, different times of year and things like that.
01:45:11:27 –> 01:46:01:03
You know, that’s a, you bring up a great point. You go find a coyote in this time of year and they’re just littered with falling lakes. I mean, there’s, that’s the, there’ll be Fawn Lake laying all over the place. They’ll eat everything down to above the knee and I guess that leg bone ain’t, there ain’t much there, but the pups will chew on ’em a little bit, but there is fond legs laying all over the place and I, I guess they’re, you know, that’s just a, a great prey base for ’em because man, they really, really turn up the heat on the deer. It’s, you know, the fawns I guess are easier to catch and that, you know, it’s a good, it’s a good meal for the pups and easier for the parents because, you know, I think a, a coyote living off of mice and tweedy birds have a hard time feeding, like you said all those pups. Yeah,
01:46:01:07 –> 01:46:04:16
Yeah. They can feed themselves. They can feed one house that’s,
01:46:04:20 –> 01:46:35:23
You know, to, you’ll catch a fawn and like you said, this time of year when they’re out in the, in the fawning grounds and that, yeah, they can definitely, definitely put a hurting on the deer. But if you know what you’re doing, you can kind of turn the tables on, you can really build the old pair coyotes, the old adults, the reading pairs that have listened to, to dying rabbits all winter long and had the planes after ’em, the government travelers and everything. Here, there’s, if you know what you’re doing, you can really put the hurt on them.
01:46:35:25 –> 01:47:24:06
So let’s talk about that. I know you want some more pressure out there with you and you’d like to compete against some of these guys. So let’s, let’s talk about that a little bit. Like let’s say right now you’re gonna go out today, let’s start with today and basically we’ve got fawns just about to hit the ground. Yeah, yeah. Right now, I know in Wyoming it’s right there the last of, of May, first part of June. And, and you’re right about the Fond Lakes. It’s unbelievable. I spent a lot of time up there doing it. But let’s talk about that. Like, let’s say you were gonna go out and kill some dogs today. I mean, versus, you know, this fall versus this winter versus next early, you know, late winter, early spring. Like, it’s not just about dying rabbits, I know, of course, but we, we aren’t John Bear, we don’t know, you know, maybe explain that. Like what do you, what do you, what would you do going out tonight in
01:47:24:06 –> 01:48:14:00
The morning? Well, there’s a few things that, there’s a few things that I think a lot of people overlook hunting coyotes, and it’s just like when you guys go deer hunting, when you’re after a big buck or a big ram or something, you spend a lot of time scouting. And this time of year I spend two or three nights a week scouting and I’ll scout for three or four days and then go hunt for one day. And the thing about this time of year is you only get maybe two or three stands in in the morning and then it’s pretty hot and they kinda shut down. And then you may get two stands in in the evening before it gets dark, when it’s cool enough and the coyotes are active enough to respond. So I’ll go out and find a place that I think will hold some coyotes.
01:48:14:00 –> 01:49:27:11
A lot of the times this time of year I have sheep ranchers call ’em, this past week I’ve had two or three different sheep ranchers call and saying that getting hit and, and wanting me to go get after ’em. And so I’ll go out and just at dark, I’ll go out and play the siren, play some howls or howl on my diaphragm or my mouth call and I’ll sit there. A lot of times they’ll answer right off the bat, but I’ll usually sit there for at least 10 minutes and you’ll get ’em answering and talking to you. And once they’ll give their location away to you, then they’re in trouble. And because this time of year, if you can hear ’em and they’re barking and howling, you can bet they’re pretty close to a pan and they’re gonna be around there, you know, the next morning or the next evening, they’re gonna be fairly close and you can kind of gauge the wind. If I’m there in the evening, I take note as what, what direction the wind’s going. And you know, in the morning that’s probably gonna be a little different, but it kind of helps you make a game plan because you only got one shot at these coyotes. If you go in and, and screw it up and don’t, don’t get ’em dead and they see your wind gear, get in a fight with the dogs and, and get outta there without you killing them, you’re probably not gonna see ’em again. So
01:49:27:11 –> 01:49:29:01
They’ll move their den or what are they doing?
01:49:29:20 –> 01:50:02:17
Yeah, they’ll move their den or they just won’t respond. I mean they’ll, they, they won’t respond anymore. They’ll, and that’s another thing about this time of year when I go out locating, as soon as they talk to me, I don’t say another word to them. I don’t back at ’em, I don’t siren. Soon as, yeah, I don’t, I don’t challenge ’em, I don’t want ’em to feel threatened because then they’ll move and I just want ’em to show me where they’re at and I don’t say another word and, and then you start
01:50:02:17 –> 01:50:05:14
Making, and then you don’t sleep all night long back next morning, wait until daylight,
01:50:05:22 –> 01:50:06:12
Just dreaming about
01:50:07:08 –> 01:50:12:26
Dogs. I try once in a while. I mean, I’ve been known to just sleep in the truck and stay right there until the
01:50:12:26 –> 01:50:15:29
Next morning. Come on, come on.
01:50:16:17 –> 01:50:24:08
I mean, sometimes you go out locate, I mean, and it might be two in the morning when you get ’em to answer again and it’s gonna be light three and hours. Three and a half hours. Oh,
01:50:24:08 –> 01:50:30:07
So you, so you’d locate, I mean you’ll drive stop and drive, stop and drive, stop and drive, you know, till midnight, two in the morning. Oh yeah. Okay.
01:50:30:10 –> 01:50:35:27
Yep. Oh yeah. Just, and I mean if you got work the, the next morning, I don’t know that you guys would know about that.
01:50:37:01 –> 01:50:37:29
Geez, you
01:50:37:29 –> 01:50:38:05
Can’t,
01:50:38:18 –> 01:50:41:11
This, this podcast is spiraling downhill already
01:50:42:04 –> 01:50:43:11
That was below the belt.
01:50:45:05 –> 01:50:46:18
Oh geez. Well,
01:50:46:22 –> 01:51:06:29
So yeah, locate, locate, locate. That’s the thing if you, like I tell guys I scout for a week to hunt for a day and then this time of year, you know, we talked a lot about dying rabbits. I haven’t played a dying rabbit sound in six weeks and I probably won’t play another one until end of September, first October.
01:51:06:29 –> 01:51:14:24
So, so you say, you say now that you located one tomorrow morning comes, I mean, talk us through what you’re gonna do to call.
01:51:15:02 –> 01:52:16:24
Well, I’m gonna, this time, this time of year, I like to, I have a couple of mountain curves that I like to take with me that are coyote dogs. And they’ll, they’re real fun to hunt with. It’s a little bit different strategy, but you don’t always, sometimes I don’t take the dogs, you don’t have to have the dogs to be successful this time of year. But if I, if I get ’em to, to talk to me, I’ll get in the next morning or the next evening, get the wind right. Because this time of year, especially when you’ve been locating and they’re expecting another coyote, they’re gonna try to circle down wind of you to get wind and sea exactly what they’re dealing with. And the dogs, the dogs kind of help with that. If they can see a dog, it kind of trips their crazy trigger and they’re not as apt to try to wind you. But if you’re just sitting there and there’s no dog and you’re just trying to call ’em in, they’re gonna try to win you and they’ll swing down wind, you know, sometimes when you’re
01:52:16:24 –> 01:52:21:12
Trying to, when you’re trying to challenge bark, act like another coyotes in their area. Yeah.
01:52:21:19 –> 01:53:07:03
Anytime you’re calling to them, they’re gonna try to win you. But we’ll go in and set up and if there’s two of you, it’s nice ’cause you can set somebody looking down wind and, and try to catch ’em circling down wind and, but get, just get where you can see and I’ll sit down and, and my favorite sound to start a standoff with is just a, just kind of a wimpy how that doesn’t sound too threatening and or a female submissive, which is just kinda some yips and hows and just kinda let ’em know, hey, there’s, you know, there’s a coyote over here kind of in your territory and just kind of get their attention. You don’t wanna go in there and crank your call up that 40, you’re going there and just sound like you’re gonna tear the place apart because they might just pack up
01:53:07:08 –> 01:53:10:07
There. You know, you don’t see a big old bear
01:53:10:07 –> 01:53:29:22
Dog. I tell people all the time, you know, when I was a little kid and I went to grandpa’s house, when grandpa walked in, he was the boss and he had that voice, he had that big old gruff voice. You didn’t challenge him, you didn’t talk back to him, you did whatever he said. And you were just glad that he was allowing you to breathe the air you were breathing.
01:53:30:06 –> 01:53:30:27
That’s so true.
01:53:31:25 –> 01:54:01:19
He was the boss. Okay. You don’t wanna sound like grandpa. Whereas on the other hand, my cousin Joe, he just had that voice that he didn’t intimidate you. He didn’t scare you, and as soon as he started talking, you wanted to smack you. That’s, that’s what you wanna sound like. You just wanted just enough to be, to sound like a coyote, but not, you don’t wanna sound threatening, you don’t wanna sound like you’re on a out just kind of annoying and squeaky like maybe a, a young coyote that’s in their territory.
