For a good many predator hunters, public lands are the main or only property where they can pursue coyotes. I get it. Living in the big, wonderful state of Wyoming, 90 percent of my coyote hunting takes place on public ground. Fortunately, Wyoming is almost 50 percent publicly owned. That sounds great, but coyotes do not inhabit millions of those acres because some are too arid and some are too mountainous. If you live in states such as Georgia, Maine, Kansas or Indiana, the percentage of public land falls well below 10 percent. And when you seek out and hunt those smaller public land parcels you not only have to think about outsmarting the coyotes, but you also need to outwit your fellow hunters.
Ponder the following strategies and solutions for common issues that might affect your success when hunting public lands. Tailor them to your region and hunting style and see if you don’t pack more fur to the truck this season.
Understand Your Competition
Consider your neighbors, coworkers and the community in general and you will understand your competition better. One commonality I see is the fact it is difficult for a good many of them to get motivated on the weekends.
According to the 2024 statistics compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “80 percent of employed people worked on an average weekday, compared with 30 percent on an average weekend day.” When they got time off, they did engage in leisure and sports activities, but not like you would think. Get this.
“On average, adults aged 75 and over spent 7.6 hours engaged in leisure and sports activities per day — more than any other age group. Those aged 35 to 44 averaged 3.8 hours doing leisure and sports activities per day — less than all other age groups.” Guess what was the leisure and sports activity that occupied the most time? Coyote hunting or golf? Nope. Watching TV accounted for more than half of all leisure time.
Combine that with the fact most adults see Saturday and Sunday mornings as time to sleep in or engage in family activities, and you get an idea of how to outwit other public land hunters. Get up early on weekends, leave the big screen off and get to your public property before others even think of pushing the On button on the Keurig.
I’m not saying that Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z generations are less motivated. I think in many respects, tech especially, they are over motivated. Still, I see more older hunters early in the morning than the younger generations. Regardless of who sleeps in and who doesn’t, an early start makes sense.
What also makes sense is mapping out access routes ahead of time. Using a quality hunting app, such as HuntStand, gives you the freedom to plan entry into public lands, while avoiding other hunters. You can also use overlay maps to find right-of-way access that might not include parking in a designated area yet keeps you legal. Shortcuts and a calculated way into land saves you time, gives you a jumpstart and puts you way ahead of the hunting competition.
An area I had always felt was home to coyotes seemed off limits due to private property blocking access to the public land behind it. One day (bored in my office) my scrolling fingers uncovered a trail that came in from behind the parcel along another private border, yet was soundly on a public easement. During my next trip to this area I followed the rules of getting up early and arriving early. After a mile hike from the end of the ATV trail, I set up and 15 minutes later shot one of the largest female coyotes I’ve ever called in. She ran in just like you see on YouTube videos, unconcerned and meaning business!
Expand Your Physical Limits
I know you’re tired of me shoving this statistic down your throat, but 70 percent or more of you are overweight, or obese. Lift your shirt up and do a review of your beer muscles, love handles, sagging front porch or fill in the blank. If you sport a rock-hard abdomen, skip to the next section. For the rest of you, consider a visit to the doctor for a professional assessment, then do something good for you and your hunts.
You do not need to be in David Goggins shape to hunt coyotes, but somewhere in-between will positively affect your hunts. Being in somewhat good shape allows you to hike farther, carry more weight (i.e. e-caller, shooting tripod, decoy …) gives you mental confidence, increases overall health and decreases the odds of dying early. Do you need more reasons? Yes, all these add up to more coyotes, especially the part where you avoid the crematorium longer.
A simple discipline of walking and lifting weights several times a week, plus eating a healthy diet (think venison) does wonders in overall health benefits in a matter of months. Again, consult your physician. Between hiking, ranch chores, time on my elliptical and reps on my weight bench, I stay in good enough shape to hike through calf-deep snow with relative ease during winter coyote hunts.
