FOXPROs Jon Collins and MFKs Torry Cook cover commonly misunderstood topics about coyotes and coyote behavior.
welcome to the fox Pro podcast brought to you by Fox Pro game calls welcome back to the fox Pro podcast we have an interesting topic for you guys on this episode and that topic is coyote and coyote hunting myths this is John Collins and once again we have mfk Tory cook on the line how's it going Tori oh pretty good this ought to be a fun one might even stir some controversy and uh either way be a be a fun one to talk about I think yeah I I think you're right and and Tori and I kind of put our heads together and just pick just a handful of of myths that we see out there and uh that that we thought we could touch on and and and that's that's what we're going to do like I say we're going to be pretty interesting and you know to there's um you know definitely seems to be quite a bit of I guess you call it misinformation we hear misinformation thrown out a lot nowadays especially on the news and stuff like that but uh there is Mis information out there about coyotes um yeah you know a better term for that BS that's what that's the best definition for some of this Coy information that's out there we can call it myth or or misinformation yeah BS is that is that straight to the point definition or word that that uh defines it well yeah so you could be it could be misinformation it could be BS it could be people talking out the rear ends you know whatever however you want to label it uh you know a lot a lot of it comes from you know your anti-hunting type groups to like project coyote and handful of others and then you also see it from you know I hate to say it but you see it from fellow Coy Hunters as well from time to time you know not everybody but uh hopefully this U this episode kind you know kind of like you said might might stir up some controversy but it might answer some questions too and Tori I think you're the I think you're the perfect guest for this episode you know I view you and and Tory Lynn is the leading Authority you might say in coyote knowledge you guys have raised numerous leaders of coyotes wild coyotes at that not captive coyotes and y'all observe them just being coyot from a day-to-day basis so I think you guys are uh you know perfect guess for this and you know it's um that's on top of many years of of hunting and calling Co yourself I mean in far as raising the coow uh help raising these wild coyotes how many years has it been now that you guys have been uh fooling with these these litters oh man you know I'm terrible with dates but I'm thinking it's going to be seven eight years now that we since we got that first letter I'd say so somewhere in that neighborhood I'm guessing about seven years it's gonna catch it give or take a year I could I could go back and look at some pictures and get it down to the you know to that first litter which was Boon smack and Rue those were the first first three but they should be I'm thinking they're seven they're seven eight years old coming up on eight I believe this next spring so so gaining on a decade of firsthand you know learning from from the coow themselves pretty much and and you know you'll have to refresh my memory and uh I know we've talked about this before but how many years of just you know calling and hunting coyotes now most of your life yeah I mean the hunting goes back my whole life I got into how Callin you know a lot of times I hear you ask other people and they can specifically remember their first hunt and I I did so much hunting just an everyday deal that I can't even pin it down I do remember the first solo Fox that I killed and I'm guessing that I was somewhere in the neighborhood of 11 12 years old when I first started call I called that first Fox up with a Fisher Price tape player that I had as a toddler so time that's pretty cool yeah it was the speaker in that thing was you know about the size of a quarter it was a re-record or a record over of one of those read long storybook tapes I've told that story before but anyway long time long long ways from a x24 oh man it's just this was like I mean it sound like I scratched them up instead of called them up crackling as that speaker and stuff was but anyway way I got a box out of the deal a few box with that thing well you know as is kind of my my my point you know having Tor on here he's he's he's fooled with him pretty much his entire life you know 30 plus years anyway and the last close to 10 years actually raising the things raising them in a wild environment and he's learned a lot from that along the way and uh what's going and get it rolling I think U this this is a big one t the one I was want to touch on first cuz I argue this is one of the things we have a fox BR has a Tik Tok account and we see tons and tons of anti-hunters that come across that thing dropping comments and people is just so ignorant on um the coyote life cycle itself just stuff that they've read it's just like we said BS and misinformation or whatever you want to call it and that is that is kyote reproduction myths I mean you hear I constantly hear crazy stuff you know about you know if you if you kill coyotes they they start having multiple litters a year and they have bigger litters and all that type of stuff what's what you think about that Tor you you went right for the big one right off the bat this is the one that probably fires me up the most that and some of the how and stuff but it is absolutely complete BS and just common sense alone if people would look at the reproductive cycle the biological makeup productive cycle of a female coat and also a male coat and understand how that actually works throughout the year they would know that it is impossible for that coat to that coat female to Des to decide at any point make the decision that she is going to have more or less pups in a given year for whatever reason whether it be because of territorial stuff with other CS or checking the population of C through howl and all of that stuff is complete BS there there are reputable studies that have been done that completely discount all of that and where a lot of the misinformation comes from is people like that Dan Flor is Coy America that gets a lot of hype even with the hunters that guy's an environmentalist that people do the background stuff he what he does is and what a lot of the other animal rights people do is they have just enough facts about coachs they're basic known facts that all of us as as Hunters most people know if they fool with coats at all they know those facts and those people are smart enough to use those facts as kind of an smoke screen and it's almost like they' they've made a it's almost like poisoning somebody to where they put enough facts in those books or in their documents on their YouTube videos whatever and then they sprinkle in little BS and part of this C reproduction with checking how and pop populations and because some get killed they decide to have more pups they sprinkle that in and because people recognize some of it as facts they just take the rest of it and they eat that Poison by the spoonfuls and then go out and regurgitate it and I think that's where you mentioned even some Hunters say this stuff I think it's unintentional they get that information they think it's good information and correct information without knowing what really go goes on in a coach's life cycle their reproduction their biology and that's the studies and I mentioned reputable anytime you're looking at information people ought to check the source a lot of this stuff that is talked about CS up in their litter size if they'll check the source on some of that stuff that promotes it they will see that it's funded by and sometimes even performed by animal rights groups with an agenda right this study that I'll talk about that completely dispelled all this was from the US Department of Agriculture they have nothing to gain other than just wanting to know about animals and they took 24 pairs of cods they had multiple studies going at once this was a 12E study so think about that 12 years worth of litters and documentation on Co reproduction different effects they tested all kinds of things to see if it had an effect on C reproduction and they were doing this in association with trying to learn more about predation on sheep herds and Idaho so they they had a reason for for trying to get accurate information but anyway 12 years study 24 Pairs and like I