01:54:02:19 –> 01:54:12:29
Yes. And as much as anything they’re, if they’re a pair, they’re, they just don’t want any competition to kill and eat anything in their, don’t eat anything in my country and, and run you out. Right.
01:54:13:04 –> 01:54:47:27
Well, not only that, but if, you know, if they got a dam site there, they got up there Oh, they’re gonna be, yeah, they just are psycho about protecting those pups. So yeah, I’ll do a little howl like that. I’ll do some, do some barks, maybe like some female barks, like something’s going on that she’s worried about. And then I’ll play some pup distress on the, on the fox pro. Or I can if, and you guys can use the diaphragm call, I’m sure if you take an elk diaphragm and flip it upside down so the long reads on the bottom, you can make any coyote sound on the planet and you
01:54:49:07 –> 01:54:50:04
Try. Yeah, that’s good news.
01:54:50:20 –> 01:54:53:19
You’re have to now that’s something you can practice while you’re riding around the truck
01:54:54:29 –> 01:54:57:04
Home. You know, is there, is there people? Oh
01:54:57:05 –> 01:54:59:22
Yeah, yeah. Your kids will love you for it. Your wife will love you for it.
01:54:59:22 –> 01:55:06:10
There’s a business I did just by elk diaphragms flip ’em over and charge double and tell ’em people they’re coyote diaphragms.
01:55:07:00 –> 01:55:07:29
That’s right. That’s
01:55:07:29 –> 01:55:21:21
Right. Charge ’em double epic diaphragms come up. Here we go. The bear version. Ding the, yeah. Hey, we got our first, we got our first pro staffer right there. That’s a $500 idea right there buddy. That’s right.
01:55:22:07 –> 01:55:22:17
Right.
01:55:23:03 –> 01:55:23:21
Somebody’s gonna get paid,
01:55:23:21 –> 01:55:49:20
But you go throw some pup towels at one of them and some pup wines and them, them coyotes will come boiling in on you and sometimes it takes a little while to trip their trigger. They’ll sit out there and bark at you and holler at you a little while. And that’s another thing about this time of the year is I like to sit a lot longer in the winter. 13, 14 minutes we’re up and moving. If we haven’t seen anything this time of year, I’ll sit a half hour just for some reason it seems like it takes a little while, once in a while to,
01:55:49:25 –> 01:56:20:27
So, so when do you, so, so you know they’re there when you’re, when you’re thinking of going back the next morning, why would you, why would you take your dogs and why would you just go and try to call ’em in what, under what scenarios? Well, or or do you always like to try this day and age, use your dogs because like you said, if you do a howl and your dogs are out there running around, they see ’em, their guard’s down as far as looking for John Bear in a cowboy hat and a Gilly suit. They’re not looking for you anymore.
01:56:21:20 –> 01:56:21:26
You,
01:56:22:08 –> 01:56:26:01
You know, they’re looking, they’re looking for the dogs. Here’s the deal,
01:56:26:01 –> 01:56:31:07
Adam. When we go home, if you show up in a Gilly suit, it’s over.
01:56:31:20 –> 01:56:33:00
Well what about skinny jeans?
01:56:35:07 –> 01:56:37:16
That wouldn’t surprise me, but that’s gonna end the trip too.
01:56:38:08 –> 01:56:38:17
Okay.
01:56:40:03 –> 01:56:44:08
Skinny jeans, buckle jeans, all that stuff’s on the non-approved list, so,
01:56:44:15 –> 01:56:50:04
Okay, so no Gilly suits. So just basic pants and shirt camouflage. All
01:56:50:04 –> 01:56:52:07
Right. Yes sir. Camouflage works flat.
01:56:52:11 –> 01:56:53:00
Bri hats.
01:56:53:14 –> 01:56:57:06
Yeah, flatties. Yeah. What? So why would you,
01:56:57:06 –> 01:57:01:18
Alright, you guys are just, you know, you guys are just, I don’t know, I dunno if I
01:57:01:18 –> 01:57:01:25
Can do it.
01:57:02:00 –> 01:57:08:16
We’re, Hey, we’re in the south, we’re country boys, you’re from the city, so let’s don’t get things confused here. You’re from the big city up north
01:57:08:16 –> 01:57:11:01
County, the city man. So Tempe County, the
01:57:11:01 –> 01:57:14:08
City. Well you’re, you’re a little further north than that now, so, so will,
01:57:14:09 –> 01:57:22:27
Yeah, a little Will any old dog work? John? Like can I take one? Well I got a dog, but it, it’s not trained on coyotes, but I mean, just sit a dog by it. Does that help? Or is it
01:57:23:22 –> 01:57:47:22
Yes, it can. I mean, I, I see PE people post videos all the time of like their cow dogs coyotes chasing their cow dogs or their labs while they’re out. I had a kid the other day that I know real well tell me that they were Upwork, their bird dogs in some chucker country and coyotes come boiling out of their s and were chasing their springers all over, you know? Yeah.
01:57:48:09 –> 01:57:48:16
So,
01:57:48:16 –> 01:57:49:17
Yeah. So yeah. But they,
01:57:49:27 –> 01:57:50:13
So why would you,
01:57:50:27 –> 01:57:51:10
I mean, if you,
01:57:52:20 –> 01:58:15:24
Yeah, back to that question. Why, why would you, if I had a, if I had a couple trained dogs, like you’re not, not just family dogs that you know might get you in trouble or might get themselves killed. If they go start running around with the pair of coyotes that grabs their throat, why wouldn’t you, what’s the benefits or when would you use, just go try to call ’em in versus Hey, I’m gonna use the dogs in the morning?
01:58:16:24 –> 01:58:33:28
Well the dogs can be a huge asset once in a while they can work against you. So the, sometimes you’ll call in a coyote, especially if it’s a single, they’ll come in and see the dogs and maybe not, you know, it might be a young guy
01:58:34:03 –> 01:58:34:28
Might be intimidated
01:58:34:28 –> 01:59:13:22
Maybe, or one that’s, yeah. And just not want to deal with them. And once in a while they’ll run one off like that. But you go in, you find a, you find a den site, you get as close as you, as you dare get. And a lot of times I’ll give some female submissive or a female yodel how on the fox pro. And then coyotes will start barking, start threat barking like, you know, what are you doing? You’re not welcome. That’s when a good trained coyote dog starts to shine. Those dogs of mine, they’ll, they hear a coyote and they’ll, they
01:59:13:22 –> 01:59:14:07
Perk right up.
01:59:15:16 –> 01:59:20:23
Oh, she’ll take off like a rocket. My older dog, he’s getting out. So he kinda looks at me like, you want me to go,
01:59:21:02 –> 01:59:25:04
You want me to really go over there, put on my, put on my collar? Yeah, I’m,
01:59:25:12 –> 02:00:12:09
That’s right. And put on my ke hope take golf and they’ll run over there and you’ll kinda listen for the fight to start. And you’ll hear them coyotes screaming and the dogs barking and hear they come and those dogs will go over there and pick a fight with those coyotes and as soon as the coyotes start chasing them or chewing on, the dogs will turn and come back to you and they’ll reel ’em right in. And here a few days ago I was here not too far from where I live and went out and, and set up on some that I’d located a couple nights before and they answered right back and the dogs took off and the dogs went out. The last mark on the G P s I got from the dogs were about 800 yards before they started back. And I never did hear a fight and I never did hear anything barking.
02:00:13:12 –> 02:00:44:08
But I got my glasses out and started looking and here Miles dog come trotting down the road, there’s a little two track there. He come trotting down the road and about a hundred yards behind him, he had a female coyote just following him in. Wow. And he come over and sat right down to me and she come out in the flat and then my pup decided she was gonna get in on it and ran her up through the brush a little ways and they were up the there running around and here come another coyote in and tried to get in on it. And he was a big bugger. I shot him out in the flat.
02:00:44:26 –> 02:00:46:16
Is that that one you sent me? That giant?
02:00:47:16 –> 02:01:09:19
Yeah. He was 45 pounds. I’ve never seen a coyote that big before around here. So, and he was a skinny 45 pounds. He was a giant. The dogs run out and jumped on that coyote and started chewing on him. Well then here the female come out of the dog end to defend her dead buddy and she just sat there and barked at the dogs while they were chewing on the bed one. And I shot her. So that’s when they can really be a benefit on the Es.
02:01:09:25 –> 02:01:10:27
You get a parallel call in
02:01:10:27 –> 02:01:22:23
And shoot one. Oh yeah. You call one in and shoot it and the dogs are out there on it and the other one will a lot of times will hang around to defend their dead buddy and Wow. You know, and just be patient. Get two or three COEs. Yeah.
