In this episode, Jon Collins, Torry Cook, and Joey Wirth answer your frequently asked questions.
Welcome to the FoxPro podcast brought to you by FoxPro Game Calls. Hello everyone, I'm John Collins. Welcome back to another episode of the FoxPro podcast. A couple weeks ago, we put a question and answer post up on Facebook. And boy, did y'all ever ask the questions. In fact, there are so many questions that we're going to break them up into three different episodes. Today's podcast is going to cover most of the questions pertaining to wind direction and locating. Of course, we have Mr. Tory Cook of MFK Game Calls on the line. And we've got a bonus guest with Joy Worth of Close Encounters and MFK on the line. How's it going, Tori and Joy? Y'all doing all right? Oh, we're sweating it out down here in Arkansas. Yeah. Y'all trying to kill some coyotes, ain't you? Oh, yeah. Yeah. We uh Joey came in. What'd you get here? Monday evening. That's right. We hunted your stay and uh and this morning. Yeah. Seeing plenty of cows. But Joey is if anybody rewinds back to when Joey first came down here and hunted with me, he hated cameras. Now he he didn't he was just all for throwing the cameras down and just killing. Yeah. Of course, at that time I was filming everything. Well, fast forward to today. Here Joey is in Arkansas. All those years ago, I was filming him in Arkansas. Now, he is a professional cameraman. Anybody's seen the Close Encounter stuff has seen his work. And so, he's pretty particular about the footage. And so, we are we're seeing plenty of coyotes. Joey has not given me the go-ahead to shoot very many cos. So, it's funny how it's how he has progressed and how it's changed over the years. He's done a 100% 180. went from nothing didn't want nothing to do with it to to somebody that does that has is turned into a passion and does a phenomenal job with a camera. Great videographer. And if uh y'all need the proof, go to his YouTube channel, go to his social pages, you'll see it. Uh excellent stuff. Elite stuff. Great stuff. Yeah, I appreciate that. But that's that's about it. We're uh we're trying to get that perfect footage and and get some coyotes killed. And we we had a pretty good stand the very last stand killed killed a double and Joey did get some really good footage of it. Got some cool stuff with some coons yesterday. So we're mixing it up. Well,
I'm sorry. Go ahead. Well, I was going to say one that's one thing when it comes to video and coyotes and well, it really don't matter. It could be coyotes, deer. It don't matter what it is. You can only do so much. You got to find those right coyotes or that right buck or right turkey or whatever that wants to be that wants to put on a show, too. I mean, you can you can do everything exactly right, but if you don't have a superstar coyote, sometimes it don't turn out to be the the most awesome stuff you've ever seen, but you know, it's uh every once in a while you you trip into one of those coyotes, it uh really puts on a show. And I'm sure y'all you all will find some on this trip, I'm sure. Well, I know that uh Joey, you know exactly what I'm talking about because Joey told me that y'all just finished up. I mean, just prior to him driving out here, y'all were doing the same thing out there. So, I think y'all were you know the deal all all too well. It's It's different when it's all about the camera and killing is the last priority instead of the first. Exactly. We watch we watched a lot of coyotes walk when John was down. We did. That that camera just adds a different layer of difficulty. There was there was a moment yesterday where I wanted to leave the camera in the woods and just go back to killing. Hey, there was a there was a stand and we might do a podcast uh talking about your all's your all's experience there in Arkansas this week and and touch on our hunt there last week in Illinois. But we had Jace Dylan of Fox Pro with us there last week and we had one particular stand where we had four or five coyotes running around on the corner of a corn field and uh in a transition area from a corn field into a soybean field. And Jace was super excited. He looked after it was all over with, he looked over at us, said, "This is probably the best, most exciting coyote stand I've ever been on in my life." And nobody pulled a trigger. Yeah. And I know that might sound crazy, but that's how it was. We didn't even shoot. Don't even know if we shouldered the shotgun. It But it was awesome, Stan, with a bunch of action. Yeah, you definitely get to learn some stuff when you hold off the trigger and get to see some stuff that you uh of course never would get to see if they was over there flopping. That's That's right. Well, y'all wanna y'all want to get to uh covering some of these questions and and giving some answers? Let's go. They gave us some some. It's kind of hard to hard to answer, but I'm ready. Yeah. Well, like I said, I think we're going to bust this up into three different episodes. This one, like I said, is going to cover wind direction and locating. There was several questions on both of those topics. Um, like I said, we'll probably do a second one we do will be more focused on the coyote calling, coyote behavior type questions. And then we also had some some video type questions about running cameras and some industry type questions. We'll probably do a third one covering all that stuff and maybe some uh some of the random more funny type questions we received. But anyway, we'll get started on in on this. The first question we want to cover here um stand set up. How much wind do you give a coyote to make them feel safe to come on in? I like to give them a crosswind or a quartering two win. That came from Nathan Knap. So, what do y'all think about that one there?