said they tested everything they took these Cs and they manipulated different things that they thought might have an effect on reproduction and saw what the results were so they they took these 24 Pairs and separated them out this was a fiveyear study within that 12 years where took these pairs and they manipulated what they were exposed to so they exposed some of the coats to urine and marking basically territorial markings of other cats right they also exposed those coats to vocalizations of nearby coat so that they could hear howling and what would make them appear to think there was more C an abundant C population a dense density of cods yep the other ones they kept them completely isolated no urine markings no vocalizations no anything they kept the caloric intake of all those goats the same during this testing period of five years so multiple litters on both groups they saw absolutely no effect on from either test group on litter size whether Howen was involved urine Markin was involved or not no correlation to that furthermore they then took the caloric intake and they did this over multiple years and they had a set caloric intake rate where they upped it on one set of Cs and kept their test subjects the same basically their their Baseline right right the Cs that saw this is where they saw dramatic effects of litter size increase when the caloric intake of those females was increased prior to them going into their next reproductive cyle cycle and continued throughout until the pups were born they saw a dramatic increase in pup litter size because because they were healthier because they were healthier because because they were healthier yep y the reverse was true when they cut the caloric intake so when they cut the caloric intake down and basically put those Cs on a deficit di their litter size was a direct correlation to that and they saw a decrease across the board consistently year after year with litter size something else that they saw was even after bringing all the coats back to Baseline what would be a normal caloric intake for them what they saw was that the effects of either especially when it was a a deficit so if let's say the cows had a deficit for a year it would take them sometimes two years or more before they regained healthy a healthy enough status to continue producing what would have been a normal litter size for that particular C prior to the deficit yep and so some of that stuff was really interesting and pretty much puts the nail in the coffin on whether or not this reproductive stuff and CS being able to up their litter size and one other point that was made on that was that this directly this caloric intake up or down directly correlates with what happens in wild cats and by the way these were wild captured goats and kept isolated from humans they had automatic Waters automatic feeders no human interaction with these goats right and that directly what the their findings from the chloric intake going up and down directly correlates with what was theorized happens in a wild population with prey Cycles so when you have an abundance of prey greater caloric intake better yep incre the lit size go up goes up regardless of Co densities right they've done this in Texas Kansas Alberta Idaho numerous places where they've done studies like this counting placental scars on where Co densities haven't seemed to change from year to year but the prey cycle has changed right they see changes in litter size correlating to abundance of food so it nothing to do with C densities or how or to to sum it up litter size 100% has to do with the overall health of the female cow absolutely that's that's been there was only one other thing that they theorized based on 12 years worth of study one other thing that was a contributing factor to a spefic specific female versus another specific female having greater lit litter size was the genetics of the femal some females are just genetically able to have more pups just like any Farmers that's ever had a goat or a cow exactly some them will throw you know you may have a goat Mama that throws triplets about every time and another one only has one you know cons you know year after year same thing with a mama cow you see that stuff to where it's it's genetic with that particular animal so genetics of the female and mainly caloric intake the health of the female were the main determining factors of litter size and nothing else that that other stuff is BS another another thing to go along with that and you know I've seen this you know I've raised up on a beef cattle farm my entire life dad still beef cattle Farms today and you know my whole area is beef beef cattle country so and you know all the farmers I know are beef cattle farmers in this area and one thing that that's common knowledge if if uh your cows are in rough shape coming out of winter and it's time to turn your Bulls in there to breed them if they're in bad shape it's less likely that they're actually going to breed up and it's just like these coyotes that's the same thing if they if they are in such poor if they get to a you know cross cross that threshold where they're just in such bad shape poor health from from whatever food or whatever they probably won't breed back right right yeah I mean that just like I said a lot of this is just common sense if people know just basic health and biological reproductive stuff for example on those females it takes them nine months to fully recover hormonally chemically before they can even have another litter pup so the idea that they could throw multiple litters in a year completely goes against their reproductive biological makeup it's impossible and they can't change that Midway through it's it's just like you you know you've made a your family has made a living off recording Couts and you have access to litters of Couts if if it was possible to make them have multiple litters a year you would make it happen because you could record more sounds that's exactly right and and another thing a lot of people don't know talking about them having more litters we we know that even though today's world is screwed up with some of the stuff that's going around it's still takes a biological male and a biological female to have babies kids pups whatever yeah C males are sterile throughout so basically it takes both the male and the female nine months before they can even think about having another litter that male is sterile throughout the year until the female comes in and then that triggers him to release sperm I got so there's mult factors that are facts based on science and the bi biological makeup of these codes that make a lot of this stuff that people put out just absolute BS and most aggravating part is Hunters getting some of that information and then repeating it and even arguing about it just because they read it somewhere and it said study right or research paper on the front of the deal well hopefully hopefully they hear this podcast that and and they will know now the ones that have done that then you know you you mentioned the the what it what's his first name I know what Flores is the last name what's is it Dan Flores Dan Flores Flores I had a guy just the other day speaking of we mentioned Tik Tok earlier same thing got on there and said you know danam FL Flores says this about KY reproduction I was like man I know that name where's that from that I didn't didn't dawn on me Coy America I was like yeah yeah it's probably not the most accurate he his his views are construed a little bit well I I did a good bit of research on that guy because I kept hearing people mention his book and I've read not the whole thing but bits and pieces of it and and I'll say I try to keep it just 100% you know what it is what it is he's a good speaker he does a good job of getting his message that he wants his agenda out I've listened to several of his you know his uh speaking events on YouTube yeah but there's a lot of stuff in there that I knew was BS that he's kind of covering up with some stuff that is good information on cods yeah and but what what really if you listen to his stuff and then do a little background and he's telling this himself this is not something somebody else people can go to YouTube watch his stuff and when he gives his background he will tell you that his interest and his inspiration and a lot of the basically his idea about coat came from Walt Disney of all places and some of the old black and white the original