Desert Hunter

The perfect stand.

Almost a repeat from the first section with the addition of one thing. If you hunt solo and use an electronic caller, set the console 10 to 12 paces in front of you, no further, no closer. Anything within a 35 yard circle around the caller is certainly in range of well-patterned properly choked modern shotgun. There is no "perfect" stand. Ideally, I'd tell you to hunt any time. Drive into the wind, walk into the wind, call into the wind, and put the sun and an obstacle at your back. Stand in the shade. Let the shotgun hang at your side and rest your gun's muzzle on a stick or a rock. Relax. Real hunting is never ideal. Every stand is going to be a compromise of wind, sun, cover, shade, field-of-fire, visibility, and comfort.

Be quiet.

Turn off the truck's key alarms, door alarms, and seat belt alarms, if you can. Quit all talking and crack the doors before the truck stops. Grab your gear as quietly as you can and shut up. Don't talk on your way to a stand. Walk as softly and quietly as you can. If you hunt with a partner, work out hand signals. I even had the vibram lug soles removed from my favorite hunting boots and replaced with a softer lightweight line pattern sole that is quiet and leaves no heavy track.

No reflections allowed.

Stay in the shade if you wear glasses or sunglasses. Mind the reflection of the e-caller remote's lcd if you wear it on a lanyard around your neck.

Excuse the focus, but this is a great example of an unwanted reflection from a plastic label on the back of a caller remote control. The screen of the FoxPro TX-500 LCD reflects even more than this label from the back of a Minaska remote.

Stand up.

Standing up on level ground provides the best platform for visibility.  Standing also gives you the best, most consistent start, mount, swing, and the ability to absorb recoil. Hopefully everyone can walk 60 yards from the truck, stand up for 12 minutes, and walk back. But if standing is not an option, use plan S, the stool.

Stand Still.

Rotate your head no faster than the second hand on your watch. Many guys spin around at the first glimpse of fur and don't even realize they are doing it. Practice a few times rotating your head with the sweep of the second hand on your watch, and you will discover how painfully slow that is. When hunting, the only thing you can swivel quickly is your eyes. Too many stands are ruined when a novice is surprised by a coyote at close range and he jumps out of his skin. Surprise! There's a coyote standing just at the edge of your vision 5 yards away, and then it's gone the instant it detects movement. It takes patience and practice to move, mount, swing, and score the right way.

Call less.

Pause more. Save your breath or your batteries. Make a coyote look for it, not charge straight in. You'll get better, closer shots when the coyote is coming to silence. You might fool a coyote 500 yards away, but you never fool any but the youngest and dumbest coyote that your sounds are much more than curiosity noises when they're in shotgun range. You do not sound like its mother, brother, or dinner. Really, no matter how good you think your hand call or e-call is, it isn't.  A coyote makes his living locating sounds and scents.  Those big ears are fine-tuned locators and once the animal has pinpointed the sound, silence is the best call.

Call short stands.

Always use a timer.  Every cheap digital watch has one.  $7 at Wal-Mart. The golden minutes are 3-5 and longer stands give diminished returns. Stop at minute 12 unless your hunting areas are limited. Your time is better spent packing up, moving, and setting up again.  Hunt log data analysis reveals that this is true.  Longer stands will occasionally result in another kill, but shorter stands mean a lot more stands.  Walk out, call, walk in, and drive.  Two twelve minute stands a mile apart will always produce more than a single 30 minute stand.

Shoot first.

Close range shotgunning is a different kind of hunt.  In close cover, a coyote really can hear everything well.  It won't be spoofed long.  The exit is likely to be full speed. You won't get a "last look" over the shoulder either, like a rifleman often does when the coyote exits over the ridge.  Just gone. I took a novice hunting and the coyote popped out 15 yards away and was looking straight at him. The hunter froze. The coyote turned back into the brush. When I asked him why he didn't shoot, my novice said,"I was waiting for him to look away."  Lift the gun and shoot. Shoot first. Wait for nothing.

Don't move, but react.

Huh? Sound confusing. Let's clear this up. Stay hidden or still if you can; you've got a second or two to pick a shot if and only if the coyote isn't looking straight at you, but don't wait. Lift and shoot quickly. Close range coyotes won't stick around. They may charge a caller, but without some extreme scent elimination protocols, they'll charge straight out again. Sound confusing still? If your stand is set up properly, then the coyote is in range as soon as you see it.  It takes practice, experience, and skill, to know when to wait that extra second as it's approaching, when to squeak, and when to shoot.

Don't wait for the perfect shot.

Take moving targets. Shoot through the bushes. Swing through the body, fire at the nose, and follow through. The nose is the perfect lead. One pellet in the head, three in the neck, or five in the body are usually lethal.