Well,
I I probably if I've got my options, I probably like a crosswind the best, but as long as it's in my favor. And as far as giving a coyote the wind, a lot of that I think a lot of that has to do with the terrain that you're in. So if you're in more open ground, then you can start using the wind in a downwind way to give that coat an approach to the call or what he thinks would be a safe approach to the call. you can get by with doing that to where you're giving, so to speak, giving that coach the wind to where you've got more of a downwind uh wind direction in the general direction that you think the coats are, not blowing right at them, but to give them an easier approach to where they think they could use the wind. But you need open ground to do that. thicker ground like we're hunting here in Arkansas or or anywhere. The thicker the terrain gets, the more you need that wind to start being crosswind or even in your face, right? Because you just you don't have the visual to get the cow killed before he starts taking advantage of using uh a downwind type setup. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have anything to add on add on that, Joy? Yeah, I guess. So, just like most things are in predator hunting, the when a when there's a question, a lot of times the answer is, well, it depends, right? Yeah. So, night hunting, one thing to think about is when you're giving them the wind, are you giving them the wind from the call or are you giving them the wind from where you are? Right. Because because when the coyote starts to circle down wind, I'm okay giving that coyote a little bit of wind, even a quartering two wind. But there are times where we'll pick up our gear. If we see that coyote coming and I know he's going to go to that downwind, we might pick ourselves up and move toward toward the downwind ourselves downwind of the call. Right. That way we're kind of we're cutting that distance. So instead of a 200 or 300 yard shot, we have 100 150 yard shot before that coyote gets the win. Just like Tori said, the thicker stuff, the big thing is being in a position I I won't I won't give them the wind at all if I can help it because they can reach that downwind before they're in in sight for getting a shot. Like just like you know the cornfield stands we did a few days ago, they're if you give the them the wind into the cornfield at all, they're going to trust you before you ever put eyes on them. Never see them. Yeah, I y'all y'all are spot on, I think. And pretty good pretty good points bringing up the night calling and those situation there and the open ground type stuff. I mean it just is what it is. U 100% just don't want a coyote to be able to smell you. Uh no matter what how much wind you give them, how much wind you don't give them. Of course, you know, we always like to have that crosswind type setup, but I don't know how many stands I've had success with the wind blowing right in my face and a coyote coming from directly downwind. Now, would I rather rather give them a good avenue to get down wind and get them killed easy? Of course. But everything's so situational. It all depends on uh you got to take in the terrain features as well. So, I think those are great answers right there. Y'all want to move on to the next one? I'm ready. Okay. Her second question. What do you look for when choosing stands as in scouting or escouting? what kind of cover, water sources, etc. in a certain radius. That's from Dakota Parker. That's a Dakota's excellent coyote hunter. He's a Fox Pro pro staffer. Great guy. He's an Arizona and he kills a lot of coyotes. I'm sure he knows how to scout, but it's a good question. I'm glad he asked it. So, what do you guys look for in scouting and ecouting? I I think that's another one where the terrain types play a big role. you know what what area you're hunting and having a little bit of knowledge of what cow it's like but to keep it simple it pretty much boils down to the cover especially day hunting or even night hunting but a lot of it boils down to the cover and what you think those cos are going to be in especially for day hunting what type cover that they prefer and learning that for the area and then looking for that on maps and for example something Joey and I were talking about on the very la last stand we made here where I'm at in Arkansas, what I call drains, they're actually usually little feeder streams. Yeah. Off of bigger creeks and rivers. Yeah. They're almost always or one common feature that I see and if I if I were to to escout or to ride around and scout, that's what I'm going to be looking for. I'm going to look for those little drainages. They're usually dry for the most part and they're not more than one or two foot wide a lot of times. Couple feet deep, but they'll have holes that hold water, just little pockets that hold water. And that is a consistent thing that the coyotes here on and use for up areas. That's probably when I brought it up to Joey, I said, "You notice these are on a drain again?" And he said, "That's one thing that I've noticed about all the years I've been coming down here hunting. how many of them are on these little drains that look as exactly like this. So, if somebody were to come to South Arkansas and hunt, they could ecout and find those areas and that would that would really up the odds. And then when you're in a different state, if you figure out those type magnets that that coats like for those areas, whether you're talking to somebody or you've hunted it before, then you can start using that in your scouting, whether you're using a map or you're riding around visually trying to see those type drains. And usually it's associated this, especially this time of the year, with a some type of water source and some type of cover. Yep. That's good stuff. I I agree completely with that. So, like like terrain being the main factor in what part of the country you're hunting in. You know, if I'm if I'm in Illinois and I'm day hunting, one, I'm going to be locating. I'm not I'm not a boots on the ground look for tracks kind of scouting. I I'm not into that. I don't I don't want to go into properties if I don't have to. Um, but if I'm looking for places to start locating one summer, like if it's summertime day hunting like this, we're looking for corn fields. Almost every family group I have is in a corn field and it it connects to some kind of water source, right? That's that's the big one here. um night hunting when the fields are all cut. I'm I'm looking more for uh drainage ditches that are in fields, grass waterways, or as big wide open flat as I can find that connects to some small, you know, even a even a one acre patch of timber or a tree row where they're going to have some kind of cover. But if I'm if I'm making a trip out to Kansas, it's it's completely different. Sometimes when I go out there, I'm by myself and to locate every night and hunt all day gets pretty hard. So, I I spend a lot of time on OnX and what I'm doing is I'm I'm looking for any kind of cover that's down in a draw that has a water source. Yeah. And usually I'm going to find find coyotes around there. And that I'm looking at that uh I go to Kansas in May and I go in October. So during both of those times, the crops are usually either really short or cut. So I don't have to worry about that being any kind of an obstacle, right? So, it's it's really about pulling them out of those drawers that have some kind of water source in them, right? Yeah. I think I think the the common denominator common denominator is always going to be water no matter what. Especially if you're talking about summer months. Y'all just talked told me about how hot it is down there in Arkansas right now. It was a scorcher in Illinois last week. It's 90ome degrees here in Kentucky right now. They're going to be around water, you know, be able to access it somehow just so they can drink it. of course, what else is around water, all the animals that they prey on. So, so water's always going to be the common denominator. And then far as like choosing that stand to set up, you know, I always just want to find a stand where I got a little bit of visibility. Even if it's that cornfield stuff we was hunting, even when we would work those edges, we were still looking for our most visibility we would get could get so you could get a shot, you know, have room to at least try to work the coyote in some form or fashion. And then the other thing is just to be, you know, something adjacent to some cover, something that'll actually hold some form of wildlife. And anything that'll hold deer or anything else is going to hold coyotes potentially. So, all right, let's move let's move right right along. How would you set up if all you had is a headwind, call placement, distance, etc. I find myself having to set up with a headwind a lot and never seem to have any luck. That's from Richard.
So for me with a headwind, I actually use a headwind a lot. Again, going back to the I think the first question, a lot of times it's it's because I'm in tight cover and I need a headwind, you know, to keep a cow from Yeah. that I'm expecting to be out in front of me being able to get down wind very easy without circling completely around. Uh, and as far as I just when you've got a headwind setup and the coach should be directly out in front of you for the most part, then I usually set that call depending on visibility and depending on how far I can see. So, if it was more open ground, I would probably set that call out if I was worried about the cow needing to be able to get downwind because it sounds like from his question, he thinks that maybe the coach are not coming in because they don't have a an avenue to get downwind of his call. So, if if that's a problem he's running into, if he's got the visibility, then maybe getting that call farther out away from his position to where maybe the the cow could circle and then him killing the co before it gets downwind to the call. Yep, that would be an option. But for me, when I've got a headwind, I'm usually setting my call just out in front of me. Now, I typically will offset it one side or the other just because when that code is coming in, I don't want him looking over the top of the call, looking directly at me while he's looking using his eyes, you know, to find the source of the sound. So, I may offset it just a little bit to throw the visual off on the go, but that's, you know, I have really good luck with headwinds and I hunt a lot of of headwinds just because of the terrain type, right? Um, and if he doesn't have much cover to work with or doesn't have much visibility to work with, he's in tight cover, then you have to set that call out in front of you, be able to see the call, and that's about all you can do. If you're having trouble calling those coyotes in and you think it's because of the headwind, then the other option would be to come in from a different side to give them a crosswind. Wait to come back to that spot when you've got a different win where you've got a crosswind. You know, you just got to wait on your your wind to change if you think the coach are not coming to your setup because they don't want to work your call with with them having a tailwind. Right. Right. What what do you think about that, Joy?