cartoons that depict the story about the coat and the coat being you know mistreated by people trying to kill them and all this basically it's the same storyline as all the other Disney movies especially stuff like Bambi yep yep those type storylines is what Dan Flor is bases his that's kind of the underlined storyline of his books and he's just putting you know some information over the top of some BS fairy tale stuff because he is he's a c Lover from the animal rights aspect completely different than what than the reason Hunters love or hate couchs depending on how you want to look at we love to hunt them and all that stuff but anyway that's uh that's people need to do a little background research before they just take something that says study research paper a book by somebody self-proclaimed expert all that kind of stuff especially when they're talking about you know the way it relates to hunting and what's actually going on with the with a CO's life cycle right well to to sum that number one up there that kyot reproduction myths they only breed once a year and their litter size 100% has to do with the overall health of the female nothing else y pretty much that's it up that's it that's that's pretty much it the the next thing I want to touch on you actually mentioned it there a little bit in this past in this last topic here about kyot reproduction myth and it's and this is directly associated with the reproduction lies or BS or M misinformation and uh or goes right along with it anyway and that is that coyotes vocalized to check their densities so so let you take take off with that one well that's pretty much BS to in that a lot of times that ties back like you said ties back to the reproduction rate stuff the reason CS don't care about other CS they don't care about their neighbor they don't they don't really even care about their own family members outside of breeding and puing season you know after that this kind of cow is selfish and for himself and he'll slit the other one's throat if he could to to get his food and and where he lives so what is actually going on a lot of that stuff gets said because everybody and a lot of people buy into it because they are they're looking for humans want a reason for everything and a lot of times there is a reason sometimes we just come up with the wrong reason and when Coots are vocalizing and you hear another group vocalized back some people have theorized that okay they are checking the landscape for the dense the population density of neighboring coats and if something happens to those coats and the density declines then they automatically decide that they're gonna have more pups to compensate for their neighbor getting killed down the road right well that's that's not what's going on a cod is howling for selfish reasons and those reasons are all all they're doing is basically checking for occupancy or vacancy of a neighboring property so if you've got let's say you've got two neighboring farms and there's one group of coats living on one farm and another group you know basically two separate family groups of coats we'll call it well you've got a pecking order with those coat so when they how at night they're basically just answering each other back giving away their location and they're still claiming occupancy for that particular territory right right if that's what you want to call it or that particular piece of ground right so when Co how and they don't get a response and this may go on I don't know exactly what a CO's thinking but they start to pick up on all right so there's no there's no marking there's no scent marking there's no sign of gos on this property anymore where maybe a dominant pair had been residing and patrolling those codes get killed John Collins comes in there and wipes them out one morning that property is vacant and so when those coats don't hear how and they're not doing that for for any other reason as to say all right I'm going to go check that out and take it potentially take it for myself especially if it's better property or to expand on their own their own territory yeah another way it works is transient coats that are looking for a place to take up that's a way that that animals that coats can check for stuff like that when they're not hearing or smelling other coats then that's an opportunity for them to move in it has nothing to do with them looking out for the welfare of their right of their neighborhood right you know so they're they're just checking to see if there's if there's unoccupied territory or to see if it is still occupied if it wasn't they would try to move in and do whatever uh it's not KY do not vocalize a check their densities to manipulate their litter size I don't I I can't prove it but I don't think CS can count I don't even think they can do simple math but we will get into some simple math on some of these later topics that people should some people can do right well you know I I tend to give them a lot of credit on certain things but I think when you start talking about them checking their densi to figure out how many pups they should have in their next litter you might be taking it a step too far out there or several steps too far well most of us most of us that have hunted even if you even if you don't have a whole lot of exper with goats one of the things that that most people figure out pretty quick is that goats are are a vicious selfish animal most animals are like that you know they are they're all about them surviving and that's it you know they're not they're not worried about the welfare of other Cs and they don't they don't understand that plus they can't add so right right right that's just like yes you know there's a there's a pair over here on on a pentagraph property so they're pretty good shape over here but I'm not hearing any coyotes back over here towards the Fitz daral property I better instead of having four pups this year I better have six no we better do seven Coes this next litter you know they they don't have that type of mindset another thing that ties to both topics like like I said the the process for them to go from having pups before they are capable of ovulating and having pups again coming into estris all of those things before they can do that again that process is nine months so let's say that they they get halfway through the process three quarter way through the process and at this point the neighbors have been healthy and good John ain't been there yet they're still alive they've been checking the densities so to speak going with that theory and their neighbors are still alive then all of a sudden you come in there and kill them yep and they check and they say oh man they done got killed John got him it's impossible that's right it's impossible for them to change that process that's been going on for five six seven months and to and to make that you know change to where they could have more you know it's just a lot of that stuff is common sense it blows my mind that people Hunters anybody that knows anything about animals at all it blows my mind that they would even consider some of that stuff right I mean the co out there doing math taking a population density and calling neighbors and they're doing more than just math it's like it's like algebra stuff I was trying to help uh help my son with senior high school algebra yesterday and then uh I was like man this has been 20 some years since I've tried to do this there ain't no way I know a cow ain't doing it no all those CS are concerned with is whether or not that property has more food yeah on it and is better suited than where they're staying right now and they're checking to see if there's an opportunity to expand on making things better for them so that's all it is to that's the reason a coyot vocalizes he does not vocalize to check their densities to see how big their next litter should be right absolutely absolutely not well I've got I've got another interesting one here and I don't think that we'll be able to 100% prove this one uh you might have a different opinion on it um but this kind of goes right along with with reproduction what about color phase cow yeah I've been known to call in some pretty colorful coyotes from time to time you know some blonde ones some red looking ones you know just as red as a red fox um these strawberry blonde ones solid black ones with a little white patch on their chest I've even killed the ones that still have all the the facial markings