In The Dark

The Double L is not the name of a ranch. It's the name of a local watering hole in a small, high-desert California town where I had stopped to down a cold one in celebration of the end of a long and difficult hunt. It was also the scene of an improbable meeting of the minds.

The town had been invaded by 400 "movie people," as the locals called them, who were working on a big-budget film. They chose the area because it bore a reasonable resemblance to Afghanistan.

When the inevitable bar chatter turned to the topic of my visit, I reluctantly explained to several of the movie people that I was there to hunt predators at night. Expecting to be forcibly ejected from the premises, I was surprised when the movie people turned out to be more attentive than judgmental. A few weeks in the unforgiving desert environment seemed to have punched a few holes in any Disneyized views they may have held toward predators.

By the time I climbed down from my soapbox, we had discussed everything from the need to control predator numbers and the absurdity of managing them via the ballot box to fending off mountain lions and coping with rattlesnakes. They seemed keenly interested in those two species, which were available in abundance locally, along with black bears in the nearby mountains.

A stuntman, who made his living by crashing cars, leaping off buildings and being blown up, stared thoughtfully at his drink for a moment before speaking.

"So you go out there, at night, in the middle of nowhere?" he asked.

"Yep," I replied.

"And you try to call in predators by basically sounding like dinner?"

"Yep."

"And you never know which animals might show up?"

"True enough."

"Dude," he said, with a serious look. "You're crazy."

That thought had crossed my mind once or twice in the course of trying to take a coyote at night. I'd waylaid a few song dogs in my day while the sun was shining, but I'd never set out to deliberately pursue them at night. That changed when I met Ray Gauthier and Lance Cochrane of the Riverside Varmint Callers (californiavarmintcallers.com), one of many dedicated California varmint calling clubs.

Ray and Lance, who have been puncturing coyotes and other predators together for nearly a decade, were eager to initiate me into the black art of coyote hunting at night. In theory, I knew, it should be a piece of cake. After all, predators are more active at night. It's only logical to conclude that the odds of success go up in the dark.

Nighttime coyote hunting involves moving from stand to stand, calling in coyotes and other predators with electronic or mouth-blown calls, just as it's done in the daytime. For the uninitiated, this means sounding like a jackrabbit or cottontail in distress or, to put it more accurately, screaming bloody murder. The idea is to convince a coyote that a rabbit homicide is occurring, and he'd better get there quick to steal a meal. There are many types of distressed-prey calls, as well as calls designed to help locate coyotes, such as howlers.