In this episode of the FOXPRO Podcast, Jon Collins sits down with Joey Wirth from Close Encounter Predator Hunts and discusses hunting crop country.
welcome to the FoxPro podcast brought to you by FoxPro Game Calls we've got a cool episode for you guys and gals today welcome back to the FoxPro podcast this is John Collins and I'm joined by Joy Worth of Close Encounters Guide Service we're discussing calling coyotes in and around Standing Crops joy we appreciate you coming on bud i appreciate you having me back you've uh just got back from a recent trip to Kansas as I understand how was that for you uh yeah it was it was hit or miss um you know how early May to me early May late April early May is probably the I think it's the hardest time of year to call and and like I said it was it was feast or famine we had we had days where we were on coyotes every stand and then we had I think we had two consecutive days where we did close to 20 stands before putting eyes on a coyote so right you know it's it that time of year you're either you're either close enough or you're not yeah i I think that's key for that time of year um it proximity just comes into play so much because they're not really ranging away from the den sites all that far or you know the cos that actually are part of a den and you know it like you said if you're not inside that bubble in that range that they're going to come to you can struggle and and that's that's the time of year when that's happening yeah and the you know the longer I do this the more I think proximity is the number one factor but what a lot of people don't realize is that the the distance that you put on that label of proximity changes throughout the year we're talking about May June July you got to be really really close to them uh sometimes within a couple hundred yards to get them to react versus you go into the breeding season man you could watch them from come from 3/4 of a mile all night long sometimes oh man yeah yeah especially you know in some some regions of the US you can see them come from well over a mile they're just little bitty dots coming you know that you're seeing her dots in the scope and uh you know I don't get to see that too often unless I go to one of the big western states but yeah probably probably the the um stretch of time that we get our biggest amount of questions with from people that's struggling is usually March April and early May seems like and it's it is a it is a tougher time frame and I think a one huge part of it is that I think that some people don't understand is is there's just so few coyotes during that time you know we've got our least amount of coyotes that you have to call in is through that March April May even though they might have pups in the dirt come April May those pups can't come they're too little they're still on mom so you've you've literally got your least amount of coyote you have for the entire year to call during March April May and that's one thing that that you've got to keep in mind if you want to continue to call that time frame there's less coyotes and and to expand on that not not just are there less they're the most educated most experienced because they they just survived the winter and like like here in Illinois they just survived our night season where they're here in a call every week every weekend for four months and I think I think nationwide that's pretty well becoming a thing yeah yeah that that is that is very true yeah those coyotes that are that have survived they they uh got lucky enough or or survive for a reason you know they was wily enough to make it happen and about guaranteed that they've heard some form of calling at some point throughout the year oh for sure for sure yeah but like I said earlier I think this is a very cool topic that we're going to cover today you all did hear me right we're going to be talking about calling coyotes in and around standing crops you know a big portion of our country is covered in crops this time of year um but the thing is that doesn't mean that coyote calling has to stop or has to wait till the crops are picked you know you hear or shelled or whatever cut you know uh you hear people all the time say "Well I can't go because the crops are still standing." And I understandably so i mean I get it um but these places that have standing crops guess what they'll hold coyotes joy here of uh Close Encounters Guide Service a big portion of his summertime calling and guiding takes place either right in the middle of the crop on the edges of the crop or outside the crop calling out of it and that's what we're going to be talking about today we're going to go over the info that you guys need to hunt coyotes in this type of train these type of situations if you are in a state um that has some form of crop and just you're in you hunt a lot of Indiana and Illinois for the most part when you're guiding is that correct Joy mo this past year exclusively Illinois um I do I do a little bit of pleasure hunting in in uh southwestern Indiana 99% of what I do is in Illinois for the for the for the shotgunning Right right well if anybody knows Indiana or Illinois it's covered in crops huge crop states missouri's got a ton of crop uh parts of Kansas got a lot of crops of course Iowa does iowa I think Iowa has a county that raises more the the county in Iowa raises more crops than the entire state of Kentucky and we've got a lot of crops tennessee has a lot of crops anybody's been in Ohio knows it's got ton of crops in state after state after state it doesn't have to be corn or beans there's plenty of states that's got peanuts and uh you know oat crops and wheat and just every you just name it it's all over the country and a lot of times when it's standing a lot of people kind of disregard it because they think it just exes it out that you cannot you cannot hunt it or call coyotes in or around it but uh Joyy's proved that uh proved that wrong many a time yeah it's it's it's really its own style of hunting it uh when you when you look at the crops and people think that they're not able to hunt it a lot of times they're coming at it from a rifle hunting aspect or a rifle hunting mindset and it it's just the shotgunning particularly is is its own thing it's a different set of rules you got to completely change how you look at at the coyotes themselves and how they're acting and the terrain and how you approach it it's it's it's its own thing right right and we'll definitely be covering that covering that in this podcast weapons to use for for this style of hunting but really first things first when you get to talking about this type of stuff and to be successful scouting and locating is absolutely crucial is key to success for this don't I mean tell us about it Joy tell us how like when you start to go into this your guiding season and the crops are up here in Kentucky our crops have they're just now we got corn up but this just 3 or 4 in tall at this is at the time this is recorded this is like the LA what is this like going into Memorial Day weekend this will be a couple weeks before this comes out so this will be in June time June comes our corn that's up three or four inches right now will be knee high or close to it you know so um but anyway Tell tell us what you your scouting uh process goes when you go into your guiding season when you do have crops that start to get on up sure the the scouting scouting is imperative for this style of hunting um really even for summer hunting if you're going to if you're going to put up big numbers during the summer months the scouting is the most important part um the the thing about scouting is a lot of people don't understand um locating and why we locate uh I think a lot of people have the impression of you go out you howl at them you get them to respond and you're just you know there are coyotes over there and you just go hunt them and it's it's a lot more than that and so that time of year we're talking about denning season right so going out of denning into pup rearing is basically that transition into the summer and their home ranges are tiny and