The Coyote Express

I had one more idea on the coyotes but I’m gonna start a new thread for it. For the sake of not making this first post too long to read….i’m just gonna throw some initial thoughts out there and then I’ll explain the thinking behind it in later posts as I get raked over the coals…..

BSK eluded to this years ago but I didn’t understand what he meant at the time…I think I do now. We humans have likely created a interstate highway system for coyotes that may exacerbate the problem is certain areas for certain properties. Have you ever noticed how some properties will constantly have coyotes on them while others close by don’t seem to ever have an issue or it be a rarity to see some??? I believe coyotes aren’t utilizing the landscape anywhere near evenly as you look across the bigger picture of things. They’re heavily focused on certain travel routes and dismissing areas that don’t provide the same ease of travel. Yes, food likely plays a role in it but I think what likely sets the stage for the way it all plays out are long…for the most part straight… runs of interior, firebreak, gas line, etc that link together in a chain to move the coyote efficiently across a large area….north to south….east to west…etc…Places with more fragmented chains or very few of these long clean runs will likely see less of an issue. Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying here….you very well may have firebreaks or an interior road….but if its fragmented off from anything linking it to a chain on either side when looking at the bigger picture then its not as efficient to them….especially the transient ones…..Keep in mind now that I’m not talking about a firebreak that links together in a square….Look at as if you’re just wanting to head north and link one clean run to another to another that way and you’ll get the idea.

Now what I’m about to say may not be simple but I think the theory may hold true and be very possible to accomplish. I think some folks could likely heavily reduce the impact they see from coyotes by redesigning the layout of their property or possibly creating some type of barriers in order to fragment any “interstate” that may be running through their place….breaking up the links in the chain and the long efficient runs. I’ll stop there for now

Aint much u can do for a big farm tho...other than kill em when u see em or trap

My neighbor to the north says he has more coyotes than deer. I rarely see a track. Not sure why that is, but you could be right. No interstates around though

Not sure what all that meant but I typically see more yotes the same place I see more animals of all kinds.

The coyote interstate is the power grid.

Let me give a quick example of something I’ve seen that’s pointing me in this direction and then I’m gonna call it until tomorrow. I’ve got more examples coming but this is just one slice of the pie.

In 14 years I’ve never had much a of coyote issue here at my place. I’ve always said that they just don’t pass through here for some reason and I don’t know why…Yet you can hear them all the time across the road. One side note I’ll get to more later is that I’ve also always had a chit load of does….Well, I have this old road from back whenever that runs through my place and it was grown over with crap to begin with. As I hinge cut and laid trees down when I first started making improvement… I just made it that much more of a clutter. A few years ago a lot of the trees and such were rotten and I decided I was gonna take my front end loader and clean it all to make a lane you could see down and what not. So I did. I’ve just now started realizing what happened but long story short….suddenly in the last few years I’ve started seeing many more coyotes utilizing my place than in the past….and this year I also saw a big decrease in does. Where would you guess I usually see the most coyote sign??

Yep….the old road I cleaned out. All I did was open up a closed off link that suddenly hooked it up to my neighbors land and paved the interstate to pass through my place. Due to some other variables about the landscape, I was fragmented off from it back when the old road was closed over with trees and growth. The only thing yotes could have done then would have been to weave there way through all kinds of hinge cuttings and undergrowth or through a yard…etc….A very inconvenient and inefficient mode of travel and hunting for them. I opened up the coyote express and I did it to myself….I’m about to see I can’t reverse that situation with some chainsaw work to close it back off. Luckily I'm still not in the greatest of situations for them because the chain doesn't link up to anything on the other side of my place much . It does link me to the end a long stretch through the neighbors place I referred to though and then some..... but fortunately it becomes a little inconvenient for them to pass on through my place to link up to the system across the road or anything else on my side or I'd have them much worse I believe. They still come through but not like I've seen in other situations I'll describe in more examples to come. If the chainsaw work is a succes then that tell me that the theory holds true….now how we apply that to other situations is where the brain storming comes in. There’s different possibilities here and likely some different approaches….I’m not saying they are all simple or feasible….but maybe possible. Coyote trapping isn’t an easy solution either and if you have one of these main routes across your place then it may not be a solution at all…..more on that later as well…..