02:01:23:07 –> 02:01:35:20
It’s not like normal when you’re a rabbit calling and you call in a double and that first one hits the ground, it’s like, run your action and slap the trigger as fast as you can on that other one because you, there’s nothing stopping it basically.
02:01:36:05 –> 02:01:54:03
No, there’s nothing stopping it. But when you got a dog out there running around, a lot of times they’ll bring it back and Yeah. You know, sometimes it works out perfect. One dog will take the dead coote and start chewing on it and the other one will chase the other coote a little ways and then come back and it’ll just reel ’em right in. I mean, and it’s, it’s, that’s a lot
02:01:54:14 –> 02:01:55:07
Dang phone there.
02:01:56:06 –> 02:02:01:23
Oh yeah. It’s a lot of using dogs. Is that only watching the dogs work just like any other birds, like
02:02:01:23 –> 02:02:02:24
Bird lions or
02:02:02:29 –> 02:02:03:27
Lions, bears, anything,
02:02:04:03 –> 02:02:18:03
You know, so now there’s a lot of times you can go out and just sit down and call the coyotes in and you know, and maybe the dogs don’t do you a lot of good, but it’s, that’s probably the funnest hunting I’ve ever done is is using my cod dogs on the coyotes.
02:02:18:09 –> 02:02:25:15
So, so if a guy wants to get into the dogs, I mean, is it something, I mean, is there obviously people that train ’em, breed them, you know,
02:02:25:18 –> 02:02:26:23
Or do you to have to do it yourself
02:02:27:03 –> 02:02:37:03
Or You know, it’s pretty tough to find a trained coyote dog anywhere for sale. ’cause it takes so much work to get one to do what you want it to do. That guys just don’t
02:02:37:21 –> 02:02:38:10
Get rid of them.
02:02:38:22 –> 02:03:03:27
They just don’t sell ’em. And you know, I’ve sold pups to people before and the hard part about coyote dogs is getting them on enough coyotes to teach ’em. Now if you live in Texas or New Mexico or someplace where they’re just dogs, that loud coyotes. Yeah. You know, and guys are out hunting them every day. But if you’re gonna have a coyote dog and you’re only gonna go out and get him on four or five coyotes a year, you don’t have a coyotes
02:03:03:27 –> 02:03:06:10
Dog, you might as well have a family dog last. Yeah,
02:03:06:11 –> 02:03:13:08
Yeah. Yep, yep. That’s what you got. So, and that’s the hard part about dogs is is getting them on enough coyotes to train them.
02:03:13:23 –> 02:03:21:28
So how long will you do this strategy? Is it basically the month of June, June, July, I mean, pretty soon those putts are off on their own. Well,
02:03:22:11 –> 02:03:49:12
Yeah. And, and it seems like all the dog guys always wanna start in April and it’s usually a little early in April and they’re not really aggressive. May they start to warm up a little bit. June’s really good, they’re working really good right now. July’s really good. August is really good. And then September’s kind of hit or miss, usually by the end of September it starts to start to kind of fade out and they’re not as aggressive. So pups
02:03:49:12 –> 02:03:54:27
Are big enough they can kind of fend for themselves a little bit. They’re not as not defending them as much. Yeah.
02:03:55:00 –> 02:04:23:23
And it’s a crazy thing. I’ve had pups come in in the end of August, 1st of September, that act just like the adults. I mean, they’re just mean and tough and thinking they’re, they’re ready to fight and, and the Coyote dogs gang up on one of them and they ain’t so ready to fight anymore. So yeah, they, but yeah, the pups can get pretty mean pretty fast. I don’t know if they get that from watching Mama or defending their Dan or what, but some of them pups, they get pretty mean, pretty quick.
02:04:24:02 –> 02:04:27:14
Get tired and hungry and out there. Yeah.
02:04:27:18 –> 02:04:31:00
I guess. I don’t know, they just orry teenagers I guess. I don’t
02:04:31:00 –> 02:04:35:10
Know. Yeah. Have your dogs ever had any, I guess, close calls or any
02:04:35:22 –> 02:04:36:02
Oh yeah.
02:04:36:05 –> 02:04:44:19
You get one, you get one’s over here and one’s over here getting ganged up by four coyotes or something. You’re like, oh this could go south fast or anything.
02:04:44:24 –> 02:04:52:28
You know, you’re, you gotta, yeah, you gotta realize that, I mean, when you go out there and turn those dogs, you’re using them for coyote bait, live ba
02:04:53:05 –> 02:04:53:13
Yeah.
02:04:54:02 –> 02:05:19:28
You know, and coyotes kill stuff for a living. So there’s, they’ve gotta, they gotta kind of be tough. Sometimes one dog works real good, but you always run the risk of getting them ganged up on and getting them chewed up on. And, and so that’s kind of a, kind of a challenge is knowing, you know, when to use one, when to use two, three seems to be a little bit much most of the time. But, so I always got one dog that’s mad at me for leaving them in the box, so.
02:05:20:04 –> 02:05:20:19
Oh geez.
02:05:21:12 –> 02:05:23:04
But yeah, they up a little bit.
02:05:23:12 –> 02:05:29:01
Is it a year-round thing? You, you can use dogs whenever or, I mean obviously really effective right now, but
02:05:29:25 –> 02:05:42:04
Yeah, I mean I take a dog with me a lot in the winter. I’ll take my old dog and he’ll just sit next to me and if you shoot one and wounded or something like that, I mean, he’s get to go get it in that. But they don’t work a lot in them. You
02:05:42:04 –> 02:05:43:13
Don’t use them like, like you do this
02:05:43:18 –> 02:05:49:01
Time. Yeah, they’re just not, they don’t really work. But during the spring and summer’s really the best for to use the dog.
02:05:49:25 –> 02:06:01:25
Awesome. And so, and so when do you, when do you really work on, you know, maybe back to the dying Rabbit, you know, you know, that works on these pups is September-ish or when are you
02:06:02:19 –> 02:06:21:24
Doing, you know, usually by, yeah, towards the end of September is when we really start going back into the distress calls. We still use vocals. I use vocals all year long. Kayes are extremely vocal animals. They talk all year long, you know, but it changes up a little bit. A
02:06:21:24 –> 02:06:32:09
Lot of it. Will you, will you keep locating at night? Same thing? Oh yeah. I mean they’re territorial even if they don’t, even if they don’t have a den, they’re still kind of territorial where you’ll find them. Same basic place in the morning. Yeah.
02:06:32:09 –> 02:07:24:07
You know, and I don’t know, they’re always, I don’t know that they always answer you to defend their territory. I mean, they’re just vocal, vocal animals and they’ll just answer you’ll, and a lot of times you’ll go out and get one going and you’ll start howling at you and then you’ll hear ’em for, you know, you’ll drive down the road a mile and they’ll be another one howling and another one and another one and they just get each other going. And I think they’re just, you know, I don’t, I’ve never been able to figure out exactly what they’re saying. I don’t know that anybody knows. But when you get one howling, you know, they’ll answer each other. And a lot of ’em are just kind of easygoing, kind of, I’m over here and I’m over there, you know, and you’re over there and how are you? But they’ll answer you, you know, that’s, that’s the thing downfall is they’ll give away their location. So it’s like huntingdale, once you know where they are, once you hear one bugle in or hear cows talking, you know, you can really set a game.
02:07:24:16 –> 02:07:48:21
Strategize. Yeah. So what are, I mean maybe, I mean maybe this time of year, I would guess this is maybe the time of year where you have some of your best days, but I know you, you always go down, it seems like the world calling championships and things like that. What are, what are some of the best days you’ve ever had or best weekends or you’ve ever had as far as well killing in and calling in and killing coyotes?
02:07:49:16 –> 02:08:00:16
Well, we’ve had about pretty good ones. I went to Nevada with a guy last year and from seven in the morning till about 11 at night, we put 18 of them in the truck.
02:08:01:04 –> 02:08:05:06
Geez. Is that, is that winter months? So dying distress stuff.
02:08:05:13 –> 02:08:11:12
That was, that was the, I believe that was about the first October. Wow. And so you have a lot of,
02:08:11:16 –> 02:08:12:22
A lot of pups and stuff.
02:08:13:06 –> 02:08:20:22
Yeah, a lot of, a lot of pups and a lot of coyotes out finally, you know, they’re forgetting about the, about the Dan site and Yeah. And worried about
02:08:20:29 –> 02:08:21:18
Roaming around and
02:08:22:08 –> 02:08:37:18
They just, yeah, they’re just out eating. And in a situation like that we’d go out and set up, you might howl a little bit just to get their attention. And then we’re playing pup distress sounds just ’cause they work all year long, you know, any kind of distress, sounds, rabbits,
02:08:37:29 –> 02:08:39:13
Woodpeckers, all those things.