it's you're not going to call them you're not going to call them from a half mile it it's just it's just not going to happen during that time of year you have to be close so my process for scouting is every June every June like clockwork i I approach all of my properties as though I have no idea where any coyotes are whatsoever the the and what I'm doing is is I'm exploiting the family group aspect where they either have pups in the ground and the adults are hyper territorial or the pups are just out of the ground and becoming vocal knowing that their home ranges are going to be really really small so so I approach it as though I don't know where any coyotes are and I just kind of start rolling through all of my properties and I I locate and it and it takes a ton of time with all the ground that I have to cover i I locate every piece of property that I have access to before before the summer hunting really kicks off hard so I go out um the locating for me is simple pull up i do it off off of the road i don't go into the property um all I'm doing is running a series of house uh my favorite is Boon Lone Wine House it's an MFK sounds um I'm running it on like 30 32 volume usually more volume is going to be a little better as far as getting a response out of them so all I'm doing is I'm pulling up i run through that loan how if they answer they've given away their location if I don't get that a lot of times I'll run a pair howl um sister pair is a great sound um if they don't respond to that I'll run a group howl um probably like happy yappy or something like something something similar and once I get them to respond the big thing for me is knowing exactly where they are at and the whole point of locating is it allows you to get in get in the proximity you need to be to get them to react and do it without them knowing you're there that is the that is the whole point behind locating um so once they've given their location the first thing I do is pull up pull up a a mapping app uh some people use OnX Huntstand I think there there are several several really good ones out there personally I use Onyx and what I'm looking for is where are they at what is the terrain around them is there a tree line does it connect to a bean field is there a two track that runs in between fields just an open edge that I can use and and that that you know you're exploiting multiple things there but the biggest thing is that their home range is tiny and you have to be close to them right right and speaking of the mapping tools one of the big things about uh that I really like about Onyx Joy I don't know if you ever tried this or not i don't know which mapping tool you use but Onyx has that compass mode yeah if you got coyotes you can literally have compass mode on and just point your phone towards where they're calling it brings up this line where you can tap on it and pretty much you know it'll it'll drop the pen right there where they're where they're howling from you know if you've got a good good enough sense of of distance anyway and it's a it's a pretty cool tool i use that all the time that's what I use when I'm marking locations it's a pretty helpful helpful tool yeah that's I use OnX i do use that feature it's it and that's one of the the biggest things is the game that we play is very short range in the summertime so if you if you overshoot them or undershoot them on your estimation on how far they are from where you're locating if you miss them by a hundred yards that could be the difference between walking in with the correct wind or the incorrect wind so a tool like that is is really really nice to have and it definitely makes it easier well probably and you just you just said it right there you know missing that mark say you miss that mark by 100 yards whether you went too deep or you went too shallow you can make up for being too shallow but if you misjudge it going too deep you walk right through bump them out oh and I've I've got believe me I've I've had I've had stands with clients where we're walking in and you know I'm and I'm trying to get as close want to get there are times we're within 20 or 30 yards of them when we turn the call on and but and the cover allows that as long as you're walking in with the correct wind you're using the terrain features that you got a you know a corn field that connects to a tree road that has a bean field on the other side well we know they're going to be in the corn that's a that's a gimme on that i've done it thousands of times so you know we're walking the outside edge and the beans between the beans and the tree row and then just kind of bumping through that tree row and I've had times with clients where we get through that tree row and we're starting to set up and a coyote walks right by us right and I'm just like "Guys just just when that happens freeze don't do anything just don't move." A lot of a lot of times they'll walk right by you as long as your wind is right and that that goes to the locating if you don't if you don't locate you don't even know they're there if a guy if a guy came to Illinois and blind called cornfields trying to kill coyotes out of it man you'd be lucky to see one in every 25 stands well there's just the thing you know and that's the thing there's like you said they're not going to come from a great distance away and that type of stuff to a call and there's tens of thousand hundreds of thousands of acres of this stuff so it's it is like you said it's imperative that you do it and one thing that that you mentioned to me a couple days ago when we were talking back and forth about putting this podcast together and it was talking about locating in these crop fields you you made the statement about understanding the why behind the location that those coyotes are howling from you want to talk about that a little bit yeah the the why and like like I said a lot of guys they and it really depends on your terrain and the part of the country you're in right right if you're hunting desert and you got a million acres of public land and you got a really high coyote population locating might not be necessary for you you may still there may be enough coyotes around where it's not necessary in the eastern half of the US if you're trying to do this close-range shotgun style summertime style of hunting locating is something you pretty well have to do and the why the why is
it's it's really about getting close enough to them without them knowing you're there right so and and it really boils down to that giving away their location knowing that their home range around that denning area that pup rearing area is going to be for the most part 100 yards maybe you'll you'll have a couple adults that will venture further than that a lot of times that time of year you'll have uh you know one or two adults kind of off two 300 yards away you'll have the birth the birthing mother and the litter right there in their their little core area right that's usually the dynamic that you're going to see during that time frame uh you've got coyotes bringing food back and forth all day long so the odds of catching them around the den or around the the pup rearing area are pretty high and right getting them to vote and and that's something that can be used to your advantage too if you're somebody wanting to decrease the number of coyotes on a particular property say it's a hunting lease say it's you got a sheep farm whatever if you're specifically just going for numbers you could make multiple stands out of that family group targeting the adults on one side and then targeting the entire family group on another just it really depends on what you're going for it but as far as the why behind it it's really about the the proximity and being able to get close and I do it all summer long where we locate the night before you know hear them howl sneak in and it's it knowing their location okay what's what's the wind doing can I get downwind of them and still have an edge where I can see the coyotes it it it their location being given away gives you everything you need to know it lets you know where to set