of an other coyot where they're totally black but they'll have the white cheek patches which every single coyot does it's their whatever you want to call a regular color coy so let's talk about the color phase Coy you know hear this all the time you know might post something up this Jason gr close will get a kick out of this if he's if he listens this episode but one of the things I see all the time if we post one of those up is oh boy look right there they shot the neighbor's dog oh pH ain't gonna be coming home tonight type crap right right yeah the you know the color phase goout deal most in most all cases it's just a cat it is just a color phased cat you don't hear people say that when they kill a when a color phased bear is killed chocolates and cinnamons and Blondes and or a colorf squirrel when color there's all hear yeah they don't say that it's breed with something else you you basically only hear that controversy as it relates to Cs and I will say there was a time any anytime I'm proven wrong on something I don't just keep arguing that and a lot of people will if they say something and and later on they find out it to be wrong they they're not gonna back off on that they're gonna keep on doing it but there was a time where I didn't believe that the koi dog deal existed at all to any degree under any circumstance I have since found out that yes it can happen but it is so rare and almost always involves human influence or captive coats or something along those lines that causes that to happen and a lot of it goes back to what we were talking about earlier with the reproductive m cup of a cat versus a dog it's completely different U and that dogs can have pups any time of the year cows can't nail cows are sterile most of the year so it pretty much would never happen without I mean it things would have to be line up just right for a m c to breed a dog you would almost have to make that happen with human influence with a female it is possible but it's almost always the same thing a CO female that has been raised around dogs or something like that and I've actually witnessed this after raising coats around dogs I've actually witnessed and have videos of male domestic dogs tying up with female coats it so it can happen but this is another key part of that notice I said raised up around those dogs yep that same female coat that will let a dog that she was raised up with tie up with her will kill a stray dog right or try to kill a stray dog have no coats don't like domestic dogs right and so most of the time that's that's pretty much an impossibility because the wild CS are not going to tolerate a domestic dog you see that with decoy dog stuff right so color phase CS 99% of the time probably even higher than that are nothing other than just that a color phased coat has nothing to do with a koi dog or the farmer's dog or anything else it's just a coat that's black or blond or any combination of that well I've I've in the past when you get where you're calling in full family groups you know right there at the end of summer first to fall there's been multiple occasions cuz like I said here in my area Kentucky we see a lot of color you know I'll kill a black Coy about every year and kill those you know quote unquote husky looking coyotes you know marked up coyotes and uh you know I have been in situations like I said multiple times where I've called up entire family groups like called up Mom and Dad or Mom or Dad and then all those yearlings like call in those you know four five six coyes on one stand all at the same time and every single one of them will be a regular brown tny color coyote all except for one there's one coyote in that whole mix it's either a solid black or some other kind of off color and it's they're all brothers and sisters or mom and dad with with little ones and you know it's all of them's part of that family group it's not like every one of them run up here and every one of them's black it's just like one of them right well Blake uh Blake Bird come down there and hunted with me a few years ago a few years ago and it goes right along with what you're talking about we killed the whole family group they were they were pretty small pups but they all come in together and he mowed them down with a shotgun they're all laid out there and it's three regular colored ones one is kind of a reddish you know the reddish still pretty much regular color just and then one black one right right out out of those PS but you know it's I've I've read you know I'm big on the studies and all that kind of stuff any of the biological studies and so when I got into really I used to argue the the you know the Koy dog deal so I started just instead of just arguing about it I started reading and looking up any and everything I could find from a reliable source that had anything to do with it and just about any animal out there wolf domestic dog coat whatever if you do the DNA you can find traces of a domestic dog or traces of a wolf or traces of a cat same thing if you check people's DNA a lot of people get into that now yeah and they let's say they check their DNA and they find traces of would just say Chinese yeah Asian descent and start trying to it's those Trace Amounts do not qualify you to be Asian to be another species right right or another race or anything like they don't there are certain amounts that you have to reach before you could even even make a claim on it and a lot of so color phase stuff proba from the studies and stuff and the DNA that that's what it said you know that that it doesn't there's not enough quantity to qualify as a koi dog y or as a wolf or anything like that you know it's but it is that just about all of these species somewhere or another down the line have Trace Amounts of something in them that allow them to have you know the genes to produce different different color phases and stuff like that so you know and outside of that there have been black coats DNA tested yes that do not show Trace Amounts of anything they show 100% Co exactly so all of those things I just want just so people don't think we've got an agenda and are just trying to put it out there one-sided I wanted to cover everything with with the color phas stuff so that people you know we're not leaving anything out on this there there are some DNA stuff out there that show Trace Amounts of this or that but it doesn't there's not it's not enough quantity to qualify and if you do have something that is a true koi dog or something it almost always involves a matter of fact I don't know of a single case where there's not some form of interference from humans either raising that code up or something like that I think the only other way something like that would happen would be is if you had a very unique situation to where you had a one long female coat and no other cats and that cat was in a place where there was nothing else but dogs around right then you might then you might have a scenario like that but that Happ what are the odds just say like that that happen say if that the the stars align and and that situation happens How likely are are they to actually breed up even though they tie up and do the deed what's the chance of them actually you know having pups her accepting a l you know having a litter all of that low anything anything that I've ever read or seen study-wise well you got multiple things like I said goats and dogs are different so when a female dog comes in heat she'll just you know everybody's seen 10 male dogs following one female right and all of them tying up with her giving the chance right CS don't operate like that CS a CO female chooses a mate right and she's going to choose another male coat every time unless something interferes with that so you've got the pairing process that doesn't exist with with domestic dogs that would have to be overcome right off the bat then you have the low odds of pups from a tieup like that and then even if that happened you have the low odd of survival of pups according to the studies right because of the different makeup of them they just don't the they I don't know all the details behind that but from what I've read about it a Koy dog pup they have very low survival rates especially in a wild environment that's why we never see them you know right that's the the color page cats are not koi dogs they're they're CS I kind of tell you funny thing that goes off like the colorface cods and you'll everybody's seen this everybody's