02:08:40:05 –> 02:09:50:17
Yeah. It’s had some really good distress sounds Puppet stress, lightning jack is one of the most famous distress sounds ever. We use a lot of that. We use a lot of Cottontail woodpecker and you know, you go out and you, you find a good spot that looks like it’s got some coyotes and you, you let the old distress sounds play and, and yeah, we put 18 in the, in the truck that day at the World Coyote calling contest this last year. Me and my buddies from over in price that I hunted with, we played the same sound all day and anytime we’d try anything else, it, it wasn’t working. It was just a Lil’s cottontail on the Fox Pro it’s called. And we, we killed nine that day and we thought we, we were tied for third, went in and thought we were gonna have a great second day and be right the running for the world title and our good spots dried up and we couldn’t buy one the next day. But we still placed pretty good. Ended up taking the big dog pot. We won about 1500 bucks for shooting a 35 pound coyote, which is the biggest one of the contests. And that whole contest, all we did is play a cottontail and that’s what they were,
02:09:50:17 –> 02:09:52:14
That was down in Arizona, wasn’t it? Or
02:09:52:14 –> 02:09:53:27
Down? Yeah, it was down in Arizona.
02:09:54:23 –> 02:10:02:03
So do you, you know, not to give away all your secrets on championship stuff, but are you lo pre locating, you know, setting up maybe a week
02:10:02:16 –> 02:10:03:05
Oh yeah. Before,
02:10:03:13 –> 02:10:04:04
Before it starts.
02:10:04:04 –> 02:10:25:05
Yeah. We and the guys that, my buddy Al Morris that is with Foxborough and they won, him and his buddy Garvin Young, his partner Garvin, have won the worlds four times now. And Al lives just a little ways from me here in Springville. They’ll go down, I mean, a couple weeks before and they spend every night out.
02:10:25:10 –> 02:10:29:23
That’s insane. It’s like locate, it’s like you, you’re scouting for a once in lifetime desert
02:10:29:29 –> 02:10:32:10
Neck. Like it’s a 200 inch deer and it’s just a co
02:10:32:20 –> 02:10:36:15
Well I’m telling you, and I, not
02:10:36:15 –> 02:10:37:10
To downplay it at all,
02:10:37:20 –> 02:10:44:16
Get frustrated when they can’t, when they don’t kill coyotes. But I’m telling you, the guys that really are consistently killing coyotes,
02:10:44:16 –> 02:10:46:01
They’re putting their time in, just like everything
02:10:46:04 –> 02:11:06:10
They put their time in, they do a lot of scouting, they a lot of prep work out and Gar will go down and they’ll figure out every stand they’ll have, you know, 70 stands laid out that they can go to. They know where they’re gonna park their truck, they know where you gonna sit, depending on what the wind’s doing. And they know exactly where they’re gonna go. So you don’t have to spend a lot of time guessing and thinking and what
02:11:06:10 –> 02:11:07:07
Time you’re gonna know.
02:11:07:14 –> 02:11:09:15
I know, I know why I’m never successful. That’s right.
02:11:09:19 –> 02:11:15:11
This is what, when we go out there the three, four times a winter and we think we’re gonna get her done, we don’t have a
02:11:15:11 –> 02:11:28:16
Prayer. Well, and I take my kid out there and, and then we call one in. And now I’m starting to realize after talking to you for a while, which is a little depressing, but I start talking to you and I realize how freaking lucky we were, you know, to Well,
02:11:28:16 –> 02:11:28:28
Well, you know,
02:11:30:02 –> 02:11:31:15
I mean, geez, the
02:11:31:15 –> 02:11:36:02
Thing though, this is, you know, this is the most that contest is, is in my opinion,
02:11:36:02 –> 02:11:36:26
Takes it to another level
02:11:37:15 –> 02:12:36:21
Contest in the Yeah. In the country. I mean, there’s thousands of dollars at stake and gold buckles and custom guns and you’re competing against the best colors in the world and you have basically a day and a half to get it done. Geez. And so anything you can do, I mean, one coyote we placed in the money by one coyote. Wow. And if we would’ve, you know, that’s one miss one screwed up stand. I mean that costs you a couple thousand dollars. So anything you can do to get the odds in your favor you’re doing. But let’s go back to what you talked about, you know, out hunting with your kids and getting lucky. There’s a, there’s a few things you can do that will really tip the odds in your favor. And when you take your kids out, if you’ll teach ’em this, you, you’ll have more success. Okay. First thing you gotta do is pay attention to the wind. Because if you’re calling with the wind to your back and you’re watching, you know, you can only see 50 yards or something and the wind’s hitting you in the back and blowing down the draw you’re watching,
02:12:36:25 –> 02:12:37:12
You’re not gonna
02:12:37:12 –> 02:12:38:15
See it. You’re wasting your time.
02:12:38:24 –> 02:13:23:11
But yeah, yeah, just let you know, just think about it, just like sneaking up on a big deer. You know, you’ve got it. You gotta be mindful of that wind. The second thing, and I, my dad grilled this in me when I was a kid. I mean, I was scared to death to move on stand if dad could see me move, I’m gonna catch that man. He was just, you think those cotes, I mean they, they’re you’re trying to out predator a predator. Yeah. They’ve got the eyes, they’ve got a great nose, they’ve got great hearing. And if you’re out there moving around, first off they can see you second off, it makes noise and you’re just totally giving away your position. So teach your kids to hold steel. If you gotta move a little, that’s easier. Easier
02:13:23:13 –> 02:13:23:26
Than done.
02:13:24:16 –> 02:13:27:10
Move your stick. Yeah. I mean, you got it. It’s,
02:13:27:12 –> 02:13:27:23
You gotta
02:13:28:06 –> 02:13:31:04
Teach your 10, eight to 10 year olds just hold, still
02:13:32:10 –> 02:14:12:28
Hold still tell your kids to whole, you know, and my daughter, when I take her with me and she’s about 14, I mean, she holds still to the point where I’ll tell her, look over there, you know, and she’ll be like, she doesn’t wanna move. She don’t wanna look because she’s afraid she’ll move too much. So, and I was kind of that same way, but teach ’em to hold still and teach ’em to look, I mean, I, my kids, when I take ’em, I’ll look over and they’ll be, you know, looking at their, looking at the ground or twiddling their shoe laces or some dang thing. A lot of times those coyotes are sneaking up and they’re peeking around a bush at you. They don’t all come blazing in like, you know, the video show. Yeah. Like on fur takers and that, you know, that’s always the good video when they come flying in.
02:14:13:00 –> 02:15:03:08
A lot of times those cows pick up on peak over the ridge at you and you only see one ear and one eyeball peeking down the bush at you. And they, you’ve gotta consciously just discipline yourself to look and look and look. Just tear that place apart. Just convince yourself that there’s a coyote there and you’ve got a seam because they are hard to see. They don’t always come running in, you know, a lot of times they’ll come sneaking in and just peek through the brush at you if they’re only, you know, 18 inches tall and it doesn’t take much to hide one. So hold still play the wind and just really, really, really look close. I use binoculars on every stand before I get up and leave. I glass every ridge line and every bush and just, just tear the place apart and it’ll surprise you how many coyotes just sneak in, try to get a peek at what’s going on and don’t really come running in, you know. Are you using what,
02:15:03:16 –> 02:15:06:17
Are you glassing during the calling or just at the end?
02:15:08:04 –> 02:15:49:13
I’m glassing the whole time I get my glasses out and, and first thing I do, if it’s a great big area, I’ll range a couple places out there. ’cause Kyle’s not a very big target if you’re gonna shoot him at 300 yards, you know, it’s good to know he is 300 yards. So I’ll range tree or rock or something out as far as I think one might show up. And then when I start calling, I mean, I’ll give it a few minutes and then I’ll start glassing I’ll glass for a minute and then I’ll set, and then I’ll tip them down and just look and look and look and then I’ll blast out a little ways. And a lot of times you’ll catch ’em long ways out coming over the ridge and sneaking in. And so you know where to watch, you know, there’s one coming in and it just, I tell you, it’s just like, just like hunting deer.
02:15:50:12 –> 02:16:16:10
If you put your glasses up and use them, you’re gonna see a lot more stuff. If you didn’t take your glasses with you out scouting deer, sheep, or, you know, whatever you big shots hunt the rest of the year, you know, you’re not, you’re not gonna see as many of them. But you also gotta remember that there might be one sneaking right up next to you 10 feet away and you gotta, you gotta be watching for him too. Yeah. So I’ll glass for 10 or 15 seconds and then look away from my glasses and, and just keep it going like that. How
02:16:16:10 –> 02:16:16:20
Long do you
02:16:16:22 –> 02:16:17:06
And that has
02:16:17:13 –> 02:16:31:10
Sit on a stand normally a normal stand, you know, you, you don’t have to be back to work. You’re just, you’re going out all day long. You’re calling from daylight till dark. How long do you normally stand in if you don’t know there’s a coyote there? In a normal situation,
02:16:32:05 –> 02:16:38:29
I like to stay between 15 and 20 minutes. Yeah. Some guys are 10 minutes and they’re up and going. That’d
02:16:38:29 –> 02:16:39:07
Be me.