Most shooters don't think of much hydrostatic shock being transmitted by buckshot the way it is with a bullet. One pellet in the head dropped this coyote immediately. It was bleeding out of both eyes, both ears, and the nose. That's shock!  By the way, two rounds of buckshot in the ass as it's running away 60-70 yards out, is a waste of ammunition.  Broadside is best.  Coming in, let it come.  Going away anywhere near 50 yards, let it go.

The e-caller second.

An e-caller is hard to beat, especially if you hunt solo. It works well as a coaxer to get the attention off of your exact location. E-callers can give you an extra second of time. If you set up as I describe here, you're only 12 yards away from the source of the sound. When a coyote pops out of the brush, a guy using a hand call must shoot immediately. With a hand call, chances are good the coyote is headed straight for you and it will see you at the same instant it breaks through cover. If the coyote is looking at the e-caller instead, a shotgunner has an extra second to shoot before the motion of lifting the shotgun is detected and the coyote bolts.

You can't shoot a double until you've shot the single.

That's the rule.  It sounds stupid, but on afterthought, profound.  It's a simple statement that makes the difference between a good stand and a great stand.  When multiple coyotes show up at once, it takes skill and practice to bring down more than one. Make the first shot count. The #1 priority is to kill ONE. Shoot again if you can, but focus on the first one. Multiples that come in together are like Whack-A-Mole. It's a mad scramble after the first shot. However, it's just as likely that a pack will not all come in together at exactly the same time. After a shot, reload at the first opportunity. More likely a successful double or triple will be taken a few seconds or even a few minutes apart from a dispersed hunting pack that arrives one or two at a time. Get ready. It is entirely possible to hammer three with three shots when they all arrive together. Remain vigilant until the stand is really over. Scoring doubles, triples, and more all depends on your choices, skill, experience, preparation, and a healthy dose of luck.

If you shoot and the coyote is DRT, hold your ground, reset the clock, and call 8 more minutes. If you shoot a second coyote, reset the clock again. The correlary to the rule is: You can't shoot a triple until you've shot a double. This tactic has resulted in a quad and 3 5-packs for me or my friends, all while hunting solo. Don't break a stand unless you absolutely must or until it's really over.  Keep calling.

If a shot coyote spins or a downed animal lifts its head, shoot again. If a coyote gets up and starts moving, break the stand and run after it immediately. A two-legged coyote can outrun most hunters. Make sure a coyote is dead.

These three coyotes came in one after the next from three different directions about a minute apart, probably all part of a dispersed hunting pack. They ignored the sound of gunfire and concentrated instead on the sound of distress. A triple taken with an O/U shotgun, or by any means, is worth bragging rights at any check-in.

Sounds for your e-caller.

The typical manufacturer's e-caller sounds are not edited very well.  With the trend being toward more and more proprietary products, it's gotten worse. Better sounds contain 15-20 second snippets of distress divided by 3-5 second pauses where the hunter can easily find the mute button and pause the caller without broadcasting unnatural clicks or pops.

There's a sound principle in physics and electronics supporting this proven fact.  Pausing a caller at the +/- peak of the sound wave causes the speaker's cone to snap to its center position.  Pop.

Pause calling works better.

Intermittent distress sounds work much better in thick cover. Play or blow one or two of those 15 second snippets and wait a while.  Really, wait one and half or two minutes before playing more sound. That isn't opinion. It's based on a lot of observation and experience.  Here are the reasons pause calling works better.

• A coyote coming to silence will also be looking around and starting and stopping, giving the shotgunner a better chance for a shot. A coyote makes a living locating a sound's source. They are experts at pinpointing and locating the sound's source at a distance. They do not need continuous sound to locate it.
• A coyote is also less likely to recognize that these sounds aren't really a meal or another coyote when it's listening for it and not listening to it. There is no way a hand call or e-call sounds like the real thing at close range. Don't fool yourself into thinking you're spoofing an educated coyote with the curious sounds we put out from a hand call or e-caller. You and the call are not that good.
• A paused electronic caller uses only a trickle of power and saves batteries. A paused hand caller can save his own breath and energy. I don't mind switching or charging battery packs on the fly, but why would anyone create the need to recharge a battery or wear himself out hand calling when it isn't needed.
• Some guys can hand call all day. I get tired, chapped lips, dehydrated, and I move around more when I hand call. I probably pause more than most with a handcall too.
• Finally, I get noise fatigue. Honestly, the screaming and screeching noises are as pleasant as dragging my nails on a chalk board. I strongly prefer hunting in comfortable relaxed silence.  A hand call is even louder on the caller's ears than an electronic call.