listening have seen you've either said it or you've seen it said heard it said or or saw it typed out on a social media post I know you've heard this tor and that is a um you know a look here that that mixed with a German Shepherd that Miss mixed with a husky you never hear of anything besides those two dogs you never hear anybody say well that Coy's mixed up with a beagle that's mixed with a a Jack Russell ter with a Healer you know it's always either German Shepherd or Husky right there must be the only two animals to breed up with them right well they're trying they're trying to find you know you know what they're doing they're trying to find a dog species that matches the characteristic trait there is one color phase there's a common color phase that that KY way it is marked up it looks exactly like a husky it'll have the black hair AC all throughout its body and then on its face it'll have those white cheek patches well guess what every brown tonny colored regular you know whatever you want to call it a regular colored coyot guess what he's got those white cheek patches he's got the same patches same exact patches same exact markings they're just different colored I I don't know why people some people I think for the most part it's be there's a lot of things more yeah and I don't know why there are a lot of things that you know get get put out information wise kind of become accepted and then more information especially with coats in the last few years have been so much you know Cod hunting is blown up the information about coats is really starting to get out there a lot of the things that were written and said about coats is starting to change and I think color phase coats uh what we're talking about about reproduction especially the howling topic that with that has really come I think gets close to coming full circle at this point but a lot of the information it just takes it a little while for people to set down all that BS that they once thought was true and just you know accept it for what it is and I'll use deer I've used this an example before so if you rewind back I can even remember this as a kid you go to deer camp you hear all these old men talking about scrapes and they believe it was once believed that an individual Buck on the scrap and he wanted to whoop anything else that got around right you know that it was a territorial deer marketing and those scrapes belong to individual bucks it took years until you know trail camera stuff come out and re people really got to see even when even when biologists and stuff started putting that information out you would have these old men old old Hunters that believe that they would argue it you know yeah even though the information was there it wasn't until trail cameras and stuff started coming out in video that showed you know multiple bucks using the same scrap that now it's widely and pretty much 100% accepted that multiple deer use the same scrap oh my gosh CS are going through that same stage right now with color phase stuff the repr all these myths we're talking about yeah they're following the same pattern that all your myths are following about you know that that took place with deer hunting in its infancy because cow hunting is still I would say cow hunting is still in the early stages of really becoming you know more understood and and the Cod itself you know people had been and we're still yeah and we're still learning about the Cs there's a lot of still unanswered stuff out there for sure hey I got I got one more thing just right on that line and you you mentioned it there just a minute ago I got a couple more topics I want to make sure we get to but so you don't have to make this a big long answer but you mentioned that a female coyot is picking out a male coyot is it true that they do mate for life how true is that statement on KS yes in general I mean typically once they find a a pair those CS will pair and stay paired and stay in that same general area even though parts of the year they're functioning as individuals right those same two cows will come back together pair up but they will pair up with a different Cod if something happen of course or or whatever yeah yeah right y well one these kind of go in with each other I think a little bit but one of the huge one I want to make sure we cover here is on Land Management there's some Land Management M uh talking about coyotes I really want to cover uh and when I say Land Management I'm talking about like Land Management when it comes to like um your your deer management uh trying to manage your deer herd trying to manage your turkeys have more turkeys and stuff like that you you'll see some of these studies where they're talking about as a whole they'll say Predator management predator hunting trapping and stuff like that doesn't have that big of an effect or no effect uh you want to touch on that a little bit Tor yeah that's a that's becoming a Hot Topic too and and part of that is even driven by some of the biologists that are they're on our side but they will even put out information that says you know you're not you're not accomplishing much by hunting trapping killing coats and all that but they're they are looking at the big picture in advance rather than looking at the short term and that's where the the myth lies is somebody putting it out there and saying well if you if you trap or kill let's just say you trap or kill a 100 cows to keep the math simple you trap or kill a 100 cows well they're saying by the following one to two reproductive cycles that those gos would be back at carrying capacity and replace those 100 gos and that is one thing that we should have mentioned in the when we were talking about the reproduction and litter size yes I will agree that if the caloric because this is an argument that the animal rights people would make they would say well if you take x amount of coats off the landscape then the food sources are going to go up well maybe maybe not it depends on what those pre species do that following year so if there is an increase in food then yes those Couts will probably reproduce large litters and they will get back to carrying capacity at some point just like Hogs I mean they they are prolific with survival and you know getting their capacity back up so with the Land Management deal the same thing happens and it relates to Hogs as well anybody that's ever had hog issues so if you've got a piece of property and this is where I was talking about we would talk about simple math this is where it comes in this is common sense very easy to understand so we'll just stick with the with the hundred number so if you've got a piece of property that you're trying to manage you want you want your deer turkeys livestock whatever to do better and have less predation on them and you go out and kill x amount of Cs it is true that in a year or two if you don't do anything else there be that maybe there will be that many Couts on it again but here's where the simple math comes in so we've already established that cats only breed once a year so they're only having pups one time of the year so after they have pups that's the most Couts across the entire landscape that there are at a given point we'll just say it's a 100 when you go in and kill two cods that 100 is the is reduced to 98 for a solid year yep a solid year the cows cannot do anything about it for a year that's simple math yep if you kill more than that let's say you you kill we'll make it even easier let's say you got a group of coats on your property a family group of coats on your property and we'll say there's eight CS in that family group and you go in and kill them all if no other cows move in and a lot of times they don't sometimes they will it just depends on the cow density in that area and what your food supply is there so you can go in and we've done this on multiple properties where you go in and you kill the cats off that property they can't do other cods can't do anything about it from A reproduction standpoint for a year so you've redu effectively reduce the number of Cs on the landscape for a year if people are doing that all around you then you're having even a greater effect on the density of Cs in the area well they can't do anything about it for a year that's simple math so if you if you're doing Land Management for Predators Co specifically on your property and you take cows off then the potential is there that you don't have to do anything for at least