As working Americans we all enjoy our weekends. During the summer, they are typically all about ball games, beaches and barbecues. But for the rest of the year, the focused sport of hunting squeezes into the calendar of events. This is especially true of predator hunters, who not that long ago pursued furred critters only during the winter, but now fit in a hunt anytime of the year.

Regardless of when a hunt occurs, for most it needs to conveniently fit inside the parameters of weekend time. A lucky few might set aside a week of vacation for predator hunting like they would for a whitetail rut or Rocky Mountain elk hunt. But for most, the weekend is it.

With this mandate, your mission should be straightforward. Get the most you can out of your weekend hunts by considering these ideas and strategies.

Prioritize the Important Stuff

I’ll say it. Predator hunting is not at the top of your activity priorities. High above it sits two very important responsibilities: family and career. Family involves many subcategories such as simple family time, extracurricular activities (the kids’ and yours) and church for the faithful. And even those of you not blessed with children, the weekend is a time to reconnect with your spouse, partners and friends. You need this time, especially in a world filled with so many distractions and negativity.

Although the weekend does represent a time to escape from work and career, do not neglect it totally. Owning or managing a business requires you to be on the clock 24/7 to supervise and to put out fires that pop up out of nowhere. Service oriented companies particularly need to keep an eye on the ball at all times or delegate duties when possible. Think about heating and cooling contractors during cold winters when heating units might fail. Those calls come in at all times of the day or night and require immediate attention, not after your day of predator hunting.

Always look ahead on your calendar. Do you need to be the kids’ basketball Uber driver for the weekend? Are you responsible for remotely managing workers over a weekend shift? What time is church and could you substitute an early Sunday service for a Saturday night service? After a thorough review of all your top-tier priorities, look at the windows of time you could put toward a few hours, or even a full day of predator hunting.

Back when my kids were young, I occasionally dropped them off at hockey practice and ice-skating lessons at a rink near the edge of town. Luckily, I had permission to hunt a property 10 minutes away, so I’d gear up for a hunt if the opportunity arose. More than once we had to squeeze hockey gear past a pile of fur in the back of the SUV. Look for predator hunting prospects interspersed in your weekends that won’t jeopardize the important stuff.

Don’t Procrastinate

Are you a procrastinator? That does not bode well for weekend predator hunting. The more you put off, the more that piles up, and the weekend to-do list suddenly becomes unmanageable. Again, family and work trump hunting. Tasks such as chopping firewood, moving snow, fixing the kitchen faucet, etc. need to be completed in an orderly and efficient manner. Do not put them off. The same is true of work. Every project you let slide during the work week could come back to haunt you during the weekend. A boss might need a report completed for a Monday morning Zoom call, or an order not processed on a Friday afternoon could result in a Saturday morning rush to meet delivery deadlines.

Look ahead at what needs to be completed each week to free up some of your weekend time. It could require you to stay late at work, complete a honey-do project after the kids hit the hay or even skip a weekend of hunting to ensure a better weekend ahead is free.

In the same breath, get organized. To be ready for a weekend hunt, or even a single set, you need to get organized with a hunting focus. Have your gear gathered, checked and in a location where all you need to do is grab and go. E-callers should have fresh batteries, clothes scent-free laundered and weapons cleaned.

And never overlook site selection. With popular hunting apps, such as HuntStand, you can scout at home or even while waiting for your kids to finish volleyball practice. Review the forecast to determine weather situations and wind velocity and direction and begin looking for several sites. Have one as your primary site and a couple of secondary sites in reserve. Stay abreast of the weather as the hours tick by to rework plans if needed and get your other responsibilities taken care of.

Choose a Dependable Hunting Partner

I fall into a minority group of hunters. I prefer to hunt alone most of the time, but most people I run into have a hunting partner to share in the glory or misery. If you do opt to partner up, choose wisely. Everything stated above not only affects you, but will also affect your hunting partner. They will have the same challenges as you and likely not in corresponding circumstances. That equals weekend hunts with even more planning challenges.

Add into the mix the possibility that a partner might ditch you at the last minute and you can see why choosing a reliable hunting partner becomes critical. Quickly weed out those who do not split fuel expenses, offer to drive, share hunting information and overall, just mooch. Those bad apples aside, you will still face scheduling trials. Finding a weekend or a few open hours of free time is not something to plan the night before. Think about your next weekend hunt as you finish your current hunt. You already know upcoming kid activities and church times, but dive further into possible scheduling conflicts to prepare for the next hunt.