02:16:39:11 –> 02:17:14:04
Yeah. I, I’ve had, I’ve had good luck, you know, between staying a little longer. Yeah. It seems like seven minutes for me, no matter what time of year. Seven minutes is kind of the witching hour. Yeah, it seems like it, if, you know, I’ve killed more coyotes right on seven minutes than, than any other amount of time. Yeah. But I’ve killed a lot of ’em at 15 minutes. I’ve killed a lot of ’em at 25 minutes. And if, if you go out, say you just run out after work out in the brush and you know, it’s almost dark and you got 45 minutes, takes 10 minutes to walk into your stand, just sit up there until it’s dark,
02:17:14:04 –> 02:17:14:22
Dark. Yeah.
02:17:15:05 –> 02:17:51:14
I mean you can’t, there’s no such thing as too long on the stand. Some guys just don’t like to do it because, you know, they’re impatient. That’s fine. Yeah. But I’ve had good luck, you know, at the 15, 20, 25 minute mark. And a lot of times that’s when you’ll get the ones that are just sneaking in. Maybe they’re a little educated, maybe they’re just not very hungry, you know, maybe they’re just naturally a little leery. But they’ll, you know, you’ll see one walk in and sit down 200 yards or you’ll see ’em just sneaking down the draw. Maybe he’s come in and seeing you and, and sneaking out. But if you’ll stay just a little bit longer on stand, I think you’ll have more success.
02:17:52:09 –> 02:18:17:23
And you mentioned, you know, your gun a minute ago, but tell us about what do you use, what’s your rifle scope set up and then, you know, most coyote guys, everybody’s, you know, carries a shotgun. And I, I know a lot of times when, when I’ve used those, it kind of depends on how many guys you got going with you. If it’s me alone, I’m not gonna take a shotgun. You know, this time of year you’ve got two or three. You might, when they’re barreling in on you, maybe yeah. You have one in your lap at least. But
02:18:18:24 –> 02:19:18:23
This time of year, I’ve, I’m carrying the call. I got the dogs, I got my 22, 2 50 with me. I usually take a chair with me and Wow. I don’t, this time year I just don’t carry a shotgun because I just got too much stuff. Yeah. In the winter when I don’t have to worry about the dogs and getting them through the fence and getting ’em out of the truck and they’re not jumping all over you and stuff, they don’t carry a shotgun, especially during the contest. But my favorite gun that I have is a 22, 2 50. I’ve got a couple of them and it’s just, to me it’s just a perfect balance of, I mean, user-friendly. It doesn’t kick Yeah. Shoots lights out. They’re just very inherently accurate. I shoot a 55 grain bullet depending on the gun. I shoot several different 55 grain bullets, but it’s just deadly on him. It, you know, I’ve killed, I shot a coyote the other day at about two 50 yards. I watched my buddy Big Al Morris shoot one the other day. And I’m not saying this is skill, so if he listens to this, I don’t want him thinking,
02:19:19:12 –> 02:19:21:03
Don’t want to get him a big head or nothing.
02:19:21:13 –> 02:19:25:09
No. But he killed one the other day about 690 yards of a two
02:19:25:09 –> 02:19:26:03
50. Come on.
02:19:26:29 –> 02:19:27:24
Got a tur on that
02:19:27:24 –> 02:19:28:09
Gun dead.
02:19:29:00 –> 02:19:31:12
Yeah. Is it doing a turret or a les or what’s he doing?
02:19:32:21 –> 02:19:36:27
I, well, I think he’s just really lucky on that one. Just
02:19:36:27 –> 02:19:37:22
Held over, not,
02:19:37:22 –> 02:19:41:09
I’m not giving him any deal credit whatsoever on that shot. Yeah,
02:19:41:09 –> 02:19:41:22
That’s a hail
02:19:43:24 –> 02:20:33:22
The point. Grand gets it done. I mean it, you know, it’s going fast and it, and it carries good. So I really like 22, 2 50. I use several different scopes. I got a zeis, got a nice ice scope that works really good. The scope that I use the most is, is a US optics five to 25. It’s got the m o a radical in it. That’s nice if they’re out there four, 500 yards. But I mean, for years and years I shot a little pole three to nine. And that’s a, you know, great scope and I don’t, don’t know why it gets wound up by having high powered scope because it kind of runs in at 10 yards and you’re on 20 power, you don’t see anything but a blurry mass and it screws you up. So that’s another thing I’d say. Make sure when you sit down on stand, you got your scope, little screw you up.
02:20:34:08 –> 02:20:42:04
Yeah. ’cause you, if you get one coming in your lap, you don’t got time to dial it down. If you got one hanging up, you got always got time to dial up on one. Hanging up.
02:20:42:04 –> 02:21:27:09
Yeah. You got time. You got a lot more time to dial up than you do dial down. And one thing I’ve started doing the last couple years is shooting a suppressor. And there’s a couple benefits to that. It’s easier on my dogs if I, you know, if my dog’s right in front of me or something. And you’re shooting suppressed a lot easier on the dogs. And a lot of times on stand you’re hunting with your buddies. Yeah. And you know, sometimes even as hard as you try and you think, all right, I’m not gonna muzzle blast Adam sitting over there and you touch one off and these ears ring for a week. Yeah. You know, suppressors are just a lot easier on nothing buddies. So I really, I really like suppressor. And a lot of guys use a, you know, a 2 23 at 2 43, the new six five tree mowers are super popular. Seven.
02:21:27:14 –> 02:21:29:12
Seven mm. I’ve heard of people using seven,
02:21:29:15 –> 02:21:30:13
Seven, you
02:21:30:13 –> 02:21:32:01
Know, deer guns growing
02:21:32:03 –> 02:21:38:10
Up in redneck stamp Pete County, when that’s all you got, you know, you got two or three guns and one of ’em a seven, that’s what you use. That’s what
02:21:38:10 –> 02:21:39:24
You use. They still kill ’em.
02:21:39:27 –> 02:21:45:09
How do you, how do you decide on your stand locations? Like what do you, I mean, obviously you wanna be able to see
02:21:45:20 –> 02:21:47:23
Wind’s gotta be good, but Yeah. What do you wind
02:21:47:25 –> 02:21:48:12
And whatnot,
02:21:48:12 –> 02:22:56:26
But Well, if, if I’ve been out locating and I know where there’s coyotes of, you know, then you kind of go to them and, and take what you can, what you can get. Obviously you wanna be where you can see, but you gotta think also, what does a coyote, most of the coyotes, especially, you know, kind of in the winter fall in winter, most of the coyotes diet that time of year is mice, rabbits, and birds. So you gotta be in a place where they’re gonna have plenty of mice, rabbits, and birds, which usually means sage brush a field, a grass, you know, a grassy edge along the field, along a ditch, some edge where there’s maybe some, some cedar trees, you know, where it kind of translates that into a, a big flat. And that’s, that’s good cow habitat. And if you see, you know, a lot of rabbits is, is very good if you’re running, driving down the road in the middle of winter and all of a sudden the road just gets hammered to death with rabbit tracks, you know, you want to start thinking about making a stand because they will be where the food is most of the, most of the year.
02:22:56:26 –> 02:23:10:02
That’s the only thing they’re worried about, is where their next meal’s coming from. When I was younger, I used to want to be where I could see, you know, five miles just flat open. And for some reason I thought I was gonna call coyotes up out of the ground. Yeah.
02:23:10:03 –> 02:23:11:06
Loud call everything.
02:23:11:12 –> 02:24:06:24
Yeah, yeah. You know, and so, but now I look at it a lot different. There’s gotta be some cover broken up. Yeah. Especially in, in daylight. You’ll see ’em out in the flat and you’ll see ’em out in the field from the daylight. But most likely they’re gonna be where there’s some cover where they feel comfortable, you know, sneaking in a little bit of sagebrush, some grass, something where there’s something for ’em to eat, where they get some cover where they can shade up. So, you know, southern Utah, you, you get a lot of that country where, you know, you got sage brush, you got rabbit brush, you got bitter brush. It’s, you know, it’s awesome. Coyo habitat. I’m, I, I’ve kinda learned if it looks like good deer habitat, it’s probably good coyo habitat. Yeah. Because there’s, you know, the deer are there. Not, not because of the deer so much, but because there’s, that’s a place where you’re gonna also find a lot of ma rabbits.
