Coyote Hunting Tips

Sure, you can kill a few coyotes and bobcats by simply heading to the woods and squealing on a rabbit distress call. But if you want to improve your game, here are a few tips and tricks to enhance your predator hunting success.

Setting Up For Coyote Hunting

Always set up for coyote hunting facing the area you believe the predators will come from, with the wind in your face. Coyotes will nearly always try to circle around and get downwind of the sound.

Dress For Success

Be sure to wear camouflage that blends in with the terrain and remain motionless. Make sure your predator hunting calls sound like you mean them. Put emotion into your predator calling. Remember that smaller prey animals have smaller lungs, so keep the individual squeals short.

Switch It Up

If you hunt the same area two days in a row, try something different on the second day. If you blew a rabbit squealer the first day, try a rodent squealer or a different type of rabbit squealer. The new Double Threat is one to try. It has two rabbit squealer reed systems instead of one, giving it a different sound.

Using Predator Hunting Calls

Bob Severe, one of Knight & Hale's predator hunting experts, uses coyote calls in association with prey-in-distress sounds. He loves the Lead Dawg, which you can convert from an open-reed coyote howler to a prey-in-distress call by turning around the endpiece. When in the open-reed position, the Lead Dawg makes the sound of a dominant female coyote howling and barking. Using it this way, other coyotes often respond and give away their locations, much like shock-gobbling in turkey hunting. Severe also barks on the Lead Dawg, then adjusts the call and goes right into a prey-in-distress call to mimic a coyote catching a rabbit.

You can do the same with several other Knight & Hale predator calls. The Ultimate Predator I call makes both a prey-in-distress sound and the barking and howling of a subordinate male coyote. By huffing sharply on the call, you can produce barks and howls, then work the call more gently to get the sound of a prey animal in distress. Or, try barking on the Ultimate Predator I, then switching immediately to the new Double Threat prey-in-distress call for a sound the predators have never heard.