Maybe I’m misunderstanding here, but your saying if you have road beds and fire breaks, then that’s why you have coyotes on your property?? You do realize that they are coyotes? They are like democrats on food stamps. They want Easy housing and food. Rats, rodents, rabbits and other stuff make up there main diet. They are easy and plentiful, deer fall in where ever they can. Guess your gonna gonna day coyotes kill healthy calves next.... I’m sure you have a lot of points in your reasoning, but roads and fire breaks isn’t one. Just my opinion

I think they know better than the deer when humans are hunting. I didn't see a coyote from the stand one time this year. I got about 1 on camera during hunting season proper.

Two weeks of the season being out and I am covered up in coyotes. Best I can tell they are hunting rabbits all through the night on my food plots. Just about every other night they show up, a group of 3, and they appear to be running all through a clear cut and around a large food plot all night. I don't get any deer being run around on camera, so I really think they are just focused on rabbits and possums.

Fawning season is when I think they focus on deer. I've found enough fawn bones and kill sites to know that.

I think I have read a study hypothesizing the idea that raptor species follow interstate systems on annual migrations because the fresh roadkill is abundant and easy to get to. If the study’s idea wasn’t out right proven, I think it still managed to show very strong correlations and patterns.

Path of least resistance.

This is actually where I planned on going to next with this anyways so this worked out well…..

In order to better understand what I’m talking about let’s look at how coyotes are using the interstate system to hunt and in doing so I’ll talk about a couple more example of properties I’ve seen that point me toward the original point I made. Now I’m not saying that this the only way coyotes obtain food but I think this is likely one of the big ones for many of them in our area. This is gonna be how I perceive to be happening….

I lease a few hundred acre property with a couple folks from my family. It’s a little more odd shaped than this but lets just call it a long rectangle running north to south. Starting at the southern end of the property there’s one main road that runs through the center of it all the way to the north end that’s probably a mile or more in length. It takes a few gradual “S” turns along the way but for the most part it’s a pretty clean and direct line running north to south. When we first got the land I went in during late summer to do some coyote trapping and see if couldn’t thin them down some because the main road was full of scat and tracks. It was a few days after some big rain had come through and went down to do some looking around to see where I might want to set traps. The road was still wet and you could easily follow tracks down it for pretty much the entire mile.

Well, I immediately picked up on a fresh set of tracks at the south end and just for curiosity sake I started following them down the road to see where the went to. It stayed on the road 500-600 yards kind of wandering back and forth from one side to the other and then suddenly I came to a spot where he stopped, slightly back-tracked himself, and then turned as if to go out a deer trail. He made it just inside the edge the cutover before turning back and continuing on down the road again….“Hmmm…what the heck was that about?” I thought to myself….and then I realized what he had done. From working my tracking dogs I recognized it…..He went back to check a scent that perked his interest.

As continued to follow his tracks all the way through our property and on out the other side it dawned on me what he doing from on a bigger scale. He’s simply running a long clean run across the landscape that’s taking him through prey rich areas and that crosses lots and lots of game trails along the way. He covered the better part of our property in one swoop. He’s playing a numbers game…..He’s hoping that if he crosses 100 game trails then maybe 1 or 2 will provide him with a meal. He’s not after the healthy rabbit or the healthy mouse…..he’s looking for the weak, the wounded, and the recently deceased.

So I went ahead and set up traps on the property and ended catching several coyotes off of it. The crazy thing about it was I caught 90% of them in one location. I trapped out the entire property from one spot on the far south end where the interstate started through our property. Now here’s the sucky part….I trapped until all sign was gone and still left the traps out for 3 or 4 days after all the sign was gone. However, when we came back 2-3 weeks later….the road was already filling back up with coyote sign.

Let me jump around a little right here and go to another property for comparison. I was tracking for a guy earlier this and we started having a conversation about coyotes and he was telling me that they had their property trapped for the first time back in August. I told him about trapping on our property and how it sucked the way filled right back in. This is in January keep in mind….he tells me that he has only seen or caught on camera one coyote on their property the entire deer season and there was pretty much no sign of them either. That was odd to me because I figured they would just fill back in at least somewhat similar to how they had done on our place. This made me start pondering over why there was such a difference and it became another slice in the pie that’s pointing me toward the difference being the coyote interstate running through our place. The hunter was likely fragmented off from such a system and the dogs they caught off of his place were likely the home range dogs that had taken residence over time. With no interstate running through his place….he didn’t have transient dogs constantly passing through to fill back in and take up residence as quickly.