02:24:06:29 –> 02:25:02:03
Yeah. And birds, if you go out, I mean, some of them coyotes up in Wyoming and that, that live out in some of that country, I have no idea why the coyotes even live there. Some of that stuff so flatly. But you gotta, yeah, you gotta travel a lot farther between coyotes to find ’em. So good cover. And you wanna find a place where you can see, sometimes you have to set up a little tighter to cover and it’s a little close quarters shooting. But, but that’s all right. But get where you can see, you know, as much as you can get where there’s some backdrop against you. You don’t wanna sit skyline. You want to, ideally a little place where you can just hop over a little little ridge or a little lip and sit down in front of a bush or against a fence post or something to kind of hide your outline and where you can see, and, ’cause I tell you, I think, I think it would probably make us all a little bit nauseous if we knew how many coyotes we’d called in that walked in, looked, saw, looked at us, and walked out and we never seen them.
02:25:02:05 –> 02:25:37:22
Yeah, I don’t want to know that. So you, you gotta think while you’re setting up, you want to set where you turn the odds as much in your favor as possible. So you want to sit where you can see where you got the wind, you know, as favorable as possible. And one thing that also helps you stand out quite a, is whether the sun is in your face or to your back. Because if the sun’s in your face, especially later in the evening, you know, it’s blocking out about half your stand, you’re shining
02:25:38:06 –> 02:25:43:25
Well. And every move, if you get a cut out coming that way, you, you blink your eyes and they’re gonna see it from three oh
02:25:43:28 –> 02:26:02:21
Yards. Yeah. It, so you’re right. It’s got, it works against in two ways. You shine like a light bulb and, and you know, the guy’s got the sun at his back and it makes it harder for you to see. So if you can set up with the sun of your back, ideal stand, sun of your back, wind to your face and you can see, you know, as much around but has sun cover.
02:26:03:06 –> 02:26:03:12
Yep.
02:26:04:00 –> 02:26:19:10
Yeah. You got, you know, put a little bit of cover. Don’t be afraid to call in a little bit tighter cover. That’s one thing I’ve, I’ve learned over the years is it’s okay, you gotta look a little closer and your, your window to shoot might be a little smaller, but you’re gonna call in more coyotes and get more opportunities. So Yeah.
02:26:19:10 –> 02:26:31:24
It seems like especially later in the day too, when a coyote’s probably in that kind of stuff laying down or sleeping just like any other dog, you know, you’re not gonna be out in the flat wide open stuff in the middle of the day very often.
02:26:31:28 –> 02:26:52:07
So tighter cover. And the tighter cover also is when the shotgun comes in handy, you ask about a shotgun if you’re sitting in tight cover where you can only see 40 or 50 yards and he’s gonna come in running and you got a 20 foot window to get him dead, that’s when the shotguns in very handy. So I don’t always care shotgun to every stand in the, in the winter, in the fall. But there’s,
02:26:52:18 –> 02:26:57:27
There’s one in your truck. Yeah. You, you know, stand to stand. You are like, all right, this, but I better pull it out.
02:26:57:27 –> 02:27:00:01
Usually when I need one, it’s in the truck. So
02:27:00:10 –> 02:27:52:09
Yeah. When you’re calling it triple one, one jams you get Yep. Tell us about Yep. Your thoughts, I guess on educated call shy coyotes. I mean, it happens with elk, it happens with turkeys. We, we all know what happens with coyotes, especially, you get a factors involved like a a $50 bill bounty on every coyo in Utah. I mean, there’s been more coyote calls sold at Walmart and every Tom Bick and Harry boarding goods store in the last three, four years in Utah than probably the last 25 years before that combined. So how do you overcome that type of, that that’s what’s stacked against the most people that are not gonna hunt it like you or, or, you know, do it as often as you or have all the tricks. How do you, what, what are some tri tips or things you’ve tried to do to call in dogs that, you know, have had stuff thrown at ’em before?
02:27:53:05 –> 02:28:07:10
Well, most people think when, and I mean, and especially a lot of people still use hand calls. We use hand calls all the time. My dad’s up used hand call for years. We grew up using hand calls. Most hand calls sound like a dying rabbit. Yeah.
02:28:08:01 –> 02:28:44:05
You know, and so that’s what, that’s what the cat outs were used to. And that’s what the people use. And, and, but kind of getting your point, one thing you gotta understand is every coyote hunter thinks they are the one not wise enough, the coyotes and that it’s every other coyo hunter that’s out there screwing up the coyotes and educating them. So you gotta kind, you gotta kind of know, when you talk to guys, they’re like, oh yeah, all these guys are out there educating the coyotes. Every single one of us educate coyotes. Every single one of us. One of ’em comes in behind you, you don’t see him, he smells you, he’s educated, you miss him. He’s educated.
02:28:44:18 –> 02:28:52:07
Yeah. Or if one just kills your, here’s your call from a mile away and doesn’t come in, you educated him to some ex, you know, even though he didn’t even come in. Oh
02:28:52:07 –> 02:29:23:24
Yeah. Yep. And, and so, you know, we all educate Kyle. So the thing I kinda like to do is that’s, that’s why I like to vocalize a lot. You know, I think it adds a, a level of realism to the stand and, you know, you think, well, there’s something going on over there, but, well, I hear another coyote over there. You know, maybe it’s not, maybe it’s not so dangerous. Or, you know, or maybe, geez, I wonder what they’re doing. I’ll go, I’ll go have a look. I think it just, you know, I don’t know exactly what they’re thinking, but it seems to work.
02:29:24:19 –> 02:29:33:08
So in the same, in the same stand, would you do a kind of, some little bit of light Helen or something and then go into a distress Yep. As well? Sit down,
02:29:33:21 –> 02:30:04:13
Give, yep. Just give a light, you know, just give a light howl. Nothing too nothing. Don’t wanna sound like grandpa don’t wanna scare anything away. Just, you know, just kind of a, Hey, I’m a, you know, I’m a sissy coyote over here. I got a rabbit crunching, you know, come over and have lunch with me. But, and, and, you know, and it works and it works. Another thing I think, and this is a, this is kind of a, a secret that some of my buddies might not like me giving out, but I’m gonna do it
02:30:04:20 –> 02:30:05:28
All right. My pencil’s out.
02:30:06:04 –> 02:30:10:24
A lot of these calls have crow sounds, raven sounds and magpie sounds.
02:30:11:28 –> 02:30:14:23
You mean these electronic calls you mean you’re talking about? Yes.
02:30:15:03 –> 02:30:32:19
Okay. Absolutely. Yeah. If you, if you, you go buy a Fox pro, it’s gonna have crow sounds on it, and if it doesn’t, you can download crow sounds on it. Sure. Or ravens or mag pies. Okay. These CORs, crow’s ravens and mag pies are some of the leest smartest birds. Absolutely. On.
02:30:33:02 –> 02:30:33:08
Yep.
02:30:33:29 –> 02:30:54:19
Okay. So if you go out and play some crow sounds and then play a rabbit or a woodpecker or a pup to stretch and they hear that crow, that’s kind of work says kind of a confidence call because a lot of times you’ll see them crows and then the magpie is hanging around with coyotes on a kill.
02:30:55:08 –> 02:30:55:18
Absolutely. Yep.
02:30:55:24 –> 02:30:58:10
They kind of, I think they kind of trust each other.
02:30:58:13 –> 02:31:01:11
Yeah. They kind of key off each other. If a Yeah, if
02:31:01:11 –> 02:31:03:28
You got a dead down, my se curls, I look for a coyote under ’em.
02:31:03:28 –> 02:31:10:12
Yeah. You gotta kill a dead deer or something. And you know it’s there and you drive up. And if birds are sitting there, you like, okay, birds
02:31:10:12 –> 02:31:14:12
Are waiting for the coyote to kill something so they can piece off it too sometimes. So.
02:31:14:14 –> 02:32:02:23
That’s right. That’s right. And, you know, because they’re both kinda living off the same thing. So, and it, you know, there’s kind of an old wife’s tale. Not every magpie has a coyote, but every coyote has a magpie. And so you, you know, you play some of those sounds and it kind of adds a little bit of confidence. And don’t be afraid to mix sounds up. I mean, I can’t remember the last time I sat down on a stand and only made one sound. I mean, I change up sounds, I’ll howl, I’ll play puppet distress, I’ll play rabbit distress, I’ll play detector distress. I’ll go back to their rabbit, I’ll play different rabbit. And I probably make a lot more noise than a lot of people. I mean, I don’t, the coyote can’t come if you don’t hear you. Yeah. I don’t let the call run all the time, but I make a lot of noise.
02:32:03:10 –> 02:32:05:09
How loud? I mean, there’s obviously, there’s,
02:32:05:10 –> 02:32:31:22
Well, I don’t start out really loud. I’ll start out kind of mid ball. You just something that if they’re, you know, because you don’t want a coyote if he’s out there at 300 yards thinking he’s got a 500 pound cocktail coming after him, you know, you don’t, they don’t need to think that all you wanna do is get their attention. You wanna get their attention. You know, it’s just like your wife walks up behind you in the kitchen and whispers in your ear. If you don’t know she’s there, it doesn’t matter how loud she is, it’s gonna scare the crap out of you and gonna ss you.