For for I mean, for Tori's terrain, I I 100% agree with that. Um for for night hunting, there are there are times at night where I've seen coyotes that are um directly upwind of me with, you know, just a a direct direct wind from their directions where I'm at. And there have been times where they will hang up. And one thing that I I'll do on occasion is um I'll take that call and I'll either run it out, you know, 100 yards to the right or 100 yards to the left. That way that coyote can kind of make a straight line down to me where he feels like he's circling the sound, but he's I mean, he's literally walking a straight line in my direction. Um giving him what he thinks could be a crosswind to be able to circle down around it, right? But but in the daytime and the thick stuff, I mean, I I put the call basically talking about the style of hunting we did last week on the cornfield edges. I mean, I put the call right beside you almost at my feet. You know, I'll get it I'll get it away from me a little bit so the call is I'm blowing out my ears, but I and Tori Tori made a good point to have the call offset just enough that the coyote's not looking directly at me when he's coming in. But I don't I don't want to put that thing too far to the side because if that coyote does decide to circle out to the left or right to try to get around you, the further you put that call away, you might push that coyote further around where you don't see him. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's in the really really thick stuff, though. Yeah. Yeah. No, all both those are good answers, I think. You know, and I see a lot of people will say stuff about, you know, they won't they won't hunt a wind unless it's a crosswind or they're giving them a little bit of wind and stuff like that. I avoid headwinds, you know, wind right in your face. But I hunt them a lot. A lot of the times it's because I've got to. Um, and a lot of my footage, if people watch any of the shows, it's kind of deceiving, too. It It looks like I might be calling coyotes from a long distance and that type of stuff, but one of the key things I think about calling coyotes in uh from directly that's directly upwind. One thing, you need good sound quality and good sounds like you're producing, Tori. But the main thing is, and this is the the deceiving part, I'm actually set up a lot closer on my coyotes than it might look like. You know, I'm focusing in on something that I where I know the coyotes at whether whether I have them located or I'm crowding a thicket that's known to hold coyotes, a drainage, draw, [ __ ] whatever it is. I'm actually I actually think when you're talking about hunting a wind in your face, especially for daytime calling, the closer you can get to those coyotes, the better. I mean, you're almost forcing them to come out and take a look. So, if you're trying to daytime hunt and you're not having much luck with a wind in your face, just try to concentrate getting closer to those coyotes. You know, try to get as close to them as you can without bumping them pretty much. That's probably what you said is probably the best point on this question. It's something I I thought of as you were going to say that when you get enough pressure on a co and you get close enough to them, Yeah. they're usually going to be straight line from their position to the call. That that pressure from you getting close really helps. If you're too far away, then that co may not leave leave his position, especially if you know the wind is not in his favor. Yeah. But when you start getting close like you're talking about, they can't hardly stand it. And it's usually when you trigger them at close range, it doesn't matter what the wind is doing. A lot of times they're coming straight from their position straight to the call. Yeah. Because of that pressure that it puts on them and and they don't like it. So that's probably you nailed it with bringing up that proximity tip and we've talked about that on a lot of podcasts. You and Joey have talked about it on podcast. That's that's probably the single biggest factor that I think a lot of people fail to recognize or apply is sometimes the problems that they're having is not with anything about their setup other than they're too far from the coach to get the reaction they're looking for. Yep. Yep. I agree with that 100%. That's one of the first things I ask somebody when they get in certain situations. They know they've got coyotes there. they never showed up and they want to know what they did wrong. I said, "Well, you probably did everything right. You probably just wasn't close enough to them." You know, first thing I'll ask them is, "How far off were the coyotes from where you were set up?" So, yeah. And this this time of the year, you know, if you're comparing den season, pup rearing season to say, you know, breeding season or after family bust up takes place, that distance during den season and pup rearing season, pup rearing being what we're in right now, that distance is a lot shorter. So that trigger and that reaction, you need to be closer during those time frames where with, you know, after family bust up through pairing and breeding, you can get by with more distance. And so if people are hunting year round and they've been having success during the winter and they're calling coats from, you know, half a mile away, that may not work for them during spring and summer, you need to sometimes you need to crowd those. We had a group this morning. I mean, inside a 100 yards, you you got to get right on top of them to get them to break cover and and get the reaction that you're looking for. Uh whether you've got a head, wind, crosswind, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. And to answer the rest of that question from my end on call placement and distance, for me, usually distance always has something to do with what the terrain's like, you know, every different stand situational. So, it's kind of has to go with the lay of the land as well. And then far as the placement of it, uh, left or right or directly in front of you, just like Tori said, I'm always going to angle it, uh, in some form or fashion. So when a coyote does emerges, he's not looking straight over top of that call or straight through that call looking at me fixing to put one in his chest. So, you know, I want it off to the side just a little bit. But that's a great question. And a and speaking of call placement and all that type of stuff, we've actually got it's episode 53. Episode 53 is call placement in the field. It's a pretty indepth podcast. Really, you know, really focusing on call placement. I definitely suggest if you all have not listen to that one, episode 53, go back and check it out. It's it's a good one. You'll you'll like it. Um the next question here, this is a pretty this is a good question, I think. Uh do you worry because both of you all do a lot of locating. This is a locating question. Do you worry about wind when locating? When locating, do you try to stay farther away from where you think the coyotes might be so you don't call them in? So, it's a two-part question. Do you worry about the wind when locating? And do you try to stay further away from where you think the coyotes are so you don't start calling them in while you're just trying to locate? And that's from Dan. So, that's another it depends type question. So, if I'm just locating in general at night and I'm trying to stack groups, I don't worry about the wind too much because I'm doing all of my locating from traveled roads that are common to human traffic and people fooling around. And I'm expecting those cows to be at a distance from me. And I'm only getting out of I'm usually not even getting out of the truck. I'm sticking my arm out the window of the truck. I'm locating. If I hear a coat, then I jump out of the truck so that I get a good course on the direction. I mark that coat while they're still howling. I've usually got them marked on my map. I'm back in the truck and I'm gone while they're still howling. And so I'm not too concerned