Not only that but if you look at studies they show that roughly 25% of the dogs are transient all the time and roughly another 25% show signs of being both transient and home range. So if you have such a highway through your place then not only would you likely get the immigrants quickly filling back in….but you’re also likely to continually get the purely transient dogs continually coming through….a double whammy.

I’ll stop there and continue on later……..

I believe this one is a stretch, coyotes dont need roads.

This is not an “all or nothing” type scenario I’m presenting……I’m making the case that these runs make the situation worse and that it likely wouldn't be nearly as bad if you could shut them down somehow.

[quote=jwalker77]I believe this one is a stretch, coyotes dont need roads.[/quote
But it's the path of least resistance. That's the nut shell.

Exactly….but its even a little deeper than that…..it’s path of least resistance moving across the bigger landscape. Look at the numbers from the study I talked about. If that’s the case then it means that one third to one half of the population are constantly moving across the landscape….What are they using as means of travel?.....

I've always thought that yotes followed
the rabbit population.
And killing a coyote just makes room for another
one.

Before road systems I'm sure they traveled river and creek systems. May have even followed the indian trails when theys were following migratory animals.

Shutting down a yote travel route is near impossible without building a fence...they got trails thru the thickest cutovers u can imagine cuz that's where the food is

One thing to keep in mind in all of this is that we can’t just simply refer to it as “coyote” and look at them all with the same generalized concepts. You’ll have think deeper into it and look at how the coyote population itself is broken down into groups. Studies are showing us that part of the pop is transient, part are home range, and part show both. I figure the ones that show both really want to be a home range dog but are getting kicked on the road or dispering to a new home, etc…..Just look at the situation with the guy I tracked for. He likely had home range dogs on his place that likely used his roads, and field edges, and things we would expect within his area. However, his property likely didn’t layout in a way that linked it long range travel routes like I’m referring to. He was bordered by interstate on one side, main highway in another direction, and big river on a third side….so he was somewhat fragmented off from any long runs. That’s different than lets say a timber lease in sout Bullock Co where a dog might be able to link up to one road and firebreak after another for 20 miles. The guy who is fragmented off probably wont see the same influx of new coyotes like the guy who's linked into a 20+ mile chain. Also he likely won't see nearly as many coyotes even when he does have home range dogs on his place because he probably doesn't have the transient ones passing through very often either
This is just a guess....not saying its definite or anything.

Gonna have to go deeper than generalizations to understand whe

Yep and they gonna take a easy route traveling. That’s just common sense, not to “deep physiological thought”. But you have to have food for the coyotes to live and thrive. Dead animals is number 1 on there list hence the abundance on farms. Cattle, chicken, hogs and any other kind of farm, they smell dead flesh and it’s a dinner bell. Look at the lure and bait you use in traps... it’s dead stinking animal parts, not deer blood. I would agree they’ll trail up wounded deer if getting the chance, Easy meal that they can track easily. 90% of coyotes I kill on the farm are when we are calving, not because they wanna eat baby calves, but eat there chit! That nasty, stinking, protein filled, yellow colostrum chit. They love it and it’s easy to eat.

Last thing I’ll say on this subject, no matter what kind of “spin or deep thought” process you put on it. Coyotes are wild animals that eat easy meals, and/or eat what they have to in order to survive. All this roads and interstate talk on how they pick the places they stay and live because of the road system is horsechit. A coyote will live wherever and however he needs to to survive. It’s that simple. All this is my opinion not facts, I’m just a dumb ole farmer. So......

I think we could come up with a way to shut down a road just like the one that passes through the land I lease. If I can trap them all out from one spot then surely we can target that same spot with some other remedy. I'm thinking that the coyotes are following each others scent somehow to recognize these routes as they travel long ranges....something to that effect. If you could cut it off then you would eventually route them to another run somewhere else I suppose. Its not gonna feasible for everyone but one thing we might do in the future is to take this into consideration when designing a road system and layout of a private property. Instead of having one long north to south road.....f the land I leased had short individual roads that enter the property from the east and stopped before they linked up to others on the west side....I think that would change the situation. Now is that feasible I dont know....but I'm more less looking at is the concept possible....

