Place, Patience & Practice: the Core of any Great Predator Caller

In the previous issue, I briefly reviewed the 4 P’s of successful coyote calling and focused on the second P which is Positioning. In this article, I will discuss the remaining 3 P’s which include Place, Patience, and Practice. For many obvious reasons, Place is the most important, but Patience and Practice should not be taken lightly and play a very important role in the calling equation. When addressing Place, I will touch on several factors I consider when searching for the right piece of land. With Patience, I will not only discuss time spent on the set, but consideration of yourself when developing your abilities and calling style. Finally, Practice will be reviewed with tips and techniques that I use to ready myself each season and before each set.



Place



The most important aspect of calling coyotes is calling where the coyotes are. This sounds obvious, but is usually the reason why people have difficulty. In my opinion, some of the best coyote hunters in the country are not necessarily the best callers, they are simply the best at finding where the coyotes are. The greater amount of coyotes in an area, the higher percentage you will have of being successful on that set. When trying to find areas with high numbers of coyotes, I look for two things. First, I look at the amount of hunting and calling pressure an area gets. Second, I look at the amount of food, water, and cover an area has.



Hunting and calling pressure play a very important role in finding places that sustain coyotes. To show this, imagine two equal, identical pieces of land each with an equal number of coyotes. Property A allows several individuals access on the land and over the course of the season they kill 20% of the coyotes and educate another 30%. Meanwhile, the government trapper is poisoning and aerial shooting coyotes which accounts for killing another 50%. All this time, Property B has not had any calling, poisoning, or aerial shooting on it. This makes for an easy decision which place you’d rather hunt doesn’t it? This being said, it is always my goal to find Property B.



More times than not you will have very little information about a property before you approach a landowner about hunting. Once permission is obtained, ask plenty of questions in regard to other callers that hunt the property, government trapping, etc. If after asking these questions the place starts looking more like Property A, move it to the bottom of your property list and continue searching for something less pressured.



With public land, this information can be hard to obtain and will take more work and observation on your part. Obviously public land that is closer to metropolitan areas and major highways may be some of the most highly pressured. In contrast, places like these can yield a coyote from time to time simply because everyone else passes them for the same reason. Also, be observant for the amount of vehicle and foot traffic into a particular area and determine whether or not the traffic is coyote calling related. Out west, try and avoid areas with large amounts of sheep. These areas are priority #1 on government trappers’ lists and more than likely they have the coyote population thinned down. Instead, look for areas that hold cattle. Government trappers are not nearly as concerned with coyotes damaging cattle especially when they have coyotes damaging flocks of sheep. In some areas, ranchers that do not have help from government trappers may have even been forced to raise cattle instead of sheep due to the high population of coyotes in the area. Finding a ranch like this is equivalent to hitting the coyote calling lottery! With a little research and some investigative questioning places like this may be easier to find than you think.



In conjunction with finding lightly pressured areas, I will look for tracks of land that have plenty of food, water and cover. These three things are natural attractants for any animal, and the more abundant these things are the larger the animal population they can support. Coyotes are very territorial and over the years I have found that as the abundance of food, water, and cover increases in an area; the square acreage of a coyote’s territory will decrease. Basically, the coyote will not need to travel as far to find its basic needs. Therefore, a section of land that has ample amounts of food, water, and cover may hold four coyotes where as a section that is wide open and barren may only hold one.



Patience



Patience is a valuable attribute when calling coyotes. You need patience while sitting on a set waiting for a coyote to respond, but you also need this when it comes to developing your skills and calling style.



The appropriate length of time to sit on a set has been debated many times over the years. Some callers like myself, opt for the 10-15 minute range, while others believe in a minimum of 25 minutes. Whichever you prefer, patience is necessary in order to make your time limit. Many callers become spoiled with an occasional hard-charging coyote that is in their lap within the first two minutes. This is not a bad thing, but will test your patience on sets you make subsequently. Usually around the 8-10 minute mark is when patience is put to the test and you must convince yourself that coyotes may be approaching your call. Usually by the 15 minute mark, any interested coyote that was within hearing range will be visible. This is when I will move onto the next set if I have no takers. Before I leave, I will always sit there for 3-4 minutes in silence, scanning the surrounding area with my binoculars. Many times I have spotted an approaching coyote that was taking its time coming to the call, or one that traveled into hearing range of the call late into the set. The last thing you want to do is spook an incoming coyote only because you are in a hurry to get back to the truck and on to the next set.