with the wind during that situation. Now, if I expected those cows to be a lot closer to me, then yes, I would definitely consider that. But usually when you're locating, especially new areas, you don't know where the cos are going to be. That's the whole purpose of the locating. So you don't necessarily know what kind of winds you would even need in relation to where those coats may locate from. So I'm not paying too much attention to it in that situation. Now, the other side of that would be like Joey and I did earlier today and that we'll continue to do on this trip in a situation where we already have cos and we're moving in on those cows. Maybe we located them like this today. We were hunting cos that I located a week ago. So, we need recent information on those cows. So sometimes we pull up or even may walk in towards where we expect those cows to be and when we set down to locate those cows for the first time, we may have to make a move. We may be sitting right where we need to sit. So we're usually a lot closer to the cos and in that situation. Yes, we are absolutely paying attention to what what the wind is doing in relation to where we're locating from so that when those cos answer, we're already in a good position and we're not worried about, you know, bumping those cos by them smelling us, right? So, it's kind of a two different scenarios. What are you what's the purpose of your locating and are you about to hunt right then and are you already in the woods and and that kind of thing? Right. Right. Oh, it kind of made me think it was a few years ago I I pulled up just exactly what you were talking about. I didn't I had got out of the truck, but I was actually on a road and was trying to locate coyotes on a specific farm and just so happens there's a little patch of woods. I think it's just a wet spot that they never did clear off. It's just like 70 yards away. And this is I'm locate during the daytime. This is like first thing in the morning. I'm just trying to get some coyotes to sound off and then go after them. Well, I rip out a how. They don't howl back. But there's two coyotes that emerge immediately out of that dag on wood lot. But come running right. Guess what? I didn't get those coyotes killed. And it took me to that following winter before I was ever able to go call them up. Right. So you do I guess you do need to watch where how far away you are in certain situations. Yeah, you will run in I mean with the locating especially if you're locating new ground and you don't have expectations necessarily and like here everything's thick so the coats could be anywhere in any direction, right? you will have those those rare occasions where maybe the cops are just off the road and you know that that could happen sometimes, but most of the time you know when I'm riding around locating cos I'm doing it from traveled roads and the bulk of the coyotes that I hear are, you know, they're they're anywhere from usually a couple hundred yards or more all the way out to as you know as far as you can hear one like right now down here. You hear one 3/4 mile or maybe even a mile in this thick stuff. That's about as far as you you hear them. But typically, you don't have to worry too much about the cows being right on top of you if you're staying on, you know, you want to do your locating from travel roads and stuff like that. I think it's a bad idea if you're just you don't want to walk out there in your property or or anything like that and locate right in the vicinity of where you expect those coyotes to be because then your wind and I mean everything your wind your back trail it it's just like hunting then you know you're having the same you could have the same negative effect if you walk out on your property with a bad wind and try to locate goats. Yeah. And or get too close to them. And another we mentioned a podcast on call placement earlier. We actually got a full podcast. It's episode 26 that's titled locating coyotes and hunting locating coyotes. So you want some more indepth information uh more in-depth podcast on that this on that topic, go definitely check that one out. It's episode 26 with Tori. It's a good one. You'll definitely get a lot of info info from that. But we do have some more location locating questions on here. And this is a good one for Joey here. Um, if hunting at night and you locate a group of coyotes with a how and you move in on the coyotes, should you use a different set of hows to open up your stand or is it okay to play the same how that you located with? Really, I think he asked about at night, but I think this could go day or night either way. So, I I locate with Unlone Wine House and uh Happy Yappy Family Group. And those are also the two sounds that I run on pretty much every stand I start in the daytime. Yeah. Uh as as you saw. So, I don't I don't think it makes a bit of difference. I think now I will say this, if you be for what I do, I keep tabs on my groups. So, I'm locating and following my groups around and knowing where they go weekly. Sometimes more, sometimes twice a week, three times a week. Um, that said, I will mix how up on those groups a little bit. And if I've hunted that group recently, uh, within so many weeks, yeah, I'll mix those hows up, but I won't use the same things. But I don't I don't really think that plays much of an a factor at all. But no, I I don't think it either. It I mean, I've always had the kind of the mindset if if a how is good enough to locate a coyote now answer to it, it's definitely going to be good enough when I get tight on them. And I do that all the time and have I mean, now don't get me wrong, I've had blank stands doing that, but I don't think it was because I used the same how. It just didn't work out, you know. But I do that a ton. And if I get them to answer the juice loan house and you know they sound off sound pretty aggressive to it, you best believe I'm going to hit them with some juice when I get tired. Why wouldn't why wouldn't you stick with it? Right. Right. So and as I think that's a great question though as from Jesse Shoemaker but uh but yeah that's that's my thought process on it. You have any insight on that Tori? I I agree 100% with what y'all said, but I do things a little bit different and I I have a reason behind it. So, the bulk of my locating I do with one of my favorite alltime locating house is Hello House. I like Co Duet. Um I like Female Lonely. And the reason that I like those, those are actually diaphragm house. They're extremely loud and extremely long how that's typically what I locate with at night when I'm trying to put coyote groups together. Yep. It's not because that I'm necessarily wanting to use a different sound, but because they're louder and because they're longer, I tend to get really good vocal responses to those house. So, they're basically my locator house. I don't use them much on stand even though in the past I called a lot of cows. They they call coyotes well too. But on stand once I move in and and set up on those coasts the next morning or whenever I typically go to the boon wine house, the juice lonely females, the bougie house, little be, you know, I'm using those those live coat howls and pretty much every howl that I use when I'm calling the coats in to try to kill them, I'm using those type sounds instead of the ones that I used the night before. Now, that said, I think I could swap that out. That's just something that I've always done. And I even on stand in the daytime, we did it a couple times today, actually. If I don't get a vocal response to whatever how I I picked, let's just say it's, you know, one of the bougie houses. If I don't get a response to that and I know that that code answered Hello House or that group of codes answered Hello House the night before, then I'm fixing to even though I don't use Hello House that much on my stands, if I don't get a vocal response, you can bet before I leave, if I think those couch are still there, I'm going to crank up Hello House to about 30 32 something. I'm gonna crank that volume pretty good and I'm going