a year and sometimes and this is where this is where I have a problem with what some of the biologists do so when they when they take a a study group they always do it on problem areas where there's high C numbers and you know it's usually in association with some type of a big food supply like livestock food you know stuff like that so cows are there are usually other cows that are waiting to move in so you may have a property that that's chicken house property or whatever where CS are always trying to move in there it would be more difficult to manage on that type of property because you have an attractive place that coats are going to continue to move into but but it still has the same effect and it goes back to the mass so let's say that and this also relates to your deer and turkey so let's say you've got chicken house property right here and you kill five coats off of it and five coat moves in there's still there were still only a 100 coats on the landscape after the pups were born so that means that there's a hole of five coats somewhere you know there that has created holes on some property May be on the chicken house ground but it may be on the neighboring property and then if you learn if people learn about other animals that they're trying to manage for say deer turkey or whatever you have fwn dispersal just like you have C dispersal yep so if you're creating holes by killing coats even if you're having trouble on this property you're creating holes somewhere every time you kill one that's one more day that one of those FS survive can survive somewhere yeah and you may create a hole on the neighboring property that's not your property you may create a hole for that fond over there because you'd kill five Cs off your property the neighbors's coats moved in but the fwn the buck fwn the Boon and Crockett Buck Farm that's born on the neighboring property or three miles down the road where you inadvertently created a gap for those cats when that buck Pond disperses at a year and a half old a lot of people don't know that they do that they're trying to the year and a half old D that's on your property usually doesn't stay unless you've got big property so anyway that Boon and Crockett Pond ends up on your property in the long run so right during the rut running by there and you put arrow in him that's right or you know it's just one of them deals where it's it's simple math and in most I was talking extremes and that's what's usually going on with the studies that relate to stuff like that they're usually extreme cases but if you just take the average property where it's Big Blocks and everything has basically the same type food water supply and you go and let's say you you own you know 80 acres in that giant block where everything's pretty much the same you don't have chicken houses and all that kind of stuff and you go in and you kill coats we do this all the time down here I have properties I bet everybody that's ever C honey can think of a farm or a property that they've went in on and had a really good year on and killed a handful of Couts off of it and then the next two three four years that property is not producing any coats they're not killing coats off that property anymore they can probably also think of properties that produce year after year after year right right and that's just the difference in property that is attractive to coats versus not being as attractive so if you're managing for deer and turkey you got a lot of deer and turkey on your property and you go in you may kill the coats off of it you may not have to deal with cs there for several years if at all and on other ones you got to stay on top of it about every year just like with Hogs so the management the Predator management absolutely does work because every time you kill a coat and just think of the thousands of coats that are killed across the US every year with the night hunt and the day hunt and everything combined think of how many holes that have that's made on property somewhere because they cannot fill it for a year that's simple math I talked to a biologist I know I'm kind of ranting on this but I talked to a biologist uh about a week ago two weeks ago and we were talking deer stuff but we got on the Predator deal and he was gonna tell me the same thing he said well you ain't doing no good he knew that i c hunting de Ser he said well you ain't doing no good killing them cows they gon they gonna replace theirself I said well let me ask you this I said uh I said how many times do cows had pups in a year he said just just once I said so you've got amount of coats anyway went through exactly what we just talked about I said so if you got a 100 coats and I and I kill 50 of them right off the bat you know I killed 50 Cs and by Midsummer what uh what are those Couts gonna do for those next several months before they have pups again well how they gonna replace theirself right right he said he said well More Cows will move in I said you you're still missing 50 cows somewhere they got to move from somewhere if they move if they move from the neighbors you know that'd be like saying you know you got you got five houses on a street somebody dies in one house and the next door neighbor moves in well now his house is vacant you have those vacan somewhere well I think another I think another thing with it too uh and I will go ahead and say it I truly believe in this if you're if you're somebody that that wants to practice deer management you have to have a predator management you know something in place for that you know Predator management is deer management and vice versa uh I think one way loc at late late spring early summer is when your deer fonds are hitting the ground right right I think if you you got to kind of look at the times you're trying to coyote hunt if you're just somebody just coyote hunts in the fall and winter you know you are killing x amount of coyotes right and then they're going to fill those holes wherever well if you really ke in and start try to hunt that late spring early summer time time frame when those fonds are hitting the ground you know when they're real little that's when they're most vulnerable and guess what when they are hitting the ground that turns into the Coyote's most um abundant food source you know they're going to try to kind of key in on that so if you're hunting those coyotes as those fonds are hitting the ground you're just automatically increasing that fawn's uh survival you know success for survival I mean if you're taking the Coyotes out of that area as they're hitting the ground it's a pretty good chance they're going to like it yeah and something else that goes right along with that they've done studies on this too you know the those ponds are most vulnerable when they first hit the ground and then you know the first few days you get a you get a fwn with two or three weeks on my gosh that's an athlete yeah he's like catching a grown deer for the most part so going back to the management deal even if Couts moved in let's say you've got an attractive property that CS move in pretty quick but you're a summer Hunter and you're killing those CS in you know May and June when we're running those fond distress and we're killing those you know those family groups of cats for every day let's say you kill a coow off of there for every day that that fwn gets before another coow moves in his chances of survival by the time he gets you know just a few weeks old his chances of survival go through the roof yeah increasing all the time every hour yeah even if one moves in you have still done you have still accomplished what you're trying to accomplish with getting your fonds and turkey pts up big enough to survive you know to the next year so you know the the Predator management stuff absolutely exists and like I said simple math yes is a good way to look at that and that's another thing too you know when these fawns are hitting the ground guess what's else is in the ground or just now barely is is ky Puffs and that Fe M you know they're pretty much mainly milk you know taking milk uh that female is burning calories like crazy and she needs to eat to replace those calories and guess what like I said if that's the most abundant food source those deer fonds that's what they're going to hit so if you're knocking those coyotes back during that time frame you 100% are going to help your Fawn your Fawn population your Fawn success rate it's just it's undeniable