Went north for another try at calling in some yotes on Sunday. Scene was the usual cattle ranch, over 400 acres.
We give it the old college try, but no yotes came to the party. We certainly had lots of encouragement, with the recent bright moon and the breeding season coming on, the ranch manager said the yotes are running everywhere.
But the main problem is the DEEP snow. It’s almost impossible to do a full day of hunting because the snow is 20+ inches deep with a windblown crust on the top. Snowshoes work, but breaking the crust is a real energy sapper and then you make a lot of noise as well. We generally stuck to areas where we could walk on a snow machine trail or tractor road to minimize the deep-snow slogging.
A couple of observations that might help the preadator guys out there:
– There were VERY few coyote signs in the open woods and other “backcountry areas” with the snow being very deep. The coyote movement appears to be concentrated near the cattle and farm areas where the walking is easy and the birds and rabbits are gathering. Prime movement areas included on frozen creeks, snowmobile trails, and there were tracks and doo-doo everywhere just out on the county roads. Basically, like everyone else, the coyotes are looking for easy walking.
I think the key is going to be finding where the yotes are holing up for the day or intercepting them at night if you can night hunt.
– If I’m not mistken, we are entering the breeding season. We saw signs of blood spots along the trails and the ranch workers say they’ve seen males chasing females. I’m not knowledgeable about how this changes the game, but what I’m being told is the females are coming in heat.
– Be prepared! At the last minute, I remembered to throw a heavy duty steel shovel into my truck (in addition to the plastic folding one I always carry). Good thing, we had to dig the truck out after I slid off the crown on a pasture road where a drift had hidden the change in direction of the road.
Needless to say, this time of year you have to be ready for getting yourself out of jams out there. Tow ropes/chains/straps, shovels, tire chains, jacks, winch, whatever. Even on roads going to/from cattle yarding areas we had to be careful because the tractor’s wheelbase is wider than my SUV and the tractors leave a high hump in the middle that is easy to bottom out on.
Tough conditions this winter out there.
Grouse