to run Hello House or Cow Duet or whatever the howl was that I know that they located on. Usually that's it's one of those sounds and I'm going to play that and there have been numerous times where that howl that they located on the night before. So it's using the same how again the next day. Yeah. And I get those cows to respond again. Right. And then I go right back. A lot of times it's because they're farther away but that they moved a little bit. they're farther away. I run that little bit louder, longer how I get a vocal response. We're able to move to those cows. Then I jump right back to juice lonely female boon wine house something like that and those cows run over the top of you. So it's you can do it either way. You can run the same house or if you want to swap it, it's not Yeah, whatever your preference is. Well, this uh next question goes right into that and you probably just now answered it. Uh this is from JJ. How do you make hardheaded coyotes? How I know they're there but they won't locate. Yeah. I mean what I just said and I've tested this a lot with I've got to see this and we've touched on it on other podcast. So raising the coats, I get to see that for whatever reason, and I can't I can't tell you why. Sometimes coats are extremely vocal. They'll howl multiple times during the day. They'll howl throughout the night. They're just extremely vocal. And then all of a sudden, they shut off and they're not howling very much on their own. You go try to make them howl, they won't answer your typical, you know, series of two or three howls that they were firing off to just a few days before. And what I've figured out is that by watching these goats that I've raised, a lot of times you can yank a howl out of them. It's almost like getting a turkey to shot gobble or something when they're not gobbling very good. You might can get that one or two gobbles out of him to get him located. You can do the same thing sometimes with coats by playing. You need volume and you need length. Whether that be your longest long like come here lonely house is a really good one for getting coach to vocalize boon any of the boon house and then also those diaphragm house either off of a real diaphragm and extending that or even better cranking the volume on sounds like hello how house go duet whimper hows all of those are diaphragm hows that carry extreme volume and they're long drawn out hows Those type sounds will get I can watch the cows. They'll go to whimpering and it's like they don't want to howl, but they just can't stand it. And then all of a sudden, if you ever get them to crack their mouth, they'll let that howl out and you can get those hard-headed cows or those cows that are in a lull. Sometimes you can yank a howl out of them. Some of the groups that are good for that are stuff like happy family. That's a really long group how. So your longer lone house and your longer group house at more volume can help you get coyotes to vocalize when they're not very vocal. The downside to that and something to keep in mind is when the coyotes are vocal and as soon as you howl, let's say if you used happy family and the coyotes are pretty vocal, you don't necessarily want to run those real long howls during that time because your coyotes will start howling as soon as you start howling and you can't hear them. And by the time you're sound in because it's a longer sound file, your couches that you're trying to listen to are also ending. So you don't you may not get a very good pin on them. Don't get to hear them long. So you you have to judge, you know, anytime I go out locate, I'm going to start with my lone house and see if those coyotes are answering it. If you're not getting very many vocal responses, you can add volume, add length, and start yanking some house out of, you know, those hard-headed goats. That's good stuff. Here's the next one here, and I think this is a good one. Uh, when you locate a family group in the summertime and have them pinpointed pretty good, what do you do if you have a blank stand? This is from Luke and he adds, "That's with knowing you didn't bump the coyotes and they didn't catch your wind in any way." Go ahead, Joe. Um, and that in that scenario, all I'm going to do is I I'm not going to press in and push and try to because the thing is if you go in there, you do you do your st ultimately you're never going to be 100% sure you didn't bump them, right? Because if you if you locate a group, there's no written rule that says they're not going to move. They they do. Uh I mean, you've experienced that multiple times here just in the last day and a half. Uh the coyotes will be 400 yards further in or 400 yards down a creek or so there there are times you're going to bump them and have no idea. But if I go in and I hunt a spot, you Tori kind of kind of touched on it earlier today where he said you get a few sounds into your stand and you just kind of have a feeling that they're not there or the stand's not going to produce right then or something something's changed. And if I'm starting to get that feeling like this time of year, if I've run a howl, a pair howl, a group howl, I've gone through say greeting wise and into submissive beggar, at that point if I haven't heard or seen a coyote, I'm thinking I'm probably going to wrap up and I'm going to back out and I'm going to get out of here and I'm going to give it a week and I'm going to come back and locate that group and see if they've moved on somewhere else because, you know, especially this time of year, setup is king and being close enough to them is It's it's it's vital. And one thing about getting close to them is you run the risk of swirling wind or your wind bumping them out or running into them. So yeah, I'm just I'm just going to get out of there and I'm going to find that group at a later date so I could set up properly on them again and hope to have a better result. Yep. He he had actually added, you know, towards the end said try to, you know, he's asking the question, try to locate again another night and see if they move. So yes, definitely go back and check them again. And I I do I do that a ton. And that that even applies if I if I find a family group. So when I when I guide hunts, I we I generally won't hunt a group unless I've located them consistently in the same general area three or four times. That way I know, okay, is this the type of group that's going to bounce around or is this the type of group that they establish a home range and they stay put? And it it because every family group is different, right? Yep. and that if I go and I find a group and then I go back and locate them again and I don't hear them, okay, I may try again. If I don't hear them again from that spot, I'll branch out and go a half mile in each direction and try locating from those spots because a lot of times that proximity matters uh getting them to how too. So that's that's another thing. If I if I I keep tabs on my groups, people will be blown away how much time I spend just following coyotes around and and that Yeah, it if you if you screw up a stand or or just think they've moved on, just just go locate them again. It's it's going to be the most effective way of finding them and getting on them correctly. Yep. Yep. Here here's another question. Pretty good one. Uh that I get asked a ton. Uh, this is from Bobby White. If you are calling a stand and the wind is good when you start calling and then the wind shifts during the set to where you feel that the coyotes are coming from, do you stop calling and get out ASAP? If so, how long do you wait to hunt that stand again? So, two questions there. I'll let I'll let Dory have this one. He's he's laughing about that because that's the common theme down here. It's it's unreal how the wind how often it swaps and just changes 180 curls on you and everything. All the terrain the way the terrain is and the closed canopy and it's like it's like wind in a box when you enter enter this really thick stuff. So it's something that that I deal with and that we've dealt with on this trip and it's so frustrating because it's so hard to control but to to try to answer the question. So, you do everything in your power, of course, to have that wind in your favor. Like he said, you go in, it's it's right when you set out, and then you get that that wind swap or swirl. Part of it depends on