I don't even understand the point we are tying to make. Predators have used roadways and other terrain features for as long as we have recorded history and probably for thousands of years before that. Do they travel roads... hail yea. They always have. I have trapped Coyotes my entire life and I can assure you of this - they don't do anything you think they do.... because of anything you think you know.

The reason we have more coyotes today vs 50 or 100 years ago is because they have gradually expanded Eastward since 1900. European settlers had opened up much of the Eastern landscape for agriculture by that time. These same settlers also eliminated nearly all their natural predators including eastern wolves and mountain lions. The expansion picked up momentum about 1900 and coyotes have steadily spread for the last 120 years

There are a bunch of studies on this stuff including those conducted by the Government. The coyote's most admirable trait is adaptability. As decades have come and gone they have adapted to life in the non-agricultural forests and pine plantations and suburban areas.

We have more coyotes today than 50 or 100 years ago because people don't take the time to kill them. There is no incentive to kill them their fur is worthless in today's market. People don't live on small farms much however there is has been renewed interest in the last decade it is nowhere near as widespread as it was 100 years ago.

Coyotes disperse just like any other animal. If there is available habitat to support one... then you will soon have one.

If you want to read about how smart a coyote is read a book called "The Clever Coyote" by Stanley Young. It is probably the best book about coyote behavior available and is a scientific discussion of their intelligence and behavior... not a how to trap them book. If you want to catch them it is a must read. You gotta understand your quarry. In my estimation a coyote is smarter than some people that post on this very board.

If you want to kill a few read a book called "Hoofbeats of a Wolfer"

I'm not referring to anything about coyote history and how the numbers have grown. I'm specifically talking about how they currently distribute themselves across the landscape. It's not at all being done evenly and food is not the only factor at play. I was talking to a buddy of mine that has a few hundred acres about coordinating some trapping efforts in our neighborhood recently. He tells me he'd like to but really doesn't think he'd do any good because he rarely sees any on his place or gets pics of them....hardly any sign of then being there other than occasionally. Why is that? It's not completely about food because he has potential food sources. I believe it because of the inefficiency in the way the landscape sets ups. There is not a lot that links him to any larger chain of easy travel across large distances. There's also a small high fence in the interior that used to be an orchard growers. It butts up to the big creek and likely helps fragment the landscape to make it even more inefficient for them. If it takes them crossing 100 trails to find 1 meal then they want to do it in as easy and efficient way as possible....not travel way out the way to check 5

Let me present it this way....if a large % of the population are either transient or partially transient then that means there's constantly dogs roaming the landscape....So do they just roam randomly?? I say no....because if they did then everyone would likely see a similar influx or passing through of roaming dogs. So why then do properties like mine and my buddies rarely see any? I think its because they're traveling specific pathways and not just randomly roaming. These specific pathways are taking them across the broader landscape. I also think its possible to shut one off. If I opened one up here at my place then I can shut it off again,....and if I can do it then that means that others can as well.....to what extent and scale is the question

Ive seen coyotes walk deer trails, roads, across rock ridges, straight up and down hills and everywhere else. Yes im sure they, like every other animal in the world including us, will take the easiest route. That being said the existance of roads or "easy paths" has nothing to do with if there are coyotes around. Then again this theory describes everywhere on earth where theres life. Whereever theres animals big enough to make a trail there will be trails and all the animals will use the trails. There were plenty of coyotes around before we had made any roads or trails right? I would venture to say it never crosses a coyotes mind whether or not theres any roads around when hes picking a place to live. 100% food availability and safety.

Look at you coming in here making rational common sense talk. But that can’t be right, cause it’s “deeper than that” it’s more physiological and brain power needed than that. It can’t just be that simple, nothing ever can with some people. They have to take a subject and rub it around it to dirt so they can hear there self talk i guess. Some reason or another... 🤷🏿‍♂️🤷🏿‍♂️ 🤣🤣

Good post by the way. 👍🏻👍🏻

If a trapper were to go to many of the hunting properties where aldeer members hunt in order to set traps….Where would they most likely set them on the vast majority of properties?....Would it not be on the road systems?...Why would set up there? Would it not be because of ease of travel and high concentration of target animals? Is that not the very same reason the coyote is using it? Using the same logic as what you just said above about how smart and adaptable the coyote is…..why is it then unreasonable to believe that he has figured out how to efficiently work the landscape to his benefit using road systems and such as main travel corridors instead of inefficiently just wandering around hoping to come up on a meal?