yourself up where to put the call where to um where to walk in from it it gives you all of the the that that main piece of the puzzle you need to set everything else up let me ask you this do you see any kind of key feature that's kind of repetitive that coyotes are around that they like to either rear these pups in or they den the pups inside these crop fields is there something like a little a ditch line that's inside there are they using some kind of feature like that that that you see that's repeated time and time again even on various different properties yes so the one thing I really look for is is an edge a lot of times if if they're staying in the middle of a corn field okay so here here's a great example last summer I found I think close to 60 I think it was 60 or 62 family groups of coyotes that had pups i found that's a big number found them by locating right yep so I found them every single one of them was in a corn field everyone the corn gives them cover it allows them to run at full speed it It gives them everything they want believe it or not the corn fields stay cooler deeper into the day than you would imagine um and I know because we hunt in them you know they the moisture holds really well in a corn field but the main things that I see with that is if they're in the middle of a cornfield a lot of times there's a grass waterway that runs through that cornfield right and they're targeting that besides that a lot of times I'm looking for a corn field that connects to a bean field and on the Okay say you're you're looking north and on the right side you've got a corn field on the left side you got a bean field but on the but on the north end of the property you have a tree row with a creek that runs through it and a lot of a lot of times it's those they they want to be around those areas where there's diversity in the terrain or in the in the vegetation that's around right and that's and that's what I target while hunting is as and you'll see in in a lot of my videos on YouTube the summertime stuff we're just waiting for them to break that edge well it gives you a little transition area to hunt as well sometimes there'll be a little bit of an opening right yeah and a little bit might not be much but there there are times where we're sitting there with a shotgun pointed at a little hole that's five yards away and and yes but that that does give and and it's really frustrating sometimes because you you find a group of coyotes well you don't know you know it's a corn field that connects to a tree row and the backside is beans but you don't know what's between the corn and the trees some farmers will and depending on uh is it is it the east side or the west side is it of of the tree row which side gets more sun or less sun or more moisture or so there may be nothing but dirt for you know a yard wide between the corn and the the trees that's that's awesome i love when that happens or you walk in there and it's head high grass right that's between the corn and the trees and you have nothing to work with well that's that's how we end up in corn fields a lot of time is because there's no other option right right right i you you mentioned earlier about you know the corn holding coyotes they like to be in there because it it's cover it can keep them cooler shaded and all that type of stuff another thing that you know maybe some people are not thinking about all their prey is using that corn field as well go around the edge of a corn field and see where birds and squirrels and everything else has just ate up the first so many rows of the corn and then it's full of full of deer in a lot of states and another thing people don't realize is those coyotes will eat that corn as well when it gets like a rose ear on that on that corn when it starts forming the ear it starts getting a kernel on there and it's nice sweet and juicy before it starts to turn hard they eat that i mean you'll go around you'll find uh coyote droppings and guess what it'll be full of corn yeah and you you'll see what they're eating um and I always refer to coyotes as far as their diet as opportunistic omnivores they will eat anything that they can digest and probably things that they really can't digest uh so I a great example last summer I had a family group that was and it worked out great so this family group was living in a cornfield they had been there all summer long going into the cornfield was a twotrack and the twotrack uh when it you know it was it it was bare so their tracks were obvious and as I was walking in a couple hundred yards I noticed I noticed coyote droppings and I'm like there's watermelon in this this is fresh so I started looking around and I realized that there was a watermelon field across the road about a half mile away and what they were doing at night they were moving across the road because we had hunted them in that cornfield multiple times and were just never able to get one dead and and I realized they're they're going across the road and a lot of times I don't I think they're over there on that watermelon field early hours of the morning and then coming back across so we we were actually able to to change what we were doing based on that and hunt the watermelon field before they came back to the corn that's pretty cool yeah yeah that uh it kind of turns into a little bit of more of a hunt too you start figuring out where they're feeding where they going back to bed and how you need to get in there and call them get them intercepted um let's move on you kind of you kind of touched on this a little bit here but I want to dive a little bit deeper into it you know now you everybody understands that hunting this type of stuff scouting locating is key is crucial you you've got to do it but after you get some coyotes located you know where their location is the next crucial step that can either make or break the hunt is this is the stand setup itself uh so let's walk walk through that a little bit more uh you can you know touch back on some stuff that you already talked about you already you already covered it proximity is huge with this type of stuff because they're not going to come from a mile away in a standing corn field so proximity is huge uh you talked about using these edges a little bit because it creates some uh um you know a transition point where the terrain is changing and could give you little somewhat of an opening uh let's talk about that stuff a little bit and one thing I've noticed especially here in Kentucky where we're so rolling a lot of our crop fields they're not 100% completely flat there will be some road to those fields and there will be like funnels and and that type of stuff inside those corn fields can you use those to your advantage to funnel coyotes to the call and that type of stuff touch on that a little bit Joy the So the to me after proximity the biggest factor is wind of course you you can't have your wind blowing into them that's that's obvious you know if anyone's been out for any period of time they know that already but that that wind and that's one thing about locating is when as soon as as soon as they give up their location I kind of check the weather app like what's the wind supposed to be doing tomorrow and it's and if what's what's really hard about that time of year and really frustrating is if the wind is below say 7 miles an hour it just floats in there oh my gosh because of those tree rows and edges and even the edge where a bean field connects to a corn field the wind swirls on those edges and and that's that's probably the my biggest frustration is swirling wind that time of year because we we're trying to get those coyotes I mean our average shot average shot in the daytime is 10 or 12 yards very very close very close awesome and a lot and a lot of Yeah right and and people would think the closer the better but I probably see more misses more misses percentage wise under 20 yards than I do over o over aundred yards so that's right but um the the wind the wind is number one and and the big thing is finding a way to get downwind of them but still be in proximity right
