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[Larry the Gun Guy]

News Flash: The state of Utah still has a bounty on coyotes of $50 a head, $50!

https://wildlife.utah.gov/predator-control-program.html

When I was in college in the late 70s in Idaho I made extra money shooting them at $35 each, just dead, sold to the skinners.

When people say coyotes will eat anything, I've seen them eating honey dew melons in fields in central California.

Great thread and interesting getting people's take on things.

[Bruce Hering]

Originally Posted by Tom Flanigan

When I shot them in Saskatchewan I used a .270 with 130 grain bullets, my moose load. It really chews them up similar to your coyote. I used the 130 grain bullet because it shot best from my pre-64 model 70. Moose die rather easily and that 130 grain bullet was all I needed. They don't go far after being hit.

Tom:

Sorry I missed this. My load is a box load by Hornady 140 gr, Boat Tail Spire Point Interlock bullet. It has taken a bunch of coyotes and deer. Most all dead right there out of a New made Browning 1885 High wall.

[Richard Flanders]

The Michigan bounty on red fox was $5 for a male, $15 for a female. Bounty was ended in 1963. The pheasant population plummeted from there on.

[Tom Flanigan]

The deer coyote / interactions on the property I hunt is a mystery to me. I know the coyotes take fawns and probably adult deer, although I have never seen evidence of this on the property. Very often you can hear a coyote or two howling and yipping just after dark. But somehow the deer don’t seem to mind.

The property has many large fields, some of which have been planted with Timothy and some I plant in sorghum annually. Deer are out feeding in the Timothy and sorghum fields almost every night without fail and without regard to the coyotes.

The deer carcasses I leave in the woods after I bone them out are invariably gone the next day. Fresh snow reveals many coyote tracks. There is a healthy population of them using the property, yet the deer seem to co-exist without much concern. I would think the deer would be somewhat wary of feeding in open fields yet they are always there. I don’t know how to explain it.

[Tom Flanigan]

Another note.....one thing that always bothers deer in the fields is airplanes taking off from our airstrip. I would think that they would be used to the planes but they always run into the woods when someone is taking off. I have a favorite Timothy field that I hunt most evenings that is about 200 yards from the airstrip with a short secton of woods seperating them. When the deer leave, they generally don't come back out that evening.

I tell the guys to get their flying in before my evening hunting but it doesn't do any good. They like to mess with me and once they took a bunch of pumpkins up and dumped them out over my field. They sounded like small bombs when they hit. Other times they buzz my treestand. I no longer say anything. But I get even in other ways.

[Dean Romig]

Deer can’t stop living just because there are predators around. They are blessed with being dumb animals and likely don’t react at all unless they see or smell one. Neither are deer afraid of gunshots. To them there is no immediate danger in a gunshot and they can’t associate it with the possibility that there might be a bullet around someplace. Deer and coyotes coexist because there is rarely an immediate danger just because there are coyotes around.





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[Tom Flanigan]

Deer are very in tune with what occurs in their habitat. They can pattern hunters and probably predators. Hunt from a particular stand too many times and they will avoid the area. I’ve experienced it many times years ago before I knew better. It’s why I never overhunt a stand and have multiple stands that I can use. When hunting the fields, I never leave if there are deer still feeding. My goal is not to spook them and make them aware I am in the area. Sometimes I have to sit till well after dark before I leave a field if the deer are still out. If you spook them a few times from a field they most likely will avoid it.

As far as gunshots, some run when they hear them, others don’t. A shot that is very close usually scares them. However, this year, while bow hunting, I was watching a three and a half year old buck with five does in the field with him. He had a wide nine point rack and was feeding his way toward me. I decided to take him if he came within thirty yards.

There is a horse farm on the southern side of the property about a quarter of a mile away. Someone decided to shoot a pistol. At the first shot, all heads went up. At the second shot, the buck bolted for the woods and the does followed him. Gunshots usually do scare deer, depending on the distance, although I was puzzled that they still bolted given the remoteness of the shots.

[Tom Flanigan]

I think Steve’s post on what Pheasant’s Forever thinks of predator elimination is telling. It’s something I’ve always believed, if the birds have food and cover, baring regional and local diseases, they will do fine despite predators. It certainly holds true on the property I hunt.

Quotes from the Pheasants Forever article…

“Bottom line: Through the addition and management of habitat, we not only decrease the impact predators have on existing nests, but also increase the number of nests and population size in the area. This management comes at a fraction of the cost of other predator reduction methods.”

“Predators will continue to eat pheasants and their nests, but weather and habitat conditions will drive population fluctuations.”

Habitat and feed is key in addition to weather conditions. The main reason for the loss of ruffed grouse in parts of the Northeast is the decline of habitat. Grouse need young forests and brushy areas to survive. Making matters worse, the mosquito borne West Nile Disease has had an impact as a one two punch on the diminishing grouse populations.

[Dean Romig]

Coyotes are hunter-scavengers and will eat anything and everything they can get ahold of.

I have shot over and bedide deer on SC ranges while they continued to eat unconcernedly. Sure, being a range where shooting is the norm they had to get used to it (to just live) because the shooting never presented a threat to them. They don’t have the power of thought or reason.





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[Big D]

The deer that hang around my back yard in a suburb of Detroit, where no hunting is allowed, tolerate people well. Not so in northern Mich where hunting is OK. The least lttle sound or movement gets them going