Simple coyote vocalizations can lure in coyotes that may be suspicious of other predator calls. (Photo courtesy of Mark Kayser)
May 14, 2025
By Mark Kayser
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Every good conversation begins with good listening. I’m not sure who said that classic quote, but it makes sense when conversing with coyotes coherently. Coyotes converse daily with their pack colleagues, their mates and to their young pups. You may miss some of the conversation as it oftentimes occurs under the cover of darkness in your ZIP code, but it’s guaranteed that coyotes are conversing.
Although foreign to you, even the basic understanding of coyote conversation provides you with an opportunity to lure a coyote closer with sweet talk and sometimes, not so sweet talk. Regardless of whether you woo or war with a coyote while conversing, it’s another tool in your toolbox to succeed during your coyote hunts. For me, it’s a mainstay of my coyote hunts and rarely do I execute a coyote setup without some sort of coyote conversation involved.
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YIPS AND PACK HOWLS Vocalizing to coyotes is an exciting way to be coyote successful, especially while using a decoy. (Photo courtesy of Mark Kayser) The most common coyote vocalizations to you and coyotes are their howls. This Hollywood go-to for old-time Western movies has suggestions of several meanings. When a coyote clan resembles a garage band, the howls are referred to as pack howls.
The pack howl includes mournful howls, but oftentimes strings into yips and even a few barks to close out the session. Based on my assumptions and the insight of experts, pack howls assist coyotes in proclaiming territories, locating others, announcing a fresh kill and sometimes it might just be coyotes letting their hair down after a long, stressful week.
A pair of coyote hunters can mimic this sound with mouth howlers, like the Rocky Mountain Hunting Calls Stealth Yote Howler or press the appropriate selection on an electronic caller. When I team with a partner, we sometimes do both, mouth howl and have the electronic caller answer. It is deadly and works in all seasons, except when pups are very young. Coyote parents try not to draw attention to a den area during this spring period.
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LONE HOWL Rocky Mountain Hunting Calls Stealth Yote Howler helped dupe this coyote for Mark Kayser. (Photo courtesy of Mark Kayser) If you find yourself alone and still wish to howl with your mouth call, turn to the lone howl. The lone howl is often associated with a single coyote seeking a social bond. It’s speculation, but a long, drawn-out howl likely proclaims territory and could be the invitation for a far-off coyote to hook up. This howl works any time of the year, but particularly well during the lead-up to the February breeding season.
String a series of lone howls, three to four, across the countryside and wait for a response, silent or vociferous. The message could spur a coyote to trot over and see who is lurking in the neighborhood. If a pair has proclaimed a territory, they might show up with obvious bad intentions of running you out.
Unfortunately, coyotes do not always return howls with respective courtesy. If you do get a coyote to respond with a similar howl, you can either answer or stay silent. When a coyote is still several hundred yards away, I tend to answer with the howl they used. When coyotes answer close, yet I cannot see them, I generally stay quiet and let their curiosity get the better of them. They know by your last howl, your approximate location so stay sharp and let them make an appearance mistake.
CHALLENGE HOWL Mark Kayser prefers to use a diaphragm and a howling tube to make his vocalizations, but when hunting with friends, he often answers their electronic callers to make for a deadly ruse. (Photo courtesy of Mark Kayser) My personal favorite, by far, is to get a coyote salivating mad enough to challenge howl. The challenge howl is an abbreviated, yippy-style howl ending with a bark or two. It asserts dominance by the coyote and tells you (the trespasser) that you are not welcome here. Although some younger coyotes may stall behind terrain and challenge howl, most dominant adults strut into 300 yards or less looking to run you off or even fight you. I use my dog as a decoy to goad them closer or you can set up a decoy (no poop scooping), like the Montana Decoy Company Sitting Coyote decoy as your visual partner. A misting of coyote urine around the decoy also aids in creating the full illusion of another coyote if they circle downwind.
This winter I challenge howled one adult male for approximately 30 minutes. He wouldn’t come closer than 200 yards, so I ended the lousy conversation with a V-Mas kiss.
If a coyote challenges you from afar, keep the banter going and answer challenge for challenge. In wide-open country, without a decoy, you may want to pause your calls and let the coyote hunt for you. If they are watching and pinpointing exactly where the sound emanates from without seeing another coyote (thus the decoy), it could spawn suspicion.