and it it's a tricky thing because it's kind of a case by case scenario depending on what the the terrain looks like right as far as the role in in the field yeah you can use that to your advantage it almost helps you if there's a little roll between you and the coyotes whenever you're setting up it just it kind of gives you that buffer of not being seen as you're going in the the when they're in the middle of a field finding a waterway or uh any any kind of a change in in vegetation or change in visibility or and a lot of times they will hang up on those edges and that's why we try to stay so close to them a lot of a lot of times they don't want to go from well it's in a a bunch of my videos coyotes are running dead sprints at the call hard charging and you can hear them running through the cornfield right and as soon as they get a couple rows away from the edge they hit the brakes and a lot of times they don't want to be exposed they don't want to break that cover and that's why we're hugging the covers because we have to kill them right there on the edge because they may not come out they feel they feel safe in it they do and that's and that goes to um depending on what crops are in if I have if I have a standing corn field and the connecting field was a winter winter wheat field that got cut and planted in late beans right you can you can do a rifle stand on that still or you can shotgun hunt whatever you want either way you're still going to use that edge so what I what I do in that scenario is I put myself within 200 yards of the closest edge to where they located from right if that makes sense yeah it it it totally does that way they just have to break the cover that's it and I've got a shot so so pretty much to sum like that section up you know you've got coyotes located all right so you found the coyotes probably you're going to use your mapping and you've got the coyotes marked and the next thing you're going to look for is hey what is the most likely spot that I can set up in and get just a little bit of breathing room to maybe get a shot in on a coyote right that's it that's that's downwind of them that's downwind and that's the next step you're you're checking your weather apps watching the weather whatever to see what your wind direction is and so you've already figured out hey the coyotes are here i think I can set up right here to get them caught up i need to have such and so win to do that so those like are those three steps and uh I guess the next one after that that you that would it I always talk about this being so crucial for this doesn't matter if you're calling crops it don't matter what you're calling what type of country or terrain you're calling in one of the biggest things that I'll harp on a lot with a lot of guys is your e-all placement oh yeah if you're running a ecoall and because you can manipulate a coyote so much even in like huge open ground you can actually place a coyote within 20 steps of where you want to place a sucker at you really can you steer them where you want them to exactly put them right where you want to shoot them at so this next step is call placement where where are you placing your call when you are calling this type of stuff when you're getting right in there tight on these coyotes call placement is it's one of the really tricky things because ultimately in this style of hunting if the coyote wants to circle and get downwind of you it can't and there's no there's really nothing you can do about it because if it if it if it circles 30 yards away you don't see it it's gone you don't you just got you have to you have to put that coyote on the X mhm so call placement is one of those deals where okay if that coyote breaks cover can I get a shot at it as it's breaking cover right if the answer is yes and we're in a really really tight spot I'll put I'll put the call at our feet and say "Hey keep your guns pointed right there if you if you see one coming through kill them you can't hesitate." Now now now if we have a a pretty setup and we're in that space between the corn and the tree row and it's about uh a yard to two yards wide it's mostly dirt or short grass and we can see 25 yards that's a that's a 25 yards is a beautiful set that's a beautiful setup there so so if okay so if I'm doing that and say the corn's on the left and the tree row is on the right if if people can visualize that the wind is the wind is coming from the corn to the trees well what what I want to do is I want to get that call uh maybe 5 yards 10 yards away from me in the tree row but I have to do it in a way where I'm not going to leave a back trail down the edge of the corn where the coyotes are going to pop out right where they smell you smell your track yes because if they as soon as they cross that line man they're gonna about face just run away like you lit their tail on fire so everybody's seen that happen everybody's seen that yeah yeah i've got I've got plenty of videos where I've gotten busted doing that so but but a lot of times I'll I'll kind of hop through that tree row on the other side walk it down put it in the tree row walk back that way kind of making a a a J instead of a straight line across that yeah and and that's one of the big things is is and and that goes to your locating if you go too far even though you may not have blown those coyotes out of there you just left a back trail on everything that they may come running through and that's that's like I say really knowing exactly pinpointing where that family group is hanging out that's imperative but and your call placement can be anywhere from and this is one of those scenarios I saw a post on social media a while back and it was like does anyone ever set their e-collar behind them i thought I remember seeing that yeah I do there there are time and everyone basically everyone in there was like absolutely not there's never a there's never a time to I'm like no that's not true yeah I put it behind us a lot and it's because I want to pull those coyotes through us they have to go through us versus a rifle in an open field you just have to get them into the field i want those calls to run through us because that might be the only shot that we have right and you have and that call placement when you do that has to be on point uh we we did a I can't even remember what it was titled when it was i remember I did it with Corey Gra maybe it was I can't remember it was last summer or the summer before we actually did like a e- call placement type podcast and that was one of the questions was on there do you ever put it behind you and it's got to be a it's a rare situation cuz I've always been a type of guy that I always want to be able to see that e-coll there just so many times that there's a coyote standing right on top of it you would have never known it right but this is one of those rare situations where this does work and and it the thing about putting it behind you in that scenario is like I say if if you're if you're on the edge that gap between the corn and the trees and the wind is in your favor coming from the corn to the trees putting the e-collar behind you those coyotes could come by on the right or the left but the thing is for them to circle down wind they have to get in that gap where you can see and it's it's all about drawing them down there and like I said ultimately this actually happened to me in Kansas here recently they can circle far enough downwind where you you you won't know it and it's just it's it's part of the game it's going to happen it's unavoidable the learning learning this style of hunting and applying it to my terrain you're going to have a lot of trial and error mostly with error but but boy when you you can shotgun one at six yards or or pretty much point blank it's a lot of fun well as people already know cuz they you know because they view when the crops are standing they view it as it's uncallable so everybody already knows that it's not easy it it's not it's not the easiest form of hunting in the world but it can pay off and it can be better than waiting months before those crops are