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?