what the wind actually did, like how quick it happened. Because what I found out, what I mean, me and Joey have been talking about it this whole trip. You can be sitting in a spot and the wind swap for where you're at, but if you walk, you know, you step across the drain or or you may not even it may not even look like anything changes. You walk 40 50 yards and the wind is completely opposite right there. So, you don't necessarily know when that wind swaps that just a short distance out there, you've got a little bit different wind. So, the coyotes may not have busted you. So what we typically do and what I do is I just it's completely situational in do I think I guess a simple way to answer the question if I think the wind swaps and I know that those cows are not very far and I know there are high odds that that they're getting my wind if I think that that's the case then the smart move is to shut down do not burn their ears with any more sounds and just come back and you can usually do that just a short time later you could come back that afternoon as far as how long to wait. If you don't burn that spot up with running a bunch of sounds when you know you've got a bad wind going from you to the coast, then you can get right back on those coyotes most of the time. I mean, them smelling you or seeing you or something like that is not a huge deal unless you add a lot of negatives to that most of the time. So, you can get back on them pretty quick. Now, one other thing, if the cos are a little bit farther from me and I just get a swirl in the wind or I get a quick switch or it switches and I think, well, it's getting, you know, I don't want to try to call those cos from where they're at because they're probably going to hit my wind now that it's switched before I actually get them called in. Then I will get up and try to adjust around those coats based off what that wind switch is and just try to reposition. And again, it's situational. And when I do that, it's because I think the wind is not good for me to call these coaches in, but I don't think they've necessarily busted me yet. So, we will, and we've done that numerous, I mean, almost every stand on this trip to where we we've used what's supposed to be the prevailing wind. We go in, we set down, the wind may be good. When we set down, two minutes into the stand, we may have already howled. The coyotes have answered us, and then we're getting a wind that is quartering pretty good towards those coyotes. And we shut down and make a move, you know, to try to offset that that swap in the wind. Yeah. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. If you think it's blowing right to them, shut down and and come back, you know, the next day or in a week or whatever you want to do. As long as you don't long as you don't overdo it, I think you can get right back on those goats even even a couple hours later if you wanted to. Right. No, that's great. Great answer right there. And that's generally I'm going to play it more safe than not. If I feel like my wind is getting a little too screwy, I'm just going I'm just going to pick up and leave. Now, there are those situations just like Joy or Tori just described there. Um, you know, one thing just I just popped in my head. Me and Joy and Jace were just on a stand. Um, where we were set up and I look over and Jo I felt the wind hit me in the back of the head. I looked over at Joy. I'm starting to not feel very good about this. He said, "I just don't know what this wind is doing." And we kind of both said back to each other said, "Well, we don't really know how. The wind is swirling, but we don't know if it's really pushing up into the cornfield where we had coyotes located or Joey did." It wasn't. Two minutes later, we had a coyote right out in front of us and Jace mowed down about six rows of corn, but didn't hit the coyote. But good video, though. Great. So, you just never know. But I I tend to play it play it safe. you know, it don't hurt a thing to go ahead and pick up and leave and try them try them in a more opportune time. So, I I'll say I'll say so you guys kind of answered that from the day hunting perspective. Um, one thing about night hunting is you like out here in my flat terrain where we have these small blocks of timber that coyotes hold up in. Um, if I'm looking at that block and the wind switches and it's on my back blowing to that, there are times that we'll, you know, hop in the truck, go around the back side of the prop. Okay, say say they're in like a little island, like a a small block of timber, that's where the coyotes usually are. We'll just go around in the backside. We can we can change our setup. But in those fields that are an isolated field surrounded by timber, you don't really have the luxury of doing that. So night night hunting you can get away with a lot more as far as changing your setup to your advantage. Day hunting, it's a lot harder to do that. Right. Right. No, that's I'm glad you pointed that out. For sure. We we got a couple questions here we don't have to spend much time on. One of them is from Jake Reynolds. Um call placement with a win. That's his question. How do you place your call with the win? Jake, I said it before. We've got an excellent podcast. It's on call placement in the field. It goes in depth on wind directions and stuff like that. It's episode 53. I'd point you point you there because it's a really good podcast to check out and that'll answer all your questions on that. Jake. Um, the other one right here is how do you guys learn the distance from your from locating? And what he's asking is judging range of sound. He says judging range of sound is something he has trouble with. That's from Steve Bleo. So, how do you guys learn the distance from you locating to the pack of coyotes? Group of coyotes. Experience, trial and error. Yeah. And and learning to air on the side of caution. So if if you're not sure, let's say you locate coats and you're guessing distance. And one thing that really helps is to pull out your Onyx map, guess at what you how far you think those coats are. Look at your map and then use your measure tool or just reach up there with your two fingers and measure that distance and see if that matches up to what you think would be an approximate distance, whether it be 200 yards, 300 yards, and and then when you go back in to hunt, air on the side of caution, set up to the to the near side, make sure you don't go in there and bump them. And then with experience, just trial and error, you start learning what those distances sound like. And when you change terrains, you've got to learn it all over again. When you're in thick stuff, it's s learning the distance a coyote is when they're in woods and thickets. I have to do that when I'm locating here versus going to open ground or mountainous terrain. I mean, when the terrain changes, that learning process with gauge and distance starts over. But you just have to do it. Just there. There are no shortcuts on that. You just got to locate coats, guess at the distance you think they are, and then when you go in there to hunt, you'll start figuring out how accurate you are. And with that experience, you you start to get, you know, especially locally, wherever you're hunting locally, before long, you get it to where you drop a pin and you go in there the next day and sit down and howl. And those goats, I mean, you standing on their tail when they answer back. Oh, yeah. You know, you get that accurate with it a lot of times. And Joey proved that a few times there last week. Now, that's a that's a great answer to that. Uh, this next one here is from Nick McDonald. Do you think that coyotes are more vocal and easier to locate in certain parts of the country versus others? That's a good question. Go with