gone before you can go call because you can get in those situations if you do it right you can get them killed and it is extremely rewarding i mean just like we was talking about you could go night hunting and you're calling coyotes out of course you get to see them come from a long ways off through thermal or lights or night vision whatever you're using and then you might be shooting them out there at a couple hundred yards but when you start talking about shooting them at just a few steps six steps that's cool you can when you're calling them in so close you can hear them breathing oh yeah you hear those people start people talk about you know wait till you see the white of their eyes what about wait till you hear them breathing that's close the huffing sound that they make when they're really agitated yeah that you only hear if it's close range and that's and that that um so there are a couple sounds out there uh greeting wines uh mom and dad den call i've I've been lucky enough to have heard that sound a handful of times while hunting and it's because of that close range it's a sound that you're you're not going to hear that 400 yards away you're just not you're not going to hear it 200 yards away it is it is a very close range kind of thing f feet oh yeah yeah and it it's a it's a cool thing because you do hear those little nuanced vocals that you wouldn't hear calling on a rifle stand right right you're right you got to get them close they're going to be close when you shoot them uh let's All right so we got coyotes located we understand how crucial setup is and e call placement that type of stuff so you got your coyotes located you know where you're going to make your stand from you got your win right you know how you need to place your call now let's talk about style of calling because usually when now this can change throughout the months of course but usually in most places when you do have standing when I talk about standing crops let's kind of narrow it down to like soybeans corn and I guess maybe cotton and those type of crops you know like June through October or June through September you might as well say when the bulk of it is up because some of that stuff's being chopped for silent and all that type of stuff so you're pretty much talking about summer type late spring through summer type calling so let's talk about your calling style when you set up on these type of stands and you're really close to these coyotes kind of walk us through what a what your calling sequence would be like okay um to me there's there's really two ways to approach that um one are you targeting just the adult coyotes or are you targeting any coyote that steps in front of you and and there's you know there's there's a lot of back and forth about you know calling and shooting pups um my opinion on that is do whatever suits you it it it it I I I have had pups i've got this one stand that sits in my memory bank that I it I always refer to where I had it was it was corn and timber and I got up kind of into the timber uh maybe 15 yards from the edge of the corn because they had located kind of split up in both and I start calling the younger coyotes answer down in the corn off to my right and it it's kind of it kind of slopes uphill where I'm at and the adult coyotes answer down the timber straight in front of me okay the pups end up coming out of this is probably uh first or second week of August so when I say pups they've they've had a few months they're kind of separated from the adults a little bit they're they're expanding out a little more right so that whole group of five or six pups comes up into the timber and they worked the terrain and they worked the wind the way a coyote should i I was bow hunting them and I I was drawn they never got closer than probably 30 yards and I never got a shot at them they go back down into the corn well I switch sounds into fight sounds and all of a sudden here comes an adult bust through the deadfall shoot it at five yards with my bow switch sounds to another fight sound here comes another adult same exact thing so there are times the pups because they can be timid at times will give you more fits than the adults will right so So you know I I don't care either way if I'm hunting by myself a lot of times I'll film the pups and let them walk and save them for for fall coyote hunting um if clients want to shoot them go for it now if I'm on a farm with cattle or that I'm managing for a a hunting lease yeah there's we don't discriminate on age just it just you know whatever your hunting situation is cool do that it it is what it is um so looking at that if I'm just targeting the adults and how I said that a lot of times the adults will be separate from the younger coyotes by two or 30 hund yards if I'm targeting them a lot of times I will go when they locate if there are two separate spots two 30 hund yards away I'll go to those adults first and I I will use a very like lowkey fairly quiet prey distress okay targeting those adults on on that side because I know the younger coyotes aren't there um always assuming that there is at least one adult with with the pups um whenever I go over there I'm running straight vocals on the on the group i got you so if the group is completely together I'm 100% vocals um the adults are hyper territorial the younger coyotes will respond to it um more specifically I am very howlheavy yes very very very howl heavy i've got stands where I will howl sit for four or five minutes howl again they'll answer sit for four and there are times they'll answer back and they'll be 10 yards in the corner you just can't see the things you can hear Oh that's awesome you can hear them the whole the whole group and you can hear them running back and forth and it and I you know I joke with clients before they come for a hunt i'm like it's literally like playing whack-a-ole with shotguns you're right and so so targeting the family group if I feel like they're all together I'm going 100% vocals and I'm I'm going to be primarily calling them in on hows and sounds like greeting wines like that mom and dad den call mom and dad den call was was phenomenal for me last year and and it's one of those where the whole group will run over you and you you have to be ready um and here's a tip if you're doing this style of calling don't sit with your shotgun laid across your lap be ready shoulder your shotgun and maybe maybe you know rest the fore end on your knee or something but you have to be ready i've watched a lot of coyotes pop up and disappear before clients could even shoulder their gun you you do have to be ready but but as far as prey sounds that time of year you can target the adults on those uh the pups don't know what prey sounds are if they're not going to come to a call with the mindset that they're about to catch a catch a mouse and eat it or catch a rabbit and eat it the adults will but the the pups a lot of times they they and I've what's what's great for me is that I get to spend a lot of time just just spectating just watching these these pups um because if I call them out a lot of times I film them and just let them go but but a lot of times they'll hear a prey sound and it kind of it kind of scares them they don't know what that is they haven't had that experience a a screaming woodpecker is not is not something they want to go running toward until they've had something it's it's more than likely that sound is foreign to them yes yeah and they don't you know coyotes are they're naturally very highrung even as pups they're they're wary of everything and until they have that life experience that says "Hey that's food screaming over there." they they might get curious and come out and take a peek but most of the time they won't run to it but right but but as as a whole to answer that question I'm very very very vocal heavy i would say that I'm 95% vocals well it it's basically you know we've covered denning season coyote calling styles numerous times on this podcast we just put out a June coyote calling podcast which is predominantly you know covering house pup distresses pup