I'm sure most will say I'm wrong or crazy but I'm still not convinced that yotes kill that many deer. We have a pretty big coyote population, more than I like and a lot more than 10 years ago, but that being said I've only seen signs of one deer that appeared to have been killed by a coyote, in 25 years of hunting our land. Further more, we also saw a very large number of fawns this year, more than ever before...probably one fawn for every doe on average. So with such a healthy coyote population it would seem that we would see more sign of fawns being killed through either a carcass or by low fawn numbers.

Along the same lines I did get to watch something pretty cool this year. Early January I was watching 2 bucks chasing several does, about 500 yds below me in the bottom in a sage grass field. After about 30 minutes I noticed 3 yotes running in. It seemed to bother the deer just a small amount for just a few seconds and then the bucks continued to chase the does around. Two of the yotes left and one sat down in the sun for 30 minutes or so and just watched the deer running around. The doe walked to with in 20 yds of the yote several times, both knew the other was there and neither seemed to care about the other. So although this was just one experience on one morning it gave me even more reason to believe that a coyote will not spend it's energy trying to kill a deer unless there is no other food around. I still kill em any time I get a chance cause they do kill quail and poults and probably a fawns every now and again but I think our yotes live off of rabbits for the most part.