and same thing same thing for those turkey pots on the ground if they can p get past that first three weeks of Life man they their chance of survival for the rest of the year as as Skyrocket is yeah and going back to the biologist that I had the discussion with about this you know so he was he was kind of talking against it to begin with after we got through the the conversation he kind of stuttered around he didn't want to go back on it but after he before it was all over with he said you know he said he said you're you're right he said looking at it from that standpoint in the short the shortterm goal absolutely it is absolutely beneficial and he agreed with me 100% And you know that's what you've got to do you can't do it's just like with anything else when you're managing property managing your yard you don't you can't cut your grass one time right you know you gotta stay on top of that stuff cure the same way that's that's my whole point too you know because we have guys the only reason they KY Hunt is because they want to help their deer population they want more deer well you've got to do more than just hunt them hit them after you feel your buck tag and hunt them through December and January man hit them during late spring early summer and you're missing out on some pretty Dynamic calling some awesome kyot calling if you're not calling during that time frame and you will help out your font deer font it's you 100% will yeah 100% all right let's move on to the next one here this is I I I run into this not every year but often this this is this is going to good Coyotes versus bad coyotes and I get this from uh farmer talk how many people out there have went to a a farmer say a beef cattle farmer or a sheep farmer or whatever and you know there's coyotes on the place and you go you find out the landowner and you go to them you say well you know hey Mr Jenning you care if a man comes here and tries to kill some of your cows for you oh no oh no Tori I don't want you in here hunting my cows I've got good coyotes my coyot don't never kill no livestock I'm afraid if you kill these good coyotes bad coyotes will come in and replace them and start killing my livestock what do you think about that good cows versus bad cows I think there's only a matter of time until a good goat turns into a bad goat because once they figure it out you got major issues then I I I will say that there was a point where I I heard that stuff and I kind of bought into it a little bit and the reason I bought into it a little bit because we were raising these coachs around here right and they were free range running loose well we've got livestock chicken goats yep cows sheep I mean a little bit of everything dogs cats little bit all of it and I noticed that these cows if they were raised up with those specific animals didn't seem like they would bother but if we got something new a new goat a new cat a new anything they'd kill it the first night it didn't take long before that started turning into an issue to where when they got hungry they'd kill one of their one of the ones they had grew up with too so those so those what what I thought might be you know the good C thing they turn they good there ain't no such thing as a good C they they turn bad and when they figure it out then you have a major issue so let's just say those Farmers have coats that are not really bothering anything yeah yeah going back to what we talked about while ago on Land Management yep if you kill those coats there's a good chance no no other coats are gonna move in for a while they might but if you let those coats turn into bad coats the amount of damage they do in such a short period of time it's going to you know those days that they weren't killing stuff once they figure out to do it they're going to make up for that real quick they'll wipe your goat her sheep her chickens whatever they'll they'll wipe him out in just a few nights it's exactly what we were just talking about a little bit ago I said you you're most readily available food source if you've got coyotes on a say A Farm a sheep farm and none of your sheep are getting none of their sheep are you know seeing any kind of predatory activity none of them's getting killed well there could be a booming population of RAB on that place so that's their most readily available food source is those rabbits well soon as that food source starts to dwindle and they've pretty much got it wiped out or it's at a low number and then all of a sudden the Sheep become the most readily available food source and their bellies growling and they're sitting there looking at one what do you think they going to do they going to sit there to starve there they going to kill a sheep and once they do it you know let's say that exact scenario that you're talking about in their katchen rabbits and stuff they're familiar with catching and they hadn't killed a sheep yet they've never killed a sheep sheep's a little bit bigger once and I've seen this with Ray we've talked about this on raising the pups they don't know what prey is to begin with they're a little bit skittish of it they're a little bit timid the first time but once they do it one time and they figure it out from then on it's just there nothing to it and they go right in quick well I've seen that with the coachs too so they may be catching rabbits for a period of time because that's what they're familiar with and then you know they they can't catch a rabbit the rabbit population whatever and they kill a sheep and now they have figured out how to kill a sheep well then that code has what do you think's gonna happen when the rabbit pop what's what's going to be easier those sheep in the pen or having to chase down a rabbit he's no longer gonna Target the rabbit exactly he's gonna Target the Sheep because they're easier they're bigger it's a better and once they learn it you they just they repeat the same process if a coat starts coming and getting chickens you can almost set your watch by he might find might find out yeah he might find out he likes Lego lamb better than he does fried rabbit and all he's got to do is get up and run over you know there's there's no hunting involved he just gets up and goes eats when he wants to when you're talking about livestock y there's no hunt involved it's it's easy you know just go grab that thing kill him and start eating y you don't they don't have to so once they learn it they they turn into a major problem and they will learn it it's just a matter of time oh man and we got all kinds of topics we can cover that's pretty much we've been on here for over an hour I think I know I I know I probably talked more than more than I should have them topics those are the exact topics we got through that I want to make sure we touched there's just so much stuff out there on rep you know reproduction is just crazy then you know then coyotes vocalize and to check their densities when it comes to reproduction uh the color phase type stuff and then the Land Management stuff which has been a hot topic for the last couple years especially with deer management and turkey management and uh you know some there is a lot of biologists and a lot of studies out there and a lot of other land managers and stuff professional land managers that agree with us you know we're talking about you know so there's there's not a ton of them that's against it and there's not really I don't know if there's actually any that's against it there's just some say that you're not helping anything but that's totally false anytime you can take Coyotes out of the equation you're helping every species that around because they affect they affect every species that's around them just you know that's in immediate contact with them yeah and from what I've found going going right back to that in the biologist what I've found the difference is I think every one of them that are that are looking at it the way we do from a hunting standpoint you're your biologists that are looking at it like we do uh I think every one of them will agree when you talk it's it's two different ways to look at it you've got the short-term effect you got the longterm effect and a lot of times what they're putting out and I understand it and agree with it they're looking at the longterm effect by saying that coats are so prolific you know they're such survivors that if you go in and kill a 100 coats trap 100 coats whatever and then you leave those coats unchecked then they will