02:32:32:10 –> 02:32:32:19
Yeah.
02:32:33:02 –> 02:33:06:14
You don’t want that. You want just to get your attention. Yeah. And then start talking ’em in. So yeah, if you, if you go out there and just hit, you know, lightning jack on forties right off the bat, those, some of ’em will come charging in and it doesn’t matter. But some of ’em, you’ll see ’em just turn tail and run it. It’s very educational to go to a place where there’s a lot of coyotes, like we did in Alberta here. We’ve been there a couple times and you’ll see those coyotes out in that field and you’ll hit the call and some of ’em act like they can’t hear you. Some of ’em will run you over and some of ’em will turn and run the other way. And crazy. You try to get their,
02:33:06:29 –> 02:33:11:21
It’s all about timing. Yeah. What, what’s going on in that coyotes gotta ahead of the time they hear
02:33:11:21 –> 02:33:13:10
You and then call ’em in. So
02:33:13:24 –> 02:33:26:20
Takes us to another segment here, but just maybe one of the craziest stories you’ve got. I mean, of course you’ve hunted them long enough, you’ve probably had ’em in your lap at times, but anything just come to mind that’s just one of the craziest stories ever.
02:33:27:08 –> 02:34:10:16
Oh yeah, I got it. I mean, we were sitting on standing in Alberta and the, well the wind was so bad that day that it was blowing our cameras over. We were up there filming an episode of Fur Takers that aired here a couple years ago. And we, we, the wind was blowing so bad, we went back to the little ranch house we were staying in that evening right before dark the wind stopped. And so we just thought, well, let’s just walk out in the field. We’d heard some coyotes howling a couple nights before. We just walked out in the field, sit down piled one time. And this was in October piled one time. And the whole river bottom ’em just exploded. I mean, it sounded like there was a hundred coyotes. Of course, two of ’em sound like T 20, so it’s hard to know.
02:34:10:27 –> 02:35:16:05
Yeah. Well then one Kyle popped out of the river and headed our way and another, and another and another. We’re sitting there on a hill. There’s two’s me and Al and then there’s two cameramen with it. So there’s four of us. We ain’t got nothing to hide behind. We’re just sitting there on the hill with two big cameras and you know, two big old springville rednecks sitting there. And then coyotes run out in the field. And they just kept coming and kept coming and kept coming. And I stopped counting at five. Geez. But cameraman was sitting behind me, he’s like, there’s eight of them. He kept telling me, there’s eight of them. Don’t screw this up. There’s eight of them. So of course we’re sitting out there in the open moving the cameras around and I had to move just a little bit to get my gun up where I wanted it. And the big, the big mail and the bunch jumped up on a little dirt and off there and looked at me and kinda leaned a little bit to one side. And when they kinda give stop and give you that lean, you know, you’re busted. So I shot him and coyotes just scattered everywhere. They were running all around us and we were shooting and throwing lead like it was the war. And, and that’s a good thing. I killed the first one. ’cause that eight of them, that’s the only one we got. Oh
02:35:16:07 –> 02:35:17:15
My gosh. So it was,
02:35:19:12 –> 02:35:22:06
Well, camera man’s ribbed you the rest of the trip bit,
02:35:22:06 –> 02:35:22:11
Huh?
02:35:22:18 –> 02:35:30:04
Oh yeah, it was. I mean, he was, he was razzing the rest of the time. Like, well, you know, at least outta eight of ’em, you managed to get one. Those odds are very, you know, those odds are definitely in the,
02:35:30:23 –> 02:35:33:17
Just ask him how many hits. That’s all you wanted. How
02:35:34:04 –> 02:36:11:20
I know he was good. He was, he was a great camera man. He had really good eyes. That’s the one thing about him. He could help me spot like crazy. So it was good to have him there. But, and then another time here, a couple years ago, dogging, I had a pair located and went up and as soon as I got outta my truck, I could hear the coyotes just on the hill right above me. And so I just turned my dog loose and walked uphill a little ways. And sit down, there’s a herd of mo cows right there. They start chasing the dog around and the dog barked at the cows, which got the coyote going. The coyote comes down and gets in the spray and they, pretty soon it’s just a big circus. The dogs and coyotes chasing cows, the cows and the cows chasing the dog in the coyote.
02:36:12:07 –> 02:37:01:09
So I turned my collar on and hit P distress. And down through the bunch I could see something coming. I thought, well, gee, that’s my dog. Then my dog’s got a short tail. Well that’s, that’s a coyote that’s got a long tail. That’s not my dog. And by the time he was about 200 yards away from the time I seen him. And I tried to turn my sticks and get a good set. And I thought, well, he’ll see me move and stop and gimme a good standing shot. Well, by the time I even thought about turning sideways and, and, and get lined up with him, he was jumping over the call and still coming. And he seen me move just a little bit. And he obviously didn’t realize it was a person sitting there, but he seen that movement and he laid his ears back and opened his mouth and he was all teething. That fucker jumped right at me and I just had to drop my sticks and spin the gun on him. And I shot him right across the hose and when he dropped my head, I could reach out and touch him with a gun barrel.
02:37:01:20 –> 02:37:03:00
Come on. Awesome.
02:37:03:17 –> 02:37:19:15
Ah, serious. That was, I couldn’t believe it. I mean, that was, that was the craziest band ever. And then about 20 seconds later, another come right behind you. But I whistled at him when it was about 50 yards away and it stopped, looked up and I shot it. Yeah. And then the cows all had to come down and check
02:37:19:20 –> 02:37:20:11
Out, check everything out
02:37:20:13 –> 02:37:37:07
Out, check it all out, and stomped on my call. And that was, that was the wildest stand ever. That was the only coyote I’ve ever called in that I actually felt like might hurt you, was gonna bite me. Yeah. But yeah. But I honestly don’t think that coyote knew it was a person there. It just hurt that pump distress. It was this time of year
02:37:37:15 –> 02:37:38:07
He was locked in
02:37:38:08 –> 02:37:52:18
And it hurt that pump distress and it was gonna come in and take care of business. And it just saw that movement and just jumped at it. And I’m glad I was just turned that direction as much as I was. ’cause if I’d have been a half second slower, I’d have had that air slower. I’d have had that chi right in my lap. So.
02:37:52:22 –> 02:37:53:09
Oh, how
02:37:54:04 –> 02:38:35:25
Those are the kind of fans that you go hunting for. Yeah. ’cause at every hundred fans you make, you have something crazy like that happen. I’m not a real decoy fan. I don’t, it’s, I mean, Fox Pro makes a great decoy that some people swear by, I have enough stuff I have to carry out there and worry about. And a lot of times I have the dogs with me, you know, in this time of year for to decoy with. And in the winter, I always kind of figure I want ’em coming in looking. I don’t wanna give them something to look at while they’re 200 yards away. They might decide they don’t like it and leave. I wanna get ’em in as close as they can before they decide that. So I’m not a real decoy fan, but some guys really like him, but I’m, I’m not that guy.
02:38:36:25 –> 02:38:52:06
Crazy. Well, good. Well, right on. Anything else? I mean, coyotes are some of the smartest critters known to man. And, and just, you know, with a lot of your experience and stuff, is there anything super interesting, you know, that people may not know about that don’t hunt ’em like you guys?
02:38:53:04 –> 02:39:03:08
Well, you know, there’s, they are, they’re an, they’re an amazing animal. There’s 19 different subspecies of coyotes in, in the
02:39:03:19 –> 02:39:04:07
Yeah, that’s a,
02:39:04:27 –> 02:39:07:14
Yeah, there’s 19 subspecies of, I’m pretty sure
02:39:07:23 –> 02:39:16:18
19. Is that just because they’ve got in with a red heeler, a blue heeler, a lab. I mean, all the different dog breeds over the years.
02:39:17:01 –> 02:39:17:25
That number,
02:39:18:03 –> 02:39:20:22
It, it, I could be off on that number, but it’s a lot.
02:39:21:02 –> 02:39:24:07
Is it like, is it the eastern Mexico, Canada, what is it? Yeah,
02:39:24:10 –> 02:39:34:01
Yeah. I mean, there’s, there’s a bunch of different subspecies. I could be, I could be off on that number, but I’m pretty sure that’s it. But there’s, you know, I’m sure Adam’s googling it right
02:39:34:01 –> 02:40:03:21
There. No, I’m not. No, I’m not. Trust me, I’m not, I’m just racing what I Yeah, I’m already thinking. I, I’m pretty sure you tell me. I’m pretty sure the most sought after kind of like stone sheep when it come, or desert sheep when it comes to sheep. They’re probably the two right now. They’re like the most sought after elusive, I think. Yeah, I think the Henry Mountain coyotes are probably the top of that list. So I think we need to get you down there with us in about 30 days. Well, we’ll
02:40:03:21 –> 02:40:18:29
Have to sit down there, we’ll have to make a trip down there. But you know, they, speaking of sought after coyotes, you go up to Canada and those coyotes up there giant, and they’re really, really blonde. I mean, they’re really pale and they’re, they’re really sought after. And then you go back east and they have black coyotes.