Every coyote does not live miles from roads, but like with deer hunting, separating yourself from human-based hustle puts you closer to where animals seek daytime refuge. An example I remember vividly started out as a hike to make one stand and then transitioned into a cross-country coyote mission. Forty-five minutes of hiking in a 10-inch snow base followed by a 60-minute coyote set yielded nothing but magpies and one brief volley response from a lone, far-off coyote. Doing some quick math on my watch, I decided to push another mile to see if I could irk the coyote into a showdown. By midmorning I reached a ridge I felt was near the howling and if I summited it, I should have an ideal vantage point of the howler’s home.
I kicked off the setup with challenge howls and did not have to wait long. A coyote appeared almost immediately below and trotted up a gully only to end his work shift the red-tip way. The kill was appreciated, especially after the more than 2 miles of hiking back to the trailhead. Being in modestly good shape saved the day.
Schedule a Hunt
Early mornings aside, scheduling hunts based on the unfortunate schedules of others feeds my coyote enthusiasm. I work for myself and the disadvantages tally up, but there are a few benefits. One is that I can take a day off when I wish to hunt. I check with the boss (me) and schedule a hunt when I believe others will not be hunting.
That’s easier than you think if you do one thing. Skip weekends. Also revealed by the 2024 Bureau of Labor Statistics data is that 87 percent of the adult working population works weekdays as opposed to weekends. If you can hunt on weekdays and skip the weekends you lose the majority of the competition.
OK, you might not have that flexibility, but consider hunting while others get involved with a multitude of time-consuming activities. You may be religious and go to church, but attending a service on a Saturday or Wednesday night might free up your Sunday morning for a hunt while others pray. Look ahead to community festivals, fairs and the like. When they occur on a weekend, skip the funnel cakes and plan a coyote hunt. And if you have few family obligations, consider holiday hunting. I hardly ever miss a New Year’s Day of hunting. Many ring in the new year with too much merriment and sleep in on New Year’s morning. Not me. I also do the same on Christmas morning many times because our family tends to celebrate after Christmas to ensure other family members get a fair chance at celebrating on the actual holiday.
Be creative. Bend, adjust and use your vacation time wisely for opportunities to hunt public lands by yourself. This past year on New Year’s morning, I woke early (no merriment for me) and drove nearly an hour to have most of a county, brimming with public land, to myself. The first set did not generate fur. The second set brought me to a small mountain opening perfect for a coyote ambush. Howls followed by fawn-in-distress calls brought a pair of coyotes running through the edge of the small opening. My Bergara bagged one coyote while the other used a pine forest to veil its escape. Next time, Mr. Coyote!
Turn Down the Volume
I love to call in coyotes, turkeys, elk and deer — anything that responds to vocalizations. Whether I’m on a solo hunt or with a partner, I experience the stirring desire to not only call more, but call louder. In all circumstances I attempt to rein in the enthusiasm, but oftentimes, my lungs and thumb on the remote win the battle as the volume intensifies.
Louder is better in some circumstances. When calling coyotes across broad plains it pays to broadcast a message far and wide. The same is true in a forest setting, where you might need to penetrate the foliage for your sound to escape. In situations such as these, initiate the calling sequence using a moderate volume and then slowly increase it to match nature and announce boldly the situation at hand.
On pressured public lands where I see pickup tracks, boot tracks, shell cases and more, I tend to think subtle instead of shrill. Almost everyone has an e-caller with its volume setting at 10 all day long. Ignore the masses and do the opposite. There’s no peer pressure when a coyote win is at hand.
Think subtle, and that equals nature’s reality. For starters, most of a coyote’s diet consists of rodents, and it’s rare to hear one in peril with its volume set at 10. It’s even rarer to hear an animal in death throes that go on forever. After a few screams the franticness wears them out and they wait for the Grim Reaper to arrive. On several occasions, I have found gutted fawns hanging from barbed wire fences. Some were there for hours and others for minutes, but only once did I hear one screaming like I hear on an e-caller.
Also remember that small lungs make smaller sounds. Squalls quickly subside to squeaks and whimpers. Fortunately, coyotes have the hearing of a dog or even better. Research indicates that dogs can hear nearly twice the frequencies that you can distinguish and they can detect sound at a distance four times greater than you.