Coyotes prefer open grassland like their native territory out West. So I am a big believer that they love powerlines, gas lines, fields etc. Clearcutting attracts them like no other. A clearcut is like a Kansas prairie to a coyote in the first few years. They definitely love to walk logging trails as they roam and mark their territory. So could you in theory have coyotes avoid traveling through a 50 acre property as frequently as they might otherwise if you allowed your internal road system to grow up and cut it off from a powerline near the property? Maybe, but then you have no roads to use yourself and it is not going to lower the coyote population in the general area or change your deer herd on a small plot of land.

So yes, humans have created better habitat in the east for coyotes with all our clearcuts, fallow fields, powerlines etc, but I disagree there is any meaningful thing we can do to reverse this that would affect coyote populations.

Taking the property I lease as an example here....we've got approx 400 acres in a long rectangle with a main interior north south road for a mile that gets heavily used. Lets say that we could shut down travel on that road. Do you feel like it wouldn't have any impact on the property? I've read a study or experiment.... I'm trying to recall where....but it suggested that does recognized places that were absent of coyotes and preferred them....I've also read about coyotes impacting deer behavior in a very similar way as hunting pressure. Would these not be some valid reasons to prevent them from using your property even if it's a small parcel regardless of the surrounding population? I believe I've seen both of these play out on my small property for the good and the bad. I've seen a big change in doe numbers and behavior.

Now I'm just throwing out ideas here but a couple of ways that may very well be feasible to shut a road system of they worked might be through some kind of deterrents either visually or with scent. Now I dont know what those might be or if there is anything....but if you could place something visually and/or with scent out every so often that would cause the dogs to divert out of the road and detour around....it might possibly break up the efficiency of working g such a road and cause them to look elsewhere.

How are y'all saying that transient coyotes move across the landscape? Are yall claiming it to be completely random as if they're just wandering around?

Long lines of travel. Nothing new here. Ed Schneider covers it in his book One Square Mile. Mark June and others cover it in their books and videos.

I’m pretty sure BSK talked about this years ago on here to some extent. The “new” part I’m throwing out there I guess you could ay….and this may have very well been experimented with already and not really be new at all...…..is the idea that we might possibly do something about it to help our situations. I’ve been seeing pretty much the same thing for the last decade here at my place. Very few coyotes ever come through here but I always hear them across the road…..doe groups usually move in more and more as winter progresses and I’m typically pretty stacked by January. I’ve only ever shot 1-2 does in 14 years here so they’ve always been very at ease in the past. I’ve had a big change recently though. I opened the road up and coyotes started using it. There was a big uptick in road kills too probably doubling any previous years….that drew in more coyotes to find the new clean road. Now I have less than half of the does I did just a couple years ago and they’ve gone from nearly tame to so skiddish some days that they barely stick their heads down the eat when they're in the field. Every doe in the group is on constant alert and ready to head out of the field at the slightest sign of something wrong. I'm gonna take the road out of commission again and just see what happens. I need something to experiment with anyways....Hmmmm.

I see tracks and crap where they will travel the roads during the night but where the hell do they go. Out of all the 20 something years I’ve been hunting I bet I can count on both hands how many coyotes I’ve killed. The damn things are smart. I just wonder where the go during the day or where they live. You can walk through the woods all day and never jump a coyote. If they use roads as interstates where the heck do they live at. Sometimes when they fire up at dark you will hear a dozen or so and you would think that in packs like that you would be able to kill them all or at least see a lot together but you never do.

Its possible their numbers aren't as high as we think they are. I saw and killed the first one on our place this season. A large male. When they sound off at night you would think there were a hundred of them. Probably could trap a few more. Burn piles or landings are were they may have dens.

I can fill up 2 hands worth every other year....and then I got 2 people that hunt em and fill up 2 hands each every year...they around me for sure

I'd bet that most of us over estimate how many they're are on any one particular piece of property. When I started trapping it gave me a more realistic idea and it was definitely less than I had previously envisioned. I don't think it takes a lot of them to have an impact though. So its a situation where if you can avoid having a handful of them on your place....that might be all that needed to see a big difference. That's why I'm curious about this idea of preventing them from using the road systems and such....a tweak here or there could really change the game for you if we could figure out a way to do it.

