Recent Coyote & Bobcat Articles

Recently, I was invited on a predator hunt with World Coyote Calling champion Al Morris. While I've taken the hair off my share of coyotes, most were targets of opportunity more than song dogs I specifically sought out. However, after spending a few days with Al, I came away with a whole new outlook and a desire to become a dedicated predator caller. Over lunch one day, I interviewed Al, and here are some of the tips, tactics and secrets I came away with.What are your favorite calibers? I love a .223 because of its affordability, but that's changed over the last year.

From where we parked the truck, Wolfe's Swamp looked as dark and uninviting as any cave. "Once your eyes get used to the night, it'll seem like high noon back in there, what with the snow and this full moon," said my dad, Mick, who by my best guess must have sensed my reluctance to walk voluntarily into the blackness."Besides," he continued with a smile, "with that pump gun stuffed with those 3-inch BBs, you're the nastiest thing out there in those woods." Good ol' Dad. He always did have a way with words.And he was right.

Was it the same coyote? I wasn't sure, but every time I slipped into the rugged pasture and lit up a series of howl calls, a threatening response emitted from the grassland's far corner. Nasty, deep gullies made up that corner of the pasture, the kind of real estate a crafty coyote would snatch up in any territorial land grab.After being skunked twice by a coyote eager to answer the call but unwilling to commit to a face-to-face meeting, I deviated from my standard operating procedure and decided on a new calling site.

In the modern, congested world we hunters live in, finding ample public land can prove itself a Holy Grailesque undertaking. Now take this quest a step further and consider the coyote hunter who may go through the process of setting up, calling, then moving a mile a dozen or more times throughout the course of a morning. Here, the phrase "ample ground" takes on an entirely new meaning.Out West, however, mobile coyote hunters seldom encounter this elbow room dilemma. Take Oregon, for instance.

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.