BARKS Mark Kayser uses coyote vocalizations on nearly all his coyote hunts. (Photo courtesy of Mark Kayser) Short and sweet, coyotes barking at you generally means the ruse is over. Although coyotes add barks to many of their vocalizations, continuous barks signal they question your authenticity and mark it as danger for other coyotes to hear. DEFCON has been initiated.
Occasionally when a coyote hangs up and begins this irritating exchange, I respond with a challenge howl or even repeat its barking sequence. Why? I’m hoping to confuse the coyote that it misjudges the situation. On several setups I’ve had the barking coyote stop the irritating yapping and stealthily slink into shooting range. This could take an hour or more, but it sometimes works. Sometimes it doesn’t.
Adding in other coyote sounds could also make a coyote second guess its first impression of a situation. Speeding up barking to a level of excitement that either resembles dogs barking at each other may create the illusion of coyotes fighting one another. Add a yip or whine into the fray and you could get a coyote looky-loo.
WHINES AND ESTRUS YIPS Whether you use a decoy or hunt in thick cover, scent can attract and distract a coyote for a shot in a shooting lane. It also adds realism to a decoy. (Photo courtesy of Mark Kayser) During the pre-breeding, breeding and territorial establishment months of January, February and March, whines and yips have relevance. Consider them a female invitation to get cozy. Most of these female mating vocalizations are characterized by a higher pitch and the female invitation howl can even kick off your love serenade. From there, depending on your mouth calling abilities or electronic caller library, you can test the waters with several sounds of female coyote desire.
Referred to as female whimpers or estrus whines, these high-pitched yips and whines advertise willingness to males that a female may be ready for breeding. A coyote pair may banter back and forth using this vocabulary or a female may simply broadcast the sounds trying to lure in a den mate.
I once shot a female from a high point that wailed on for nearly an hour. In reality, most coyote sounds of passion are brief with bouts of chasing in between. And don’t wait until the February breeding season to tease. Like the whitetail pre-rut, the coyote pre-rut in January is a clue to begin coyote match.com.
FIGHTING OR WOUNDED PUP Like howls, I include the sounds of coyote “Fight Club” throughout every season of the year. Fight sounds consist of sharp barks, high-pitched yips, growls and the sounds coyotes make when another sinks canines into a tender rump. It sounds like when you sit on a prickly pear cactus.
These fights occur over a multitude of scenarios. Consider the season and imagine why a coyote might be fighting with another, or even another species. Hangry coyotes fight over carcasses. Horny coyotes fight over mating rights. Bully coyotes fight over territorial dominance and puppies fight amongst themselves as practice, and to set the pecking order in a litter.
You have the option of beginning a setup with howls, moving to prey in distress and closing with fight sounds of coyotes arguing over the last slider on the plate. During breeding you can include fight sounds after howls or estrus whines to mimic coyotes fighting over breeding.
In the spring or summer, transition to the sounds of wounded pups. Parental instincts kick in and adult coyotes often race to the scene to rescue a toddler gone astray. Almost all electronic caller libraries include the sounds of wounded coyotes or pups. Use them.
In closing, I use coyote vocalizations on 90 percent of my setups. I also wait a minimum of an hour when using vocalizations. It’s my experience that some coyotes race to vocalizations, while most walk. Coyotes vocally express themselves during a variety of life activities. Picture something occurring in their everyday existence and then create it via vocalizations. It’s a calling rush that is difficult to duplicate.
Mark Kayser
Mark Kayser has been writing, photographing and filming about the outdoors with a career spanning three decades. He contributes hunting content to most major hunting publications in America. Today his career also includes co-hosting popular hunting shows such as Deer & Deer Hunting TV on the Pursuit Network and Online. He also blogs and is busy posting his hunting life on social media.
Mark grew up in South Dakota in a family that did not have a hunting background. Despite the lack of hunting guidance, Mark self-taught himself how to pursue whitetails in the Midwest cornfields and across the Great Plains. His passion for elk hunting was curtailed by the ability to draw tags while living in South Dakota, but a love of the West spurred him to move with his family to Wyoming where he launches DIY, public-land elk hunts annually, most with a solo attack in the backcountry.
Mark enjoys hunting all big game, coyotes and wild turkeys, plus he has a shed hunting addiction. When he is not in pursuit of hunting adventures, Mark retreats to his small ranch nestled at the foothills of the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming to spend time with his wife and faithful border collie Sully.
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