By Mark T. McDonald Wildlife Biologist
I am 67 years old and shot my first coyote two days before my 12th birthday. Predator calling has been a lifelong past-time and has brought much joy, excitement and comradeship with fellow hunters, photographers and wildlife enthusiasts. During this time, I have used and misused just about every commercial call or calling machine that has been on the market. I have had great results, poor results, and a few comedy acts with these marketed calls. In this article I will share some of the stories behind these products.
It may surprise a lot of predator calling competitors, but I usually don’t bring a call or device with me to the woods. I simply use my hand and mouth to mimic a cottontail squeal, a jackrabbit squeal, a yellow shafted flicker distress call, coyote pup, fox pup, and rat squeal. In my lifetime, I’ve called in and killed hundreds of coyotes, fox, bobcats, and raccoons without using commercial calls.
I have used thermal and night vision, super Q-beam spotlights, and I’ve called with no light at all using only the moonlight. I’ve hiked for hours between locations with no artificial light.
I have called in the desert in Old and New Mexico, in rivers, in mountains in Alaska, in the Ozarks in Arkansas, in West Texas, in East Texas, Louisiana, the prairies of Nebraska, even in Italy and France. Calling predators has been fun, but the friendship, and laughter over unforeseen failures has been even more fun. Let’s get started as I share with you folks some of my experiences, techniques, and lessons learned the hard way.
My first coyote was killed when I was almost 12 years old. My dad dropped me off on an old abandoned railroad track to hunt squirrels on 1500 acres of Post Oak Savannah habitat. He instructed me to meet him back at the county road about dark. Then, he drove off to deliver my three brothers to different hunting locations, and pick a spot for himself. I was equipped with a 12 gauge bolt-action shotgun that my grandfather took from a German soldier in WWII. I had three cheap #8 K-Mart shot shells. My dad’s orders were to bring in three squirrels or three unused shells. I had other plans because I had with me a “Weems All-Call” predator call. I bought the call and three voice inserts at a local hardware store.
I walked down the abandoned railroad tracks until I found a good coyote trail coming out of the post oak forest, across a blue stem prairie grass meadow, a briar patch, and then crossing the railroad track at a 90 degree angle. I got set up and started off squalling (too loudly) with a cottontail distress squall, just as the instructions said to. I then waited quietly while counting to four hundred. I replaced the cottontail rabbit sound with the “squeaker” insert. The dirt bank against the railroad was about as high as I was, so I could only see about six inches above the trail and four feet below the the grass tops. Five coyotes approached at about 30 miles per hour! One jumped right over me, and the other four flipped and turned. I shot the second coyote in the face with bird shot at about twenty feet. He was injured badly but still alive. The next shell in my gun had jammed, so I ran after him on foot. I tackled my first coyote that day. It was almost dark, and the other four stood back and booger-barked as I fought the injured one until he died.
My four foot eleven inch, one hundred pound frame threw the thirty pound coyote over one shoulder and headed down the tracks, in the pitch dark with a jammed shotgun. I walked five miles back to the road with coyotes howling all around me.
I got back to my dad and brothers, and dad said, “I heard those coyotes booger-barking and I was worried about you. I see you got one of them. Why were they acting like that?” I answered, “Daddy, I was calling them.” That day, I fell in love with predator calling. I tanned the hide and made a poncho from that coyote with the face, feet and tail still on it. I wore it all year in the sixth grade. I was hooked on calling from that point on.
Once in high school, my friends and I called predators every weekend at my parents’ farm in Alba, Texas. I was friends with Johnny Stewart who had a really good set of cassette tapes of virtually anything from a cow, owl, mountain lion, bobcat, fox, coyote, and a multitude of animals in distress. I had one of each of Johnny’s calls. As teenagers, we played our predator calls just like we did our music … LOUD! Loud enough to scare away every predator and human for miles. We couldn’t figure out why we weren’t having any luck calling in coyotes. We knew there were plenty around the area, but they wouldn’t come in. One day, I got the idea to set up on a pipe line right-of-way a mile away from where my friends were calling. That day, I shot coyotes leaving the area. That day, I learned what loud calling does and will always do. Loud calling drives away coyotes.
Burnham Brothers made a good hand held call and by my senior year, my friends and I had learned how to coax coyotes in close. We had to get them in close because we hunted with shotguns. One night, while calling quietly in a river bottom, a Great Horned owl swooped down and snatched my cowboy hat off my head and tried to fly away with it. We unloaded on the hat and somehow missed the owl. I wore that buckshot damaged hat for years.
Early one morning, we were calling grey fox near Dallas. We were camouflaged, and never spoke during calling sessions. We would slowly tap each other and point if we saw or heard anything. I thought my friend tapped me on the shoulder and looked toward him, just as he too thought I tapped him and looked at me. What we saw was a grey fox that had eased up from behind us and had a foot on each of us! He took off and neither of us were able to fire a shot.
When I was in my my twenties and bobcat furs were worth $75.00 to $150.00 each, I learned to call bobcats. I hunted them with a .22 rifle so as not to damage the hide. Bobcats will come in close as long as they don’t see anything suspicious like your hands move or eyes blink. You should call slowly and at a low volume for bobcats, with a lot of quiet time between sounds. The money from bobcat pelts helped pay my tuition at Texas A&M.
One error I learned early on about calling coyotes was scent related. You should always bathe in unscented soap and wear clean clothes when calling coyotes. No perfume, cologne, body odor, cigarette smoke, tobacco, beer, etc. No beans the night before a hunt! You can use skunk essence, coyote or fox urine, or even deer lure, but put it near you not on you. When I started being squeaky clean, I began having a much better success rate.
Several times in my life, I’ve called packs of coyotes within ten feet of me. Once, while hunting in a blackberry patch, I had to kick the first coyote because he was too close to reach him with my long-Tom shotgun. I shot that coyote at twenty-five feet, the next at seventy-five and the third at a hundred-fifty feet. I was wearing clean camo clothing, camo makeup, had coyote urine and a rabbit tied to a small tree at my feet. I later told that story to a friend, Marvin Tanzey Jr. He didn’t believe me. He was a good predator caller and deer hunter. One month later, I was in the woods before daylight calling using my hand squeak. My shotgun had a broken ejector, so I carried a length of switch cane to knock the shells out after each shot. I called in a pack of coyotes but knew if I didn’t get them in close I’d only get one. I shot the first coyote at ten feet, knocked the empty shell out, dropped another in and got the second at fifty yards, then one more. The others got away. Then, in a tree nearby, I heard laughter. Marvin Tanzey Jr was in a tree stand nearby and watched the entire show. He said he would now believe ANYTHING.
In East Texas, Louisiana, or similar terrain, if you want to call coyotes in close, call from a deer stand, or on the ground sitting back-to-back with a friend, in early morning or late evening near a thicket. Never try to call coyotes across an open field unless in darkness with no wind.
I hope this encourages you to try your hand at calling predators. It is fun, exciting, and helps ground nesting birds, rabbits, ducks and deer population. With fur prices down, the predator population is out of control. Studies show the average three year old coyote is responsible for the death of seven deer per year, not including fawns. Coyotes routinely kill sheep, goats, chickens, calves, and other livestock. We haven’t even touched on the house cats and pet dogs that succumb to predators each year. Crops of watermelons are ruined each season by coyotes. Their destruction is immeasurable.
Female coyotes can raise six to twelve pups each year. As anti-hunting and anti-trapping movements grow, due mostly to poorly educated activists in our major cities, so do the the habituated behavior problems grow in our wild animal populations that soon lose fear of man. According to the quarterly scientific report by the Berryman Institute on human-wildlife conflicts; “ increased attacks on humans, pets and children have occurred in California and major cities, and parks where hunting and trapping are illegal … Over 138 unprovoked attacks, not related to rabies, in the last ten years. It is scientifically necessary to stop this habituated behavior by control methods or we will suffer more human injuries and deaths nationwide in the future.”
May Our Heavenly Father bless you all, and happy hunting.