02:40:19:07 –> 02:40:19:16
Geez.
02:40:20:06 –> 02:41:28:25
And, you know, and those are really sought after. So, you know, they’re, they really are an amazing animal. You know, they’re very, very smart. They’re very, very intelligent and leery and, and it’s, it’s hard to hunt ’em with, with consistent success. But I’ll tell you this, there’s only one way to learn how to do it. And you can listen to, to a ton of seminars and podcasts and read all the, the articles and that. But unless you go out and do it, you’re not gonna have success. And you’re not gonna, you’re not gonna kill ’em. And I’ll tell you, the hardest thing for me was to learn how to kind of seal the deal on the stand and, and not get so excited. But I miss them all because even now, I mean, I miss, if you’re gonna have coyotes, you’re gonna miss. But it seems to take a while to kind of build the mindset that, all right, don’t panic, you know, know when to shoot and, and squeeze off and make a good shot. Every time I take somebody coyote hunting guarantee, the first coyote they shoot out, they’re gonna shoot a foot high. I don’t care if it’s 30 yards to 300 yards. Well,
02:41:28:25 –> 02:41:54:21
It’s just, and it’s just like deer. And, you know, you guys are spending so much time pre locating, you’re spending so much time and energy, you know, dealing with it all to get to that one final moment and to miss, it’s just brutal. It’s not just like, oh, I went out and made a stand and I missed, I know I’ve got two or three days into this till two in the morning locating and stuff. It’s, it’s important to make that shot count. And that’s the same way Adam and I feel about deer and sheep and anything else we’re hunting.
02:41:55:13 –> 02:42:17:13
You know, and especially when you’re like, if you’re doing a contest, one coyote can, can be the difference between winning a contest and being out of the money. Yeah. And you know, that making the shot count is, in my opinion, probably as hard of the, as hard a part of the equation as calling one is getting
02:42:17:13 –> 02:42:18:03
One coming in the
02:42:18:03 –> 02:43:11:17
First place. I mean, that’s, yeah, because it’s, and I, I always think, you know, once I see one coming in, I, you know, then you kind of switch your mindset, all right, don’t panic. And he’s dead. You know, do I have a bullet in my gun? What’s my fix? Make sure your safety’s on because you, you know, you get excited and sometimes you have to move your gun around. You don’t wanna be bumping your trigger and the gun going off, or you’re looking at the coyote or something like that. And it, and then when that coyote gives you that, that shot, you know, you gotta be thinking, how far is he? And, and you know, what position is he gonna come closer is am I gonna be able to see him if he comes closer? Sometimes, you know, because there’s such a thing as too close and you, you wanna make sure you get a, get a good shot on him and, you know, you gotta spend a lot of time with your gun. You gotta practice guys that only shoot once a year and then go out, call in a coyote, you know? Yeah. You don’t want, you don’t wanna be on stand with those guys because they’re not gonna hit him. So.
02:43:11:26 –> 02:43:30:12
Well, you’ve, you’re obviously, you mentioned contests quite a bit, and of course, you know, sheep hunters have goals and deer and elk, hunters, they all kind of have their goals, what they like, whether they wanna slam or certain size or whatnot. But like, what are your goals? Are you wanting to win certain contests? Are you wanting to, I mean, what are your goals with it? Or is it just, just
02:43:30:23 –> 02:44:11:22
Yeah, I mean, I, I wanna win every contest, Diana, but we, we won the youth contest with my daughter a few years ago. That was pretty fun. She thought that was a pretty good deal. But the most competitive contest, you know, there’s one back east the eastern championship that they have like 400 teams go to. It’s just huge. And one of the guys that’s on Fox Pro staff with me won that last year and, and did a great job. And I can’t remember how many they killed, but I mean, he just beat up a bunch of guys. But to win a big contest like that, or the world championship, in fact, I think the world championship’s gonna be here in Utah this fall. Really?
02:44:11:27 –> 02:44:12:03
Wow.
02:44:12:12 –> 02:44:13:00
On the Henrys.
02:44:13:25 –> 02:44:16:01
Yeah. Let’s get ’em somewhere where we can grow some deer.
02:44:17:03 –> 02:45:14:29
Yeah. That’s, you know, so to win a, to win a big contest like that and know that you’ve beat some of the best callers in the world that have just prepared and scouted and worked their tail off, you know, so that’s a lot of fun. It’s a rush even when you don’t win and, and that you go, you go hang out with guys like that, you can’t help but learn from them. Yeah. And just to be with the, you know, that caliber of hunters is, it’s a lot of fun. So contests are definitely a lot of fun, but it’s a lot of fun to get up in the morning and just take your dog and go out on the hill and, and call one in and, and watch it all come together. So, you know, as people are thinking about getting into coyote hunting and that, don’t, don’t overthink it. I mean, we’ve talked a lot about a lot of different stuff today. You know, stick to the basics, the wind, the sun, make sure there’s some cover, look around, find some tracks, some scat in the road so you know, there’s some cootes there. And look, look, look and hold steel and you’ll have success.
02:45:15:09 –> 02:45:17:13
Have a gun that can shoot and be able to shoot it.
02:45:17:23 –> 02:45:26:20
That’s right. That’s right. And if you’ll go out and, you know, it’ll, it’s, it’s so much fun. Once you, once you go out and have a little success, you won’t be able to stop doing it.
02:45:26:22 –> 02:46:03:16
Yeah. Well I’ve always joked, and it’s not probably really a joke, but you know, that the last two animals on earth would be an elk and a coyote. And I’m sure the coyote would be the last, but they’re true. They can be everywhere. That’s the thing about ’em. There’s no seasons and they literally are from 14,000 feet to sea level and everywhere in between and varying densities and whatnot. So you, we all, we talk about draw tags and how to get good tags and planter hunts and all that. And cows are something you can do anytime of year, anytime you want it. So yeah, we appreciate your time today and, and learned a lot.
02:46:03:18 –> 02:46:43:27
You know, it, it’s just, it’s always good talk to you guys. I appreciate me back on. I love, it’s good to see you guys’ success and you know, we have a, there’s always a hunting opportunity. That’s a great thing about living here in the west. There’s always something to hunt. And you can hunt coyotes 365 days a year in most states. So, you know, if you’re bored, you wanna get your kid off the Xbox and, and get ’em out in the outdoors. You know, you don’t have to have a $500 electronic call. Go get a $10 mouth call at Walmart or Sportsman’s Warehouse and take ’em out and, and get ’em introduced to coyote hunting and, you know, there’s no excuse not to be out in the hills hunting. That’s
02:46:43:27 –> 02:46:49:29
Right. Well, hopefully it doesn’t turn into like these shed seasons where we end up co having a coyote season and,
02:46:50:25 –> 02:46:54:05
Well, I here to tell you, I, I’ll go to my grave fighting the
02:46:54:05 –> 02:46:54:17
Coyote.
02:46:54:23 –> 02:46:55:05
Alright.
02:46:56:07 –> 02:46:56:27
The world for
02:46:56:27 –> 02:47:29:07
That. Yeah. Well, all right, John, well, like Adam said, we sure appreciate you, man, you, you’re a wealth of knowledge. You’ve, you’ve walked a walk and for many years on a variety of different levels, including the Wildlife board and a lot of different conservation groups and efforts as well as, you know, your personal hunting. And, and we just sure appreciate you spending some time with us. And I, I know there’s gonna be a ton of listeners gonna learn a lot from this and, and hopefully you’re not seeing ’em out in the hills competing against you, but we do appreciate you lending some of your knowledge today.
02:47:29:25 –> 02:47:44:19
That’s no problem, guys. I mean, we all learned from somebody, I’ve got a lot of great hunters that have, that have helped me out. You know, hopefully somebody can pick up something from our conversation today that helps ’em have some success, some success, and enjoy the outdoors a little bit. So I really appreciate you having me on. Okay, sounds
02:47:44:19 –> 02:47:51:26
Good. Thanks a lot man. We’ll be in touch. Those Henry Mountain ones are, I think the 20th identified subspecies is what I’ve been told.
02:47:53:03 –> 02:47:53:17
Alright
02:47:53:28 –> 02:47:55:23
Buddy. We’ll do it man. We’ll do it.
02:47:56:04 –> 02:48:18:26
All right. All right. Appreciate you. All right. As we close this podcast, we do wanna thank Under Armour for sponsoring this podcast and working with us here at Epic Outdoors. Adam and I, Chris, John, Jeff and the crew are super appreciative of them and, and their efforts to support what we’re doing and, and of course supporting the hunting community. So till next time, awesome. It’s a great podcast.
Recent Comments