fights adult fights and all that type of stuff all those type of sequences that we've talked about numerous times all these are going to work in those situations so it it's pretty much whatever your calling style is that you have luck calling in coyotes anytime during the denning or puping season is going to work that right Joy that's right yeah that's absolutely well let's talk let's talk you said you said whack it that style of calling is kind of like playing whack-a-ole with a shotgun let's talk about let's talk about the weapon choices for his style Colin as you could we've mentioned shotguns several times throughout this podcast so that is probably you you mentioned archery equipment yeah if you want to use archer equipment you guys go ahead that I'm sure that's going to be in a lower percentile people trying to do cuz that's that's definitely tough you're you're really doing something there and that and that is cool if you want to do it but I would say for this style of calling uh especially getting in this stuff where you're talking about maybe your furthest shot is 25 yards and most time it's within just feet shotguns where it's at is that right yeah shotgun the shotguns are very forgiving it versus trying to you know trying to use a rifle in something that close range is going to be very very difficult and very unforgiving um I've seen guys want to bring rifles here and do stuff like that uh I had a guy bring a 3030 lever action with open sides last year for the hunt yeah and Yeah did he do any good with it uh he killed uh he killed two or three with it uh but he I saw him miss several with it that'd be cool it's pretty cool though i mean Oh yeah i mean I'd much rather do it that way than with a scoped rifle for that style of column for sure scoped rifles are obsolete that time of year well yeah yeah so if if if the collective crops are above knee high yes they're obsolete right uh now we let's cover that situation right there say like if you're in soybean say if you're in corn that's right before it gets you know say say at knee high and down situations you know bean soybean crops and cotton fields and stuff like that will be fairly short for a pretty good little stretch then of course corn usually by July all your corn is going to be for the most part is going to be pretty tall uh but what about for that knee high height crop and lower is there anything that you're doing different with that type of stuff yeah the you're talking about the corn being knee high or lower yeah or or even soybeans or anything where you might find find some coyotes a lot of times the family groups won't move into the corn until it is tall enough to cover them right yeah so if you can find a vocal group in something like that they're probably going to be on a tree line or in my terrain here in southeast southeastern Illinois probably a small block of timber and and a lot of times I'll which narrows them down just just the same as it does if they're in a corn field so exactly so locating them I'm trying to find any kind of cover that I can use that's within 200 yards of where I think they're denning or pup rearing and and like I say it's that that ease of all I have to do is get them to break the cover and I get a shot so that shorter stuff and that that's a huge thing for me when the corn is tall and like I said I've got I've got wheat that was planted in the late beans a lot of times I'll stay on say it's just they're in a corn field and that corn field goes from all the way from one road to another road but it connects to that that short beans right a lot of a lot of times I'll stay on the edge um okay think about it like this say the um say you're looking east and there's there's corn on the north side and cut wheat into short beans on the um the right side so they're just in that corner a lot of times I'll run that call a 100 yards out into the open and I'm looking straight down the edge of the same field that the the coyotes are in and a lot of times I just I just need them to step out that's it just step out to that edge and I got them just get them kill yeah and and a lot there there are times where you you know they've moved a little bit since locating or your call players a little bit off or they just do something weird and man they come out right beside you sometimes right and it's just one of those things talking about those different type of situations like that uh I know here in Kentucky this is pretty common i know down in Tennessee this is common virginia several other states um like here at home uh say you know I come from a farming family we have my dad is a beef producer it's beef cattle farms but we'll have crops on those farms like we'll have standing corn we don't do as much of it anymore but there's a lot of these farms um that have corn that they're raising for silage that'll be standing and they'll also have a pasture field or a hay field right beside it or they might just be a broken hunt farm where they do beef cattle or or whatever plus they do a certain amount of crop that they'll you know grow all the way out and shell it and do whatever else you know they're crop farmers and are cattle farmers so there is several situations that I'll get in throughout the year where I'll have a standing corn field that might be holding coyotes where I have located coyotes in it i know they're in there but I'm able to set up in the open in a pasture field or a hay field that's adjacent and it is possible that you know if they're not too deep into that corn field you can set up in those open hay fields or pasture fields and call them right out in the open like you'd be calling them out of a block of timber it's no it's really I use it no different if it's if it's standing corn that's cover if it's a thicket it's cover if it's a block of woods it's cover and I'm still if I got something that's open that's adjacent to it that's not too far for them to travel you can call them up in those type of situations you don't have to get right in the middle middle of the stuff with them that's exactly right and that that I had a stand like that here recently in Kansas where I had located there were um multiple adult coyotes that answered a and that's one thing about locating too is if you go out in May or early June and you get a group of adults that are together and they answer there's a fair chance there's a den right around there oh yeah and and you know that's something you can take advantage of and like I had this stand where they answer like that i'm like "Okay I can get down here on this edge uh the wind is in my favor i've got down to the right there's you know kind of a block of cover on the side across straight across from me there's another block of cover they could come out of either of those." Well I call a single out of both sides and it was and but but I had set up within probably 300 yards of both edges and it was just enough to get them to break cover right and it and it and it it hunting that's all you needed yeah yeah and hunting well what's funny the video is actually funny because the one on the right comes hard charging to rabbit he gets really close sees me move to the camera or from the camera to the gun turns around i had to shoot him on the way out and then the other the other one the other one comes into vocals uh pup sounds from the other side same deal bust me as I'm going from the camera to the gun and then runs off never gets shot but but but to your to your point hunting cattle pastures that have any kind of blocks of timber that they'll raise their families in whatever cover they can find and and a lot of times they'll be in those in those cattle pastures hanging up in those small blocks of timber or thicket and it's the same exact concept the same exact concept yeah i I want to I got a couple questions I want to ask you about the shotgun stuff before we get too late into this um don't want to move too far from it um talking about all these closer type shots you know because pretty much the the furthest you were talking about is like 25 yards is there anything that you like to set your shotgun