As far as where they go during the day.....I don't know for sure but we were tracking toward the end of the season and jumped a fox up that was bedded in some just plain old thinned pine understory type cover and you would have stepped all over him had Shelby not stuck her nose right into the little patch of stuff he was tucked into. He shot out from under my feet nearly. I bet coyotes aren't a whole lot different. They probably just tuck into some cover like that or have a den somewhere.

Not everyone does this but there’s always folks who are quick to jump into the conversation with “what you don’t realize is”…or…”you don’t what you’re talking about”….etc..etc…..Even though from the very start I said this was just a theory and idea. I’ve had so much egg thrown on me from suggesting that there might be more than one way to plant a plot that those comments really don’t even phase me at this point. What does bug the chit out of me though is when someone jumps in with those comments and opinions and then ducks out without ever addressing the questions I pose to them in rebuttal. If someone questions my thinking, I try to back it up with whatever reasoning is behind it…..out don’t go missing in action though. I’m still waiting on the answer to shooting out the good genes….

Here you go again with another thread you start and then ramble on and on begging folks to argue with you.

I'm going to feed the beast 257.


I didn't read everything between my last post but the answer to your question is that coyotes in the setting you are describing predominately feed upon rodents. If I were to pull up at your deer lease my experience is that I'm going to catch more off a mice based bait than anything else. 100% of the time every time. Because that is their primary diet. There are higher populations of rodents along the roadways than there are spread out in the interior woods. There are of course some rodents that live in the pine thicket but you would probably have better luck finding those near rocks or a bush pile, etc. Not necessarily scattered across the forest floor. They will pick off something dead but are hoping for a rabbit and we know a rabbit likes grass. They don't catch squirrels or chipmunks but I can promise they will eat either. Chipmunks are some of my favorite bait.

Rodents, in particular voles we call field mice make their nests in grasses. Those grasses in a woodland are present in clearings and openings. The connecting roads have grasses on them typically. There is a connection of all the grassy areas (a.k.a. food plots, small fields, etc.) in a road system.

In areas where there are few openings (no food plots or small plots) my opinion is they hit the roads systems that much harder and they travel a lot further each night.. Always seem to be fewer coyotes around. The roadways in a woodland are dual use they are for hunting and traveling between better hunting areas. No fields in close proximity means more miles on the roads. To a degree. They will travel through the woods but they are going somewhere maybe a cow pasture 1/2 a mile away. So these are some big generalizations I am making here. Let's be fair about it.

So to answer you question given the diet of rodents I believe that a property with no roads and no food plots would typically have less coyotes hanging around it. Less rodents. They might eat acorns but I don't think I'm going to bait my trap with any.

That's my best attempt at explaining something that I consider common sense.

I’ve got a couple of red dirt logging roads that are cut right through the middle of the property. At the top of the hill I have a plot that this road runs right through the middle, half the plot to the east and other to the west. Planted Longleafs for 50 + acres all around. It’s a beautiful set up. BUT, the road is SLAM full of coyote tracts. That field gets hunted 5 times a year tops. The deer are the spookiest on this plot. I think it’s because it is a coyote hwy. I have one other field that is somewhat similar. You can see where the coyotes scat and piss and scratch on the ground right before they enter the field, I guess to mark their territory. The deer use both of these fields the least and are spooky on both. Both hill top fields. Hunting pressure is basically nonexistent. Turkey don’t seem to mind it one bit and these two fields are my best Turkey plots. Go figure.

sounds like a scent problem.... Maybe hunting the plot in the wrong wind?

All of that just seems to validate the things I've said....does it not? Am I missing something? Not meaning that in a smart arse way.


Question from left field...….Hypothetically speaking, if a coyote was trotting along down one of these roadways and suddenly he came up on a spot where a true wolf had marked his territory. How do you think the coyote would react to it?

Back when most everyone used game cameras that had a white flash on them.....Does anyone remember coyotes seeming to be spooked by the flash....or did they not seem to pay too much attention?

Most deer and coyotes seem to notice my infrared cameras much more than they ever did my flash cameras.

Wut the hell?