A few elements could make locating the perfect hunting partner easier. For example, if you both work in the same field, possibly for the same employer, you might find similar schedules of workability. Next, maybe you are both married or unmarried, and the same is true of kids. Similar lifestyles could help boost the ability to plan weekends. Think of a friend who also has kids on the same hockey team as you. Finally, consider their passion for hunting. Someone who dabbles in hunting does not typically team well with an ardent hunter hitting the fields every weekend. Like a spouse, look for a person with similar likes.

For a few seasons, I hung out with a motivated hunter who rarely went predator hunting, but lived for whitetails. We started a friendship to appeal to his burgeoning predator interests. He had great landowner contacts, and I outfitted him with gear, plus shared my knowledge of public land. Our weekend hunts still stand out as some of my favorites. Regrettably, a career move ended the ability to continue the hunts, but they were good times for a short while.

Be First in Line

With career and marriage counseling out of the way, next consider weekend strategies. Most Americans work a five-day work week. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, it accounts for nearly 70 percent of the workforce. This creates an enormous exodus of the workforce on the weekend. Those with hunting interests are going to be where? They will be in your honey holes, on either public or private land. Be first in line on the weekend. My personal goal is to arrive early in the morning before others leave the house. Even weekend warriors need some rest, and if they’ve toiled all week at a job, especially a laborious one, sleeping in sounds good. And many do.

If you have a morning opportunity, arise early and be at your hunting local ahead of others, even on private property. Landowners who allow hunting privileges probably did not just give them to you. You want to make sure you’re hiking in ahead of other potential hunters and setting up at the best calling sites at the very first hint of shooting light.

One wintry day my border collie sidekick and I took off hiking through deep snow at least an hour before shooting light. I wanted to reach a public/private border fence nearly a mile distant before shooting light arrived. Using my HuntStand app and past knowledge of the land, I hit our mark on time with a few minutes to spare to allow the landscape to settle. Thirty minutes into the set, a coyote trotted out of a gully below and my dog set a course toward the invader. Both locked up at 120 yards and a V-Max bullet ended the morning. When I arrived back at the trailhead, a couple other hunters were just leaving their truck to hunt, but turned back when they saw me walking out dragging a fur prize.

Make Every Stand a Great Stand

Like the trending phrase “Make America Great Again,” make every one of your weekend stands great. Sometimes you might get time for only one setup and that implores you to put all your resources into that one weekend opportunity. Everything must be just right for success.

Obviously, start with the weather forecast to determine wind direction. Even with a scent-free lifestyle, it pays to hunt a wind direction that blows your scent away from possible predator approach angles. With wind in the forefront of importance, choose a calling site. My preference leans toward a location where predators likely will be at that particular time of day. For instance, most mornings I set up in rugged high country above creeks or rivers. As daylight shines, predators often move away from good hunting areas on the riparian zones to hunt or rest in rugged country away from human activity.

At that site, choose the best location to view incoming predators. Adult coyotes are beyond cagey when approaching calls. Make sure you can see all possible routes of ingress they could use, and if you do hunt with a partner, place him or her in locations to watch your six and the remaining 180 degrees of your vantage point.

If you go the electronic caller route, be as scent free as possible with your footwear and walk a line out in front of you that gives you total viewing of your path. Predators are notorious for coming to a caller, but quickly turning around if they smell a trap. Shoot them before they cross your trail. Nestle in better than a baby cottontail in a nest. You want to immerse your expensive camouflage attire into natural cover for blending perfection. Back into the shadows and into the edges of surrounding vegetation.

Stay for the long haul. Fifteen minutes is fine for uneducated, eager coyotes, but 50 minutes is better. My average sit is an hour and I kill as many coyotes on the backside of the 30-minute mark as the front side.

Finally, take the first good shot. Being greedy works if you have abundant predators, ample time to hunt and are backed up by a partner. It does not work if you have only one set, abbreviated hunting time and are hunting alone.

On a recent hunt, I thought I had set up with the best view of an area based on the wind and my previous pursuits there. I didn’t count on the coyotes coming from athe completely opposite direction after they answered my howls. With their challenges nearing fast, I swung around and set up for a shot in the complete opposite direction.

A young coyote peeked into the basin soon after and charged down the hill toward me, but with its eyes focused on my Montana Decoy Sitting Coyote decoy. I knew others were following, but this coyote was almost on top of me and a sure thing, so I took the shot at 50 yards. The rest of the pack never showed, but my first-light, weekend setup was in line with making weekend coyote hunting great again.