If you elect to sit on a stand for longer than 15 minutes, patience becomes an even bigger factor because now you are hoping for a coyote on the move to come within hearing distance of the call 20 or 30 minutes into the set. This is a great tactic to use during times of the day when you know coyotes are on the move. Although this is not my usual practice, I heard of guys sitting on sets longer than an hour and taking coyotes right at the end.



Once you understand and develop patience on the set you then must take into account patience with yourself and your success. Proficient coyote calling is a skill that takes years to develop and hone. Many beginners lose touch of this and become discouraged when they are not having the success that they have envisioned. The best coyote hunters in the country did not get to where they are overnight. It takes years of trial-and-error, countless days in the field learning from your mistakes, and understanding why things worked when you do have success. Keeping frustrations at bay early on in your calling career will pay off immensely down the road. Combining patience with the final P of the equation is the key to becoming more efficient every time you head into field.



Practice



It is crucial to understand that every time you grab your call, and rifle, and head out to make some sets you are practicing. Just like with anything, the more you practice, the better you will become. Calling coyotes is not something that you can expect to master over the course of several seasons by simply going out a couple of times. As your total number of career sets goes up, so does your proficiency and effectiveness. Simply put, the more you make it out to call, the better of a caller you will become.



Even after 14 years of calling, there is seldom a day in the field where I do not learn or pick up on something new. This is why getting out and practicing is so important. Trial-and-error is one of the best teachers you could have and is a great supplier of tricks to put in your bag. One thing I like to do after a blown set is to take a few minutes and really understand why that coyote did not cooperate. Wind, sun, silhouetting, scope glare, excess movement, and volume of the call are all things that run through my mind. Many times I will walk down to the point where the coyote busted me, get down on a knee and look back over the set from the coyote’s perspective. A lot can be learned from this simple technique and after doing this a handful of times you’ll start to put yourself in the coyote’s shoes before you even sit down to make the set.



Another topic when discussing practice is becoming proficient with your equipment. Knowing your weapon of choice and where and how it shoots is very important and usually the first thing most will practice with. I prefer to shoot off of shooting sticks so I practice that way. If you prefer to lie in the prone while on set that is the way you should practice. A good technique to become proficient with your sticks or bipod is to sight in on “mock” coyotes. If the action is slow on a set, take a few seconds and pick out a rock or bush off to the left or right and practice picking up your rifle and sticks and making a slow, control swing to get on target. Shooting sticks can take some getting used to and the more you practice with them, the more effective you will be at getting on target quicker.



Another area which is very important is being familiar with your call or calls. Obviously hand calls take lots of practice and tweaking, but learning the ins and outs of your e-caller is just as important. The last thing that you want to happen is to spook off an incoming coyote because the call was too loud, and you could not find the volume control quick enough. The more familiar and proficient you are with your equipment and caller the quicker your reactions will be in those heat of the moment situations. Once again, this is something that takes many hours of hands-on usage of the caller to gain the familiarity that is needed to make those split second reactions. I recently got my hands on the new FoxPro Fury and like many of today’s e-callers, it has tons of bells and whistles that can be very beneficial out on a set as long as you have taken the proper steps ahead of time to become familiar and proficient with it. Being able to manipulate the volume control as well as several other of the main functions without having to look down at the call or remote is extremely beneficial. When able to do so, is when I feel proficient enough to take it in the field.



Throughout this article, the remaining 3 P’s were reviewed. Hopefully you picked up some tips and techniques that will increase your success ratios this season. Remember that finding the right place to call coyotes is by far the biggest and most important part of the calling equation. Once this is accomplished do not forget that patience and practice both in the field and back at home during the off season play another intricate part in making you a well-rounded and proficient coyote caller. Not everything that I have mentioned in this article will work with your calling style but with a little patience and practice you might be surprised just how much of it will!