No worries bclc just been hanging out with hunterbuck to much lately 😃

Dogs are dogs. Wolves, coyotes, mutts, etc. if they smell another dog they either want to piss on it or hump it. I was just answering professor CNC’s hypothetical situation.

I thought wolves were the dominant predator and took over areas where they overlapped with yotes?? I may be pulling that one out of my arse but I thought I remembered something to that effect.I bet you there is some simplistic way of diverting coyotes off of your road system. Its gonna likely have to be something that’s spaced every few hundred yards or so to keep being an impediment ….but if we could ever figure out how I really believe it would be a game changer for a property that is seeing lots of coyotes due to their roads being so heavily used.

What about something emitting a sound at a certain frequency that the yotes didn’t like? Or something that could be spread across the road that would mess with their nose and prevent them from being able to hunt the road effectively? I had prison guard I tracked for tell me that he was in charge of the hounds they used to man track escapees and that the railroad tracks was the worst place to try and follow someone with dog because the creosote “burnt their nose up” whatever that means……The idea behind it though could be used possibly. I wonder if the state would mind if I trapped a few and penned them up to conduct some studies??

Dog whistle?

I’ve got one other idea and before I shut down the old road bed I think I might try to do some testing with it. It may be end up being a complete flop but you never know if you don’t try it. If it did work it would be the most simple and feasible to implement

I was reading that coyotes basically see in two color shades….yellow and blue. What I’m not real sure about is if they’re able to distinguish the intensity of those colors or if everything is seen in the same bland shade of color. How they perceive it at night would be the important part. The idea is to take two signs maybe about twice the size of a “vote for me” sign you see on the side of the road….maybe a little bigger….and create a certain design on each one using intense shades of yellow and blue. Then take and put the signs out on either side of the road no wider than you just have to so that the coyote feels like he’s passing between the two signs. Place where the road narrows down and gets thick on either side would probably best so that there’s less potential to just skirt around it..

I’m trying to remember where I saw this but it seems like I remember something similar to this being used in a garden and was supposed to replicate an owl maybe….It was more like an abstract owl though. I’m wondering if there is some pattern of those colors that the coyote would perceive in a threatening way or be like sensory overload. Coyotes are notorious for being wary of a trap so I’m also trying to use that to my advantage here as well and make him think twice about passing through. I’ve got to some more reading and see if I can’t find out a little more about how they perceive colors and such….but I think the first thing I may try is a few just plain horizontal lines of intense yellow and blue. Now this is just pulling ideas out of nowhere and may be way off base but I read that they don’t see in great detail so I thought that maybe the intense lines running in opposite direction from his line of travel down the road may mess with his ability to see past them to where the road continues. Ehhhh…who knows. I’ll put my camera out on video mode to monitor what happens. What’ll likely end up happing is I’ll go back to check on it and they’ll be a big pile of coyote chit laying right in front it ….just par for the course with experimenting.

I’m getting ready to set this experiment up in the next few days. I’ve got a little bit of a different idea for the signs on the first run. I’m just gonna go with solid bright yellow I think…..but I’m gonna go back and put a second coating over it of glow in the dark paint. I read that coyotes are able to pick up light at night much better than human eyes. So in theory, the yellow glow in the dark signs on either side of the road should really stand out to a coyote. I don’t know if they’ll perceive it as two lights or not but that’s sorta what I’m going for. Having to pass between the two lights is what I’m hoping is too much for him and it turns him around or makes him detour.

First thing I’m gonna do is just put the camera out and maybe put out a little bit of bait to make sure I’ve got some willing test subjects and to make sure the camera location isn't spooking them so that later on I can say it was the signs that were the difference. I know this probably seems crazy or absurd but so have other ideas I’ve had…

@CNC.....I was curious to hear about the outcome of your experiment? For the record I did read all the way through each comment and I enjoyed the read. But I enjoy reading and can tell you're a deep thinker and possibly try and engage someone beyond surface level talk.

I haven't done it yet but I still plan to.....I've been doing a bunch of remodeling on my house and its just taking longer to get finished up than I anticipated. I've been down in the dumps too over my lab getting killed and just haven't given the experiment a whole lot of thought lately. I'm getting back to myself now though and I'm definitely gonna try some stuff with the yotes eventually. I'd love for other folks to get involved as well with doing an experiment such as this. I really think there's something to it. There was another thread about the same time as this one where I was discussing some of the stuff I've seen out of yotes while tracking wounded deer. I'll see if I can find it and bump it to the top. You might be interested in reading some of that stuff as well.