The answer is to try a hushed approach on public lands, mimicking rodent squeaks, quieter rodent anguish and shorter sequences. You might even ditch the distress and use several lone howls as your subtle message — sitting back and waiting for up to an hour for a suspicious, yet curious coyote to take its last peek.
My hike into a parcel of public land took an hour of dark navigating to reach a favorite ridgetop. I burrowed into a brush patch and right before shooting light ripped a series of lonely howls. Twenty minutes in, I chirped a short string of rodent squeaks. At the 35-minute mark, a reddish-brown form slinked up a gully below toward me. My border collie growled, but there was no reason for a “get ’em” command because the coyote had already sealed its fate by breaking the 150-yard barrier. Simple produced success.
Hunt Border Jumpers
Finally, I fully understand that many private lands, especially those with “No Hunting” designations, hold more coyotes. Government wildlife refuges, urban boundaries and more all have borders where coyotes understand safety lies beyond the orderly border.
Coyotes will come to calls from a mile or more away depending on how atmospheric or terrain conditions affect call volume. And if you evaluate a public property while HuntStand snooping on the neighbors, you might uncover a boundary or border to lure coyotes from an off-limits property to your public parcel.
Several elements boost your boundary hunts. First, the off-limits property should hold something coyotes value. That could be better rodent hunting, a livestock presence and, of course, the obvious, less hunting pressure. Second, you can boost your boundary hunt by locating funnels, fence gaps, openings and high vantage points on your side of the fence to encourage coyotes across while giving you sniper dominance of the area. And in closing, to keep good relations with those neighbors, look for areas with a buffer zone of approximately 200 yards between you and boundaries. Get the coyotes across and then give them the red-tip treatment.
One morning I climbed a high mountain slope and eased into the opposite side, also steep and rocky. I was set up on Bureau of Land Management property (my property) and below was a privately owned hayfield. Fifteen minutes into a short sequence of almost everything, a coyote raced up an irrigation ditch in the field, ducked under the fence and onto the BLM tract for its last rites.
Public land hunting is oftentimes trying. Nevertheless, a bit of common sense and sound strategy adds more pluses in your win column.
The Coyote Nose Knows
Tips for getting by the coyote’s No. 1 defense.
More than anything else, your public-land win rests with winning the war over a coyote’s nose. It’s a big battle. Besides monitoring wind forecasts on your hunting app and using a downwind approach whenever possible, do your best to erase your human presence.
Begin your scent control regiment well before the hunt by laundering your hunting clothes in odor-fighting detergent and then store it in a sealed container or bag. And speaking of laundering, another major miss by many hunters is not laundering gear items that might also hold scent. Think about backpacks, cloth rifle slings, an electronic caller stow bag or even your favorite mesh hunting cap. It stinks! The sweat ring scent it captures over months of use needs to be erased. It doesn’t hurt to wipe your rifle down with a scent-eliminating product after a good cleaning either. Those oils and cleaners send a distinctive danger notice as well.
Another overlooked human scent trail you might leave is on the bottom of your hunting boots. Think back to your whitetail hunts. How many times has a deer or coyote crossed your path to the stand and nearly jumped from its skin? Give your feet a solid dousing of scent elimination spray before trekking into the woods. This is especially important when using an electronic caller. Walking out into an opening to place the speaker unit in an upwind position risks the chance of leaving a trail of scent the entire route. A predator attempting to circle downwind of the caller and between you could hit your scent trail.
A quick blast of a scent eliminating spray ensures you have eliminated your human presence. Also think of natural scents. I spray coyote urine on my boots in addition to the initial scent-eliminating spray. And if you forget to use commercial products, look for muddy ponds and creeks to wade into for a boot wash on the way to your hunting area. If livestock are present, search for a fresh pile of animal droppings and squish your boots in it for a few seconds.
Wildlife Research Center offers all the needed products to eliminate scent and add the right scents to your predator hunts … minus the livestock manure. Visit www.wildlife.com. — Mark Kayser
