Cross-Country Coyote Tactics

I get a great deal of pride and pleasure from leaving the hunting masses behind – hiking until my truck is a speck on the horizon – when hunting the South Dakota grasslands for prairie grouse each fall.

- Gordy J. Krahn

Pushing through sections of unproductive acreage doesn’t bother me a bit, if it means a chance at those unmolested coveys that hide out in the far reaches of their home range. If I’m fortunate enough to fill my three-bird limit in the morning, I do the same toward evening after swapping scattergun for rifle and chasing fur instead of feathers. It stands to reason that upland bird hunting activity not only pushes the grouse back off the roads but also has the same effect on gun-shy, public-ground coyotes.

Predators, especially coyotes, acclimate to human intrusion by avoiding it – seeking remote areas where encounters are rare, and by doing most of their hunting during the night. Coyotes that hang out too close to public roads, ranches and farms don’t survive long enough to pass on their idiot genes. That’s why hunting the outback – burning up some petrol and boot leather – puts hunters in a position to hunt coyotes that are more plentiful and often more relaxed.

The formula for success is simple. Find those secluded honey holes where coyotes can go about their business unmolested, sneak in and set up, catch them with their guard down and drop the hammer. One method requires getting out on foot and hiking to the horizon, like I do when hunting the grasslands or other huge tracts of public land and expansive private ranches out West, or large wildlife management areas and frozen waterways on my home turf in the North. Another is to find dim two-tracks that wind through promising real estate and put your feet to work operating the clutch and gas pedal of a favorite hunting rig, stopping every half-mile or so to call. Also, I like hunting the outer parameters of smaller public holdings, attempting to draw coyotes in from surrounding private land, effectively turning hundreds of acres into thousands.