Tensaw River......the other thread I was referring to is the one on killing does by Cal....page 1 is where I was talking about my observations on coyotes through blood tracking with dogs

I sent 4 down range at about 500 yards yesterday with an AR. Three were him running. Never connected but came close. Bout half grown.

I hate to see them in packs.....It may just sound like a common sense I suppose but I think the packs are putting a whole lot more pressure on the deer than the single dogs.....I think they are a lot more apt to target weak and wounded deer when they're in packs.

I got to say I believe there is a little something to your thoughts. I run coyotes with dogs quite a bit. When you get to pressuring a coyote they’ll hit a road, fire break, power line or fence row and leave out. Most of the time they run right out from under a dog. I know for a fact they utilize the path of least resistance

Sorry for the late reply, I read the thread and was very interesting to read. I too feel as the many posters there. I may comeback later and add more as I've just gotten home from a 12hr shift...

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.....I just put my trail camera out on the old road bed this afternoon. I didn't see any fresh scat but with all the berries I have getting ripe some may move in. They used to hammer my wild plums when they dropped....Drought got them a few years ago though. I'm gonna put some bait in front of the camera as well and see if I can get a regular test subject passing through

Let me say upfront that any of this may be right, wrong, or a little of both….I’m not claiming it’s a sure thing just some thoughts and theories……

I think a lot of this behavior has been something that they’ve learned over time and things have been constantly changing as far as their impact is concerned…..A lot of trackers train their new pups by letting them run in behind their experienced dogs…..Dogs learn way faster from other dogs than they do from humans….they pick up on a lot…..I imagine its likely the same with yotes….They adapt and learn different behaviors over time that helps them survive and then that behavior gets taught to the pups and other dogs….Survival of the fittest is probably helping to bring about the change at the same time as the ones who learn these “new skills” first are able to outcompete the others. …..I think bringing down the weak and wounded deer by pushing them around until they wear down is probably something that has been gradually becoming more and more prevalent over the last decade and may still be in the process of changing or evolving throughout the larger population. I would guess that it would be most prevalent in home range yotes that run in packs…..They’re passing the skill down to younger dogs. I’m gonna guess that its not something they’re born instinctively knowing how to do. I do think there are some things we can do to off set some of their impacts though and in the future it may be something that sets your property apart from others and makes it a hot spot. Figuring out how to shut down these main travel routes would be one big one…..and the other would be trapping enough to not let them form long lasting packs that call your place home. I imagine they put a lot of stress on the deer herd and may have a dramatic impact on deer behavior. I bet the longer a pack stays together using this technique of targeting the weak and wounded….the more efficient and refined they become. You surely wouldn’t want multiple generations staying on your place honing it on in……New dogs will always migrate in but I bet young dogs running by themselves would not have nearly the same impact as older dogs running in packs.

Got a little coyote experiment underway......I had my pear trees start dropping fruit a couple weeks ago and it didn't take long for the yotes to show up. From the sounds of it there are 5 or 6 of them....maybe more.....It's not the most ideal spot to do the road experiment I was wanting to do but it's a start on just seeing how they react.....I .made up two large signs about like the campaign signs you see on the side of the road. Both are painted neon yellow with a big dog and "X" across the middle. I'll take a pic later. I put them out right where the yotes are coming into the orchard hitting the first pear to start dropping. So far it's been out 3 days and I haven't got a single pic. I walk the dogs through this area about daily so they were already smelling me in the area. I'm not sure if the signs are spooking them but it's a promising start. At least one didnt walk out the first night and pee on the sign or take a poop in front of the camera. We'll see how long that lasts

Well....I'm by no means drawing any definitive conclusions from one little test but it is what it is.......the coyotes have completely disappeared for some reason. I haven't heard them, got pics of them, and Otis has stopped barking at them at night. It may just be coincidence or something else that triggered the change....I'm not sure.....but I think its well worth continuing to test this idea out and see what happens. I feel pretty sure that it wasn't simply my presence and scent that did it because I had been taking the dogs by there every day and letting them sniff around. There's still pears dropping like crazy too.....To be continued

Covid.