it, Joey. I'm short answer, no. I think I think uh no I don't I don't I I think that there can be pockets where coyote density um can have a little effect on that but no I don't I don't think it's because I've I've traveled in 100 um quite a bit in a lot of different probably close to 20 states 15 20 states and I don't change a thing when I'm going locating I do everything exactly the same as I do in Illinois or Indiana. I don't I whether it's Kansas or Florida or Ohio, like I I do everything the same. Yeah. And I don't, you know, a coyote is a coyote is a coyote. And something to keep in mind when I when I talk about that, I'm exploiting certain social factors like like right now being in Arkansas versus Illinois, the terrain could not be more different. The the concept of locating is exactly the same here. Yeah. Well, I mean the, you know, we won't spend a ton of time on this one, but you know, coyotes are a vocal animal. I mean, that's how they communicate. I do think that it could possibly, you know, that could come into play that they are maybe easier to locate in certain parts of the country versus others. And the only reason I say that is, you know, put that little they can be type thing on it is cuz I've seen, you know, kind of matter of fact, I've found some groups right here in my area in my county. Uh me and Joy just talked about this the other day. I actually have some groups of coyotes, it's, you know, that at certain property, some areas of my county that are way more vocal than other coyotes are. I don't know if it's something in that that gene pool or what. And what I'm saying is I've got a property I can take you to right now right here going close to sunset. I know that the coyotes will answer. I know I can go in there and play lonely house boon lone wine house or whatever happy yappy group sister pair. There's going to be at least one coyote in that group that's going to answer back. And I'm going to tell you where they're going to answer. They're just vocal. They always answer. You can go in there and kill the bulk of the family group every year and come back the following year and they're still vocal in there. But I've got other pieces of property right here in the same county that I hardly ever hear a coyote howl. But there I am calling all a sudden here comes a coyote run out. He was there and just didn't answer. I think some coyotes are more vocal than others. But far as it coming down to is it, you know, coyotes being easier to locate in one certain area than the other in the in the country? No, I don't think so. No. that that like what you're touching on I think is like I find from group to group. Exactly. And even from pocket to pocket the how vocal they are, how timid they are, the demeanors they're you know how aggressive to the call they are. I think a lot of those things um I'm not going to say they all get passed down, but I think how vocal a group is does kind of get passed down. I I think I think it does. I mean, you know, it's just it's kind of like u with you know, always people get mad at me for humanize them. I ain't trying to humanize them, but you think about there's, you know, families, there's genes passed down and certain tendencies how they act and look and everything else gets passed down in every animal there is. So, why wouldn't it be with coyotes? Well, I got I got a guy right beside me who lives with a bunch of coyotes, so he could probably expand on it. It's it's it's it's not it's not a theory. It's it's an absolute fact. I've seen it, you know, with every pup litter that I've ever raised. And then when they get to be adults, and we've talked about that before, too. They have different personalities and they and cos definitely some of them are more vocal than others. Some of them make some of them are really good howlers. They like to howl. They howl a lot. Other ones howl very little and don't have very good howls. Same thing with pups. Sometimes when pups are little, you'll have some pups that are extremely vocal. And I'm not just talking about howls. I'm talking about just making what I call jibberjabber co jibberjabber type sounds. Some of them are vocal and some of them are not. And as far as the question goes,
I guess we're all a little bit different on this question. I think yes, based on some certain things. I think you can locate cows anywhere. So, I think that's that locating works anywhere. I do think what what type of coat you're dealing with, how vocal they are plays a role. Another big thing is coyote densities. whatever your code density is in an area and how spread out coats are and and how that factors into the the peck and order and the overall dynamic with the way those groups overlap, the way those family groups overlap and the proximity those family groups are to other family groups play a direct role in vocalizations. And so as that changes from one area to the next, you could have a rise or fall in how vocal coats are to locate them. That said, you can still locate coats. You might have to cover way more ground to get vocal groups in some areas than you would in others. So that's kind of a tricky question with multiple factors that play a role in how vocal the coyotes are in the particular area you're trying to locate. Yeah. Yeah. To totally that's that's great points. Excellent points. Anything else y'all want to add on that? Well, I would I would almost want to ask talking about regionally are coyotes different when it comes to locating a vocals. Uh, and I know Tori has hunted hunted in western states and he's hunted, you know, he's kind of been all over the place just like you and I I have. Do either of you think eastern or western coyotes are more or less vocal or more or or less hard to locate based on what you've done? The places I've ever tried to locate in, I I mean I I think Tori is pretty spot on. it starts talking about coyote densities and stuff, but like say if I go to Wyoming next week and I want to try to locate a lot, you know, locate while we're there. I'm going to run the same exact house that I'd run right here in Kentucky or anywhere else. You know what I mean? And I'm going to get vocal responses to be able to locate some coyotes. Same same for me. I find coyotes everywhere I go, whether it's east or west, north or south. The same application does apply for me. Yeah. Yeah. I I agree with all that. And I mean that's something that that's so hard to compare because you would almost need to be doing it at the exact same time frame or at least the same stage whatever stage those goats are in with pup rearing den etc. You would almost need to to make a fair comparison from this area to the next. If you're here tonight and you you hear a bunch of coats and then you're in another state, you know, a week from now, there are so many variables that could the cows could be in a law or they could be in a a really good vocal. So hard to compare, but you can locate cos anywhere and you do it the same way anywhere. You might have to cover more ground because of densities, all that stuff we already covered. But um yeah, kind of a tricky tricky question depending on where and how much ground. There's a lot of factors there. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean we've I think we give you Nick, I'm sorry. We've kind of talked all over the place on this one, but it's just like last week in Illinois, u Joey got with us said, "Man, I got all kinds of coyotes located. They was howling like crazy last night and almost 80% of the stands we made that day, we'd rip off a howl and they'd either be cutting you off or they'd be answering back right after the hows stopped. I mean, they was vocal like crazy. We got done hunting that day. Joy went back out that night to locate again for the following morning. He couldn't he couldn't squeeze a howl out of a coyote for nothing. what happened in that few hour span. You know, if somebody can figure that out, it sure make our jobs a lot easier. But we went from having coyotes answering us back on almost every single stand in the middle of day, I'm talking about 1:00 in the afternoon with a heat index 106 coyotes just screaming at us. He goes out that night, can't pull a out for nothing, hardly. And then the following day, we only heard one coyote how. We hunted all day long. We hunted from like 9:30 in the morning all the way to sunset and we had one coyote howl at us. You could talk about this subject for a long time and you bringing up what you just did. So before Joey came in, I have what I call the north section and the south section. All it is is jumping across a two-lane black top road that's not heavy traffic. the the layout of the land is the same on both sides, the north and the south. The first night I went out locating before Joey came in, which was a week ago, I started on the north side. The north side and the south side usually produce about the same amount of groups in that area that I ride. Anywhere from five, you know, four to six groups is is a good average on each side. I rode the north side and I heard one lone pup and one lone adult. That was by I started at sunset which was about 8:30 here and I rode until 11:30. That's all I'd heard. I almost went to the house. I jumped right across to the south side and heard seven groups and just almost backto backto back spots. So if a guy had went out that night and only rode the north side, he would have said, you know, couch are not vocal here. They're not they're not doing anything. If a guy went to the south side on the two different people, they'd be like, "Man, cow's islanding like crazy. Cow's hiling everywhere." I think the same thing happens when people are locating in different areas. They go out and maybe they hadn't been, maybe they're new to locating, they hadn't tried it very many times. They've only been out a handful of times. They've only covered, you know, a little bit of ground and they haven't heard very many coyotes and they think, "Well, locating is just not going to work." Sometimes those things factor in too. You may have to go more. You may have to cover more ground. You may just need to go on a different night and go back to those same areas because the cos weren't vocal on that night. But yeah, we could stay on this subject for a while with different scenarios. Well, I' I've got a few questions here I think we can give pretty short answers to. And some of these you've kind of already answered a little bit, so we'll just hit these real quick. This is from Tracy Estus. Do you locate coyotes before daylight, just before you hunt, or the night before? If you locate some the night before, will they be there the next morning? You, we kind of already covered that. So, if y'all want to just hit that one real quick. The short answer is both. I do it at night and in the morning. If you're day hunting, the most recent information is always the best. So if you go out a couple hours before daylight and you hear groups, you know where those groups are at for sure. Locating at night earlier in the night this time of the year is typically pretty reliable, but you do give those coats a chance to move a little bit during the night. So both work. Locating right before daylight, most recent information is going to be your best option if both of those are an option. But yeah, I do it both ways often. Um, next one here, and you pretty much answered this one a few questions ago. Um, best locating sounds.
I guess we may have different ones. Um, all of the sounds that Joey and you mentioned earlier are excellent to locate with. Going back to what I said earlier, I've I tend to favor Hello House, Coyote, Duet. I just I'll give you a real short version. If I had to locate coyotes and I was going to pick a sound to start with, hello house is is pretty much my go-to locator. I use it very rarely on stand unless I'm trying to relocate coats that haven't on the stand. But hello house cow duet female lonely house. Uh those are kind of some of my top ones. And then when I jump over to the to the MFK cows that I use, the come here lonely house is really good. Boon Lone Wine House is really good. Juice Lonely Female. Um Hollerback Group when you get into the group house, Hollerback Group, Happy Yappy, Sidekick Pear, those are some that just jump right to the top of my mind as far as really good locator sounds. And most of those cross over to really good house for calling in coats as well. Yeah. Yeah, it's they kind of got a common theme. If they're loud, drawn out house, they usually answer them pretty good. U here's a here's another one that I think we don't have to spend much time on. This is from Jason and Joy actually talked about this the other day, too. As far as having trail camera pictures, especially regular pictures, does that count as a good enough way to say I have coyotes located?
That's a tricky one. I would say I would say no. Um because coyotes do move around a lot. Uh if they're regular, just because they're in a given area doesn't mean they aren't moving around. And it's very easy to miss that mark. I guess it depends on what your property looks like really. If it's a if it's a big property and you can set up downwind of where you think they are, great. You got a chance of calling them up. If you are too far away and you miss the mark, you're not going to get them called up. To me, going out and locating is the best way to know exactly where they are before you go hunt them. But, I mean, I've I've done the trail camera thing and thought, you know, I got these things nailed because I got them on trail camera every day and go in there and don't hear or see a thing. So, Right. And then go locate and find out, well, they're, you know, consistently a half mile away, but they're coming through here every two or three days. Yeah. Yeah. I think like it is kind of tricky. You know, he kind of put in there, especially if it's regular pictures. I think you really got to look what you got. If you're if you're getting like tons of pictures every single day and it's like the full family group and you know it's like it's not just every day, it's multiple multiple multiple pictures every day. Then I would call that yeah, you got them located. But like what Joy just said, that's pretty much spot on. You know, it it can be tough. I I get I get questions all the time of, "Hey, I'm getting this picture of this coyote, but every time I go in, I try to call it, I can't I can't find them." So, yeah, I think it's just like I think using trail camera pictures would be just like talking to a farmer that sees coats in a field every day. Yeah. You know, if it if there's consistency and there's a time frame with it, then I think that that is a form of locating. Yes. Yeah. if you if the information is reliable. So, if your trail camera is consistent with the time frame and if I were going to go in there and hunt, whether it be off a trail camera, off the farmer's word, or whatever, that's what I would want to know. Are you seeing these coyotes right at dark every day, are you getting pictures of them, you know, at one o'clock, or are you getting c if you're getting pictures of that coyote randomly throughout the day, then odds are he's probably beded up close by. But I would take all those things into consideration. It could be a form of locating that if you have reliable information, you you could use it to kill the code. Yep. I think you got to look at the consistency of it. It's pretty much going to answer that. So, I think yes, it can be a form of locating, but at the same time, you just might have a coyote that randomly passes through every once in a while, too. And I wouldn't call that located if that makes sense. Right. Let's see here. Next one we got here. Oh, this is a good one. This be a good one for Joey cuz he keeps tabs on coyotes like crazy. How often and how frequent can you relocate a group of coyotes? Should you and should you use the same sound each time? That's from Bradley.
As far as frequency, I think as long as the coyotes aren't seeing you or smelling you while you do it. I mean, I'm not scared to go back and locate them, like I said, several times a week. There there are times where I will kