I had a client out for 4 sets this morning. Unfortunately, he was running very late and we had to deal with a very sunny morning. In early mornings I try to target areas between hunting/feeding areas and bedding areas.
Our first set was a glimmer of hope. I started with a softer juvenile yote howl, and immediately had a small pack howling/barking at us from across a field. We never did get to see them. For about 5 minutes, we had them all fired up and howls echoing all around us. Each bark would get more faint and we knew they were heading directly away from us.
We finished a 1/2 hour there and moved on. I moved us about a mile to the other side of the field/marsh the pack we heard had gone into. A solid 45-50 minutes and no responders.
I relocated us to the same farm I had gone to last night in the god-forsaken wind and snow. With the calmer winds, and sun angle, I had to position us directly across and down hill from where I sat last night. We had a fantastic view of the intersecting fence rows across the field from us and easy viewing of everything in the wooded hillside. Just as we began to settle in, by chance, we saw a red fox on the upper field edge through the woods. I started on a hand rabbit call softly to get its attention. 4 or 5 seconds later, it stopped and just looked around. We held it’s attention for about 10 minutes, before it turned towards us. It very slowly meandered through the woods. Just like that, it vanished. Carl and I were stunned that it just went behind a tree, and never came out. There was no way it could have gotten out of that parcel of woods without us seeing it. So we finished out our set there with the e-caller and a scream’n rabbit. Nothing. In disbelief of that fox being able to out smart us, we took a walk up into the woods to see where the tracks lead off to. To our surprise, the tracks lead right to the tree the fox disappeared at….well maybe I should say she hid at.
You can’t see them in the pic, but she had two rabbits up in the hollow under this tree. Her belly must of been full and that gave me a better understanding of why she wanted to check us out, but didn’t commit to coming in for us.
We made one more set in another parcel of hardwoods along side a creek bottom. 40 to 45 minutes, and nothing responded. Called it a day.
Not every day is hitting the jackpot and having pack after pack show up to your calls. But the fun in what I do comes from the many different experience I get to enjoy. My client Carl, at the age of 55 had never gotten a fox, or seen one in the wild while hunting. So, this will be a fun one to remember. 
I had the yotes just a screaming last night… me and the wife are walking from the garage to the house… a few yotes are yipping… I let out a big HOWL and the woods around the house lights up with yotes !!! 
The wife starts running for the door, hollering at me as she goes 