up differently like I I do a little bit of shotgun hunting but I still got I've got my shotgun set up where I can shoot as far as I possibly can in case I've got a coyote that hangs up out there and in some kind of open terrain where I can still crush him at 80ish yards um when you're talking about this 25 yards and in sometimes feet do you typically would you rather people be running a um more open choke where you have a bigger pattern yes as open as possible so uh TSS is one of those things that's kind of revolutionized shotgun hunting for for pretty much 100% for anything you can shotgun hunt right and and coyotes are no different we went from you know 45 50 yards being our max consistent effective range with lead to 70 80 yards consistently bucking it's it's and hearing and hearing some guys killing them at 90 and 100 with certain certain setups i've not done it that far yeah and tur turkey hunting is the same way water foul is the same way anything you can use TSS with it's just it's just it it is a more effective shot that's just a fact it penetrates better carries energy better uh you get a a better pattern density it is just better now most guys are setting their shotguns up for longer range because calling them in that close isn't as common um right the summertime hunting allows for that though and and that's the thing i get messages from guys like "How in the world do you stand hunting that them hunting them like that that close?" I'm like "Well that's it's the only option we have." So if we didn't hunt them that way we couldn't hunt them at all but the close range yeah I tell clients I'm like "Look put the most wide open choke in there that you can you want a pattern for 20 not 40." Dang i'm gonna have to when I come out and hunt with you later on this summer I'm going have to change my cho I I think I've got I think I'm shooting a 680 i'm shooting like I'm shooting threes and I'm shooting fours most of shots fours but it shoot pretty dag on tight at 25 i'm I'm shooting I'm shooting uh when I shoot TSS now at these distances the TSS isn't necessary it's I can I could I could see where it'd be still be useful though because say if like you call them up and they're two or three rows deep of corn absorb a lot of shot yeah oh don't get me wrong TSS is always better i'm bringing TSS yes it is it is always better um but I've had man I've had clients that and and I've heard both from I've I've read into this and where I've heard I've read things that say I've both sides where it can or won't damage your threads by shooting lead with no choke tube in your gun whatsoever i'm not I'm not interest I'm not telling anybody to try that but I've had clients full on take their choke tubes out just just because we're looking at a hole you know four yards away and that's it and that's another thing we we keep mentioning TSS you don't have to use TSS to shotgun coyotes i mean there's countless coyotes have been absolutely hammered with number four buck lead BB you know on down on down the line so don't you know we say we talk about TSS quite a bit but there's a reason we talk about it quite a bit it's way more effective but if you talk about 10 yards yeah you can shoot them we we a lot of times I'll keep like a pheasant load like a six i'll keep sixes just like three inch sixes um and three and a halfs i I I don't I don't want to shoot those ever like like like turkey type loads like number fives and sixes and stuff like that yeah you get a blend four five six uh turkey loads as long as it's not steel I think it's fine yeah well that's that is key right there you just said it i don't care how close you shooting them steel shot is not for coyotes now I'm sure there's people out there probably water foul hunters have been out there and the coyotes come up and they shot it and Sure but ste I man does not have the penetration it it doesn't no you're you're absolutely right and I've I've uh I've I've had clients bring those without you know and I usually I ask them "Hey what shells are you shooting what choke do you have in what do you And there have been a couple times I've seen coyotes get shot i'm like "What what shell do you have in there?" And they're like "It's just some some some two shot steel." And I'm like "Okay my dark my dark clouds whatever." That's right i'm like "Okay shoot these." You're going to use So So you're you're wanting people need to be shooting some form of lead or heavier than lead type shot yeah and and as far as I I I don't gauge doesn't matter 12 gauge 20 gauge um I mean a 410 maybe i' I've not done it i'm sure guys could uh I've I've I've I've said for years now that I'm going to get a uh like a Taurus Judge the revolver with a TSS load in a 410 for the for the in the cornfield because a lot of times we end up if we don't have an edge to work with we'll end up in the cornfield and literally call them down the row in front of us hey um Tori will make fun of you if you get you a 410 shotgun oh yeah he will yeah he will i think if I don't shoot a a a 12 or 10 gauge with a three and a half shell he'll make fun of me he made fun of you yeah yeah yeah not Not all of us are built like him to handle that recoil hey he said to have your shoulders worked on he said he Hey he blames it Tori or he blames it on the lifting the weights and all that type of stuff it's really those shot could have been from shooting that dag on shotgun to his shoulders up that's right that's right well I think that pretty much sums it up i mean we covered uh scouting and locating we covered stand setup we called talked about uh calling style a little bit and weapon choices i've got just a couple more questions I'd like to ask you here um what about time of day does it matter much if you're going to go target them on in standing crops as long as you are within the proximity you need to be to get them to react to the call time of day does not make a bit of difference we killed we killed as many coyotes between 10 and two last year as we did sunrise or sunset or the hour before after time of time of day does not make one bit of difference so long as you are close enough and and it it was the same thing just just this last trip to Kansas the coyotes that I called in were there almost immediately and it was because I was close enough i think I had one stand where one came in after the 10-minute mark yeah yeah well I mean we I get that question all the time and yeah it really don't matter what type of train you're hunting what state you're hunting time of year it don't matter proximity is key you can call if you're inside that bubble of where they will respond to it don't matter what time of day it is and because I get people ask all the time well I see you use house quite a bit at at what point of the day do you stop using house man I you if if I'm in that mindset of I'm using house for whatever my calling style is for that time of year for like right now denning season type stuff I'm howling every stand yeah and and you can have like I up at 1:00 in the afternoon and the thing about that time of year once and this is the thing about targeting the family group as a whole is and and even if you're just targeting the adults out of the group those younger coyotes being around makes the whole group more vocal they they are just naturally more vocal and they will howl all day and all night if if they're if there's something you know if you're going out and howling at them they will respond vocally and we have we have vocals all day long when we're shotgun hunting during the summer well and that is one big thing i would think that you'd want to run house quite a bit on those type of setups cuz especially if you're getting into vocal coyotes they're going to give their position away and you're going to know if you're close enough if you need to move yeah and there are there are a lot of times where we'll we you know we start the stand with a howl and they'll howl back i'm like "Guys we're we're not in the right spot we got to move now just get up and do this yeah yeah that's just a game time decision there I guess that you got to make on the