produce back to carrying capacity for the property within a a year or two I agree with that but those same biologists when they look at the S short term will agree with what we're saying in that you can absolutely have an effect because coats only have pups once a year there's only x amount of cows on the landscape each year and for every cow you kill that's a reduction in the population holes are created somewhere for every cat that you kill somewhere upon and a turkey Po and a sheep and a chicken and all that stuff somewhere an animal survives that you're trying to manage for or that your neighbor's trying to manage for and so there's there's no argument there I mean I don't think anybody uh from any side will argue the shortterm effects of reg man and and really and really when it comes to deer management that's what it's all about you're just continuously working on these short-term deals that turn into to long-term gains it's just like you're constantly having to if you're a deer manager land manager for deer you're constantly working on your habitat you're you're constantly helping with bedding you're constantly helping with food sources stuff like that it's just like you can't plant one food plot and expect it to be the food plot that supplies food for these deer for the next 20 years that's not how it works it's usually every single year you know or every three to five years depending on what kind of plot you put so it's always there's always these shortterm goals shortterm gains that you're that you're implementing that turn into to long-term goals with your deer management and you just got to stay after the coy just like you have to stay after everything else to make it worthwhile that's just that's just how it is exactly I mean like I don't think anybody will argue that they if they do they're just arguing to argue right right well I think you know we've got so much other stuff that we could cover that's really like specific to to coyote hunting that's some myths out here that I think we can cover in a part two uh just to give you guys a glimpse of it it's you know there's some locating myths uh there's myths on um howling that scares coyotes so we've got several others that we can talk about but I I definitely wanted to get these topics hammered out and we did on this episode and and always toy I I really appreciate you bringing your knowledge to the table here and discussing with everybody sharing it with everybody um you know is there anything you'd like to leave us with for before we jumped off here I just have one question for you okay I've I've heard that a 17 is a good caliber for Coach is that a myth BS misinformation which one are you which one I want to ask John Collins which one he puts that in man the funny thing is um you haven't even got to hear this podcast yet because it comes out right before this one so when this one does this is hilarious cuz just did a podcast with Cliff Mar well guess what for fo it's over Fox calling and guess what he is shoot shoots a seven the 17 Magnum deal whatever that is it's a Rimfire but anyways like like he was scared to death when I got talking about you know what caliber you shoot he's like oh man I was afraid you was going to ask me this he was afraid I was just going to dog him to pieces but anyway you can y'all could keep 17 well that's why I brought it up because anybody that's ever listened to any of my podcast they heard you get on the rire so especially the 17 so man I felt so bad like man maybe I should have just skipped this question with Cliff because I knew he shot one of those rires for these foxes so I you know I had to ask him what about if a ky rolls in you confident yeah guess what Cliff was confident because Cliff is a killer if y'all don't know who Cliff Martin is and if you skipped over that fox Collin episode go back and list to it cuz cuz it's very good stuff Cliff is one of the best Predator hunters in the country and guess what he shoots a 17 a little bit especially if he's targeting Fox do I agree with it ah we'll leave that there but I had to throw it in there I thought you was going to ask me where my buck is I ain't tagged no buck yet this year so I didn't want to depress you yeah you ain't had no luck either have you what what's going on with us this is a down year for for Collins and cook on the deer hunt I'm telling you it's there's still some season left so I'm optimistic you know what the pro you know what the problem is pull out we ain't killed enough coyotes our our deer management or Predator management hadn't been up to Snuff that could be it I didn't get after them as hard as I usually do so that might be it paying for it now ain't we hey when I was actually in the stand two nights ago and and was climbing down after you know last shooting like you know Clips there and I was climbing down got about I I didn't get 60t from the stand all a sudden I hear there was coyotes howling like crazy right in right in behind dad's house so I'm thinking probably end of this week or next week I'm we see if I can't kill me some homegrown Coy now that dad's maybe I can help my dear population out you was talking about not skipping Over episodes and what you just said made me think of that because I just listened to it yesterday I meant to share that with people and steel will but uh the episode you did with Gage bannan where y'all were talking about don't let the deer stuff scare you off if you don't want because the deer stuff is good but if you're not in the deer there's some good cow information on there going right with what you're talking about y for whatever reason I don't know if it's these unseasonably warm temperatures what's going on but the Cs have been vocal and I heard y'all talking about whole podcast away but y'all talked about some stuff that's a little bit different I mean you normally all over prey distress right now and I still think it's a good idea to mix it but y'all out some pretty good information on there so if people skipped it thinking it was all deer go back and check that one out because there's some good stuff the deer stuff is good that's that's the main reason I tuned in but the co stuff is really good too I like them both so that episode was full of top I enjoy we we we discussed you know what we've been seeing in the field calling coyotes and it this you know you know fall family bust up stuff it it's it's you know right on the money what's going on but I just had to alter things a little bit what I usually run and it was less you know cuz I'm usually mixing in more and more pray distress and it comes this time of year and I've had to back off of it because it just wasn't coming and you're right the coyotes have been so vocal this year it is crazy all the vocal responses I've had and then the responses of them running into vocals and how it's it's CRA yeah don't miss that podcast and man what a buck Gage kill my goodness you see the pictures of that thing I well I commented on it soon as I seen it I said man that thing right there I don't care what that deer scores and he scores a lot on 190 I think but regardless that dude I've seen dude that score higher the eye appeel that dude right there's got when it comes to eye appeel that dude's got it I mean that Mega moose was the right name for hey he killed he killed another deer just a few years ago that's like a within an inch and a half of it and I've seen that one and it's it's an impress impressive deer as well but just the frame and how this Mega moose Buck is built he looks so much bigger and we're talking about one of them scores 189 and the other one scores 190 and 48 that's all that's all the difference there is but one looks visibly bigger yeah there's nothing left to be desired on on that deer I mean he's got he's got everything I like in one that's for sure which I appeal is I appe that's where it's at and that deer's got it hey heck of a story too we go all over the story he man gays is a heck for a deer hunter one of the best one of the best deer hunters out there and he he walks us through his season and finally capitalizing on what he call Mega moose and if you see the pictures of this deer you know why he called it Mega moose it's awesome awesome Buck yeah good stuff all right toy appreciate you coming on here buddy yeah man appreciate everybody listening as always and uh using our stuff yes yes sir we hope everyone enjoyed this episode we hope you join us again right here on the fox Pro podcast