Coyote Hunting A Challenging Experience
By MVP Outdoors, Special to the Pekin Times (12/19/07)

The 2007 hunting season is on the downside. Something that is fun, challenging and without a season is coyote hunting. Recently, a predator call manufacturer named Jeff Porath out of Michigan introduced me to this most interesting sport. During my deer hunting this season I noticed that the aggressiveness and hunting pressure that coyotes bring was more prevalent than usual. I told Jeff about some encounters where coyotes actually challenged hunters for the rights to a downed deer. Coyotes actually create a hunting pressure that causes deer to move in a nocturnal pattern. Jeff was more than willing to help eliminate some of that coyote pressure. Jeff is a call designer, and he has several one-of-a-kind call patents on the market. My thought was that if you want to get a handle on the sport of coyote hunting, you might as well learn from the best.

If you think deer are a challenge and turkeys are fun, then you need to coyote hunt because they are at the top of their food chain in Illinois. There are a lot of ways to kill coyotes, but I was interested in the sport of coyote hunting. We didn’t hunt over bait or use any poisons, we worked for them. Jeff is an accomplished coyote caller, he can talk their language in a most impressive way.

We met with Darrel Smith, a local outfitter who has access to 20,000 acres of rural ground, to begin our project. Darrel and I have never hunted coyotes before, and Jeff informed us that we would be making our stands. A stand is an individual setup where we would make a series of call patterns for about thirty minutes and watch for coyotes to respond to the calling. There were about seven different calling sequences, and if there wasn’t any response we moved to another set. One of the disadvantages that we had was the wonderful snow storms and ice storms that central Illinois is blessed with experiencing.  A coyote will travel a long way to come to a distress call. Wind can be a hindrance, and if the wind is too strong, the sound doesn’t travel as well. The ability of a coyote to hear an animal in distress from such a long distance is due to their extraordinary hearing ability. Their ability to smell is just as keen as their hearing, and their ability to pick up on movement makes them a hunting challenge.

Coyotes are also dangerous. Many times a missing pet is the result of a pack of coyotes luring them away to be their next meal. Since coyotes seem to be adapting to the spreading urban life, they can be dangerous to humans as well. Not only are you doing your part to keep the balance, hunting coyotes is a fun and exciting sport.

When that first group of coyotes came in like storm troopers on a mission of destruction, Darrel and I were instantly addicted to the sport of hunting the hunters. The fast and furious action sent our adrenaline levels skyrocketing.  Every hunter needs to give this sport a fair shake. You can find out about Porath calls on our website on our links page.