fly we make a we make a lot of adjustments and that said when we even night during the night season um when we how and coyotes answer back there are times I say "Hey guys pick your pick your stuff up let's go we're we're walking 200 yards this way because the you know they're there the wind is doing this the call's over there they're going to end up right out here in front of us if we move." Right right right you know being mobile is a big advantage i got one more question for you before we hop off here give me two what are the top two common mistakes that you see hunters make when they're doing this style of hunting when you get inside you know calling this standing crop type stuff so I just two I I don't ever get to see how they would you know how they would walk in how they would set up where they would set up where they'd put the call the the things I get to see clients do on these hunts is walk from the truck to where we set up and operate their shotgun and I would say the two biggest things is one they're they're they don't pay enough attention to going slow and being quiet on the walk-in because we are getting very close to them and they absolutely can hear a stick pop if you step on it oh yeah i mean you're close yeah yeah and that that I'd say I'd say is the biggest one and next to operating their shotgun and like I say I see I I grew up shooting um sporting clays sk and trap like I grew up with a shotgun in my hand so it's it's a little more second nature for me versus guys that don't do much shotgun hunting or they they turkey hunt a little bit and it's real slow pace and turkey hunting you know it's slow motion versus shotguning coyotes you got to be on the ready your shotgun has I mean you need to have your shotgun shouldered at least partially and that that I'd say is the biggest one um operating their shotgun and not not aiming down their beads they're just kind of pulling it up and squeezing the trigger thinking "Oh it's a shotgun it'll you know they're forgiving but they're not that forgiving you still have to aim." Right those I would say those are the two biggest mistakes I see people make well I I would I would think in my mind just looking at it from the outside in I think that would be the the biggest mistakes that I would think would come up you know is you know people not being mindful of their approach you know making too much noise as they're going in and then the second part is is you just you hit it i mean not being ready at all times you better be ready and have that gun or that shotgun shouldered when you hit play cuz if you're within 50 yards of them and you how they're more than likely already coming yeah and I I get a lot I get a lot of messages from people asking questions about this style of hunting all the time i always get questions about this and they'll say "Hey I tried I tried it i located them i found them i went in uh nothing happened." I'm like "Okay uh describe to me in detail exactly what you did." Well I got out there and I set up 400 yards from where they located i'm like "Okay that's that I would say you know from messages I get from non-clients telling me telling me about a hunt that they had I would say a lot of them are not getting close enough." Gotcha and I could say that too i want I want to get so close that I'm worried that I've bumped them right and sometimes And sometimes I give them give them no give them no choice but to come to the call no and it and it's like you know these you see a a a farm dog a farm dog hears a commotion down the road and they're going to kind of kind of perk up and walk out into the yard and posture up a little bit versus if if they you know someone kicks in your front door that dog's going to react very differently oh yeah you know what I'm saying so that that it it creates a sense of urgency when you're right on top of them and you howl you're introducing a new coyote into their space with their young coyotes around that they don't want there yep and and even those young even those young coyotes those young coyotes are they're establishing a pecking order so a lot of times they're they hear a howl and they come running to it they want to see who the new coyote in their territory is and see if they can you know get one up on them as far as the higher beginners so those those coyotes those young coyotes will not shy away from hows they will run over you holling at them called in many many pup coyote to house especially when they're you know you see them i mean they're so small you think what is this thing thinking but you know we've called them whole litters where you can almost just reach down and pick them up yeah i've seen rabbitsized coyote pups come running into house before yeah and and then stop and start squalling themselves start howling right back yeah oh I've got tons of videos coy pups howling back to the call and running running running wide open to the call because there's a there's a coyote howling at them pretty cool stuff pretty cool stuff it's fun to watch well Joy I appreciate you you coming on here for this podcast this is a little something different like I said I think this is pretty cool guys especially if you hunt uh if you are in crop country and you feel like that you don't have you know you might be chomping at the bit wanting to go hunt it hunt this summer and feel like you can't because there's crops everywhere well you might try this a little bit you might go in there and pick you off a few coyotes and it it'll be rewarding you'll have a blast guaranteed if you are successful with it and and if you don't mind I'd like to leave I I hate to leave the night hunters out on this uh because I know there are so many guys that that that only night hunt and a a big piece of advice this this goes into my guiding business um and and it transitions really well so the guys in states that have a limited night season like Illinois we're November to March right kansas I think is like December to March or January to March or Indiana's October to March and you know there are all these states that have you know limited night seasons kentucky Kucky's the same way it's December to some you want to you night hunters want to up your numbers as far as coyotes you're killing especially early in your night season locate during the summer months and find your family groups that you'll have access to there you go that is one of the big things that I like I said I found around 60 family groups and for the months of November December we're targeting those family groups and it it gives us a huge head start on knowing exactly what we're going after come the winter months oh yeah and you're talking about 60 plus family groups that's not 60 plus coyotes each family group is going to have at least two coyotes in it yeah if they if you've got nothing going on July August early September get out and get out and locate a a almost unless there is human intrusion or some kind of environmental factor like fire or flood a lot of times those family groups will be somewhere out there they will be within a mile of where you found them during the summer and a lot of a lot of I I've had coyotes that in January were in the same exact drainage ditch that they were born in in the summer yeah and it great tip gives a huge advantage for the night hunters awesome awesome well leave us with something else uh tell them how where they can watch some of your video work that you do and and tell them how they can find your your guiding service sure um my YouTube is Close Encounter Predator Hunts um the as far as the guide service the easiest way to reach out to me is Joseph Worth on Facebook um or Close Encounter Outfitters on Facebook those are the two that I use primarily um man if you if any of y'all have a question about the shotgun hunting or you know looking for information or just want to chat cool hit me up um but but those are really the easiest ways to get a hold of me awesome Joy i appreciate you coming on here bud oh my pleasure i appreciate you having me we hope everyone enjoyed this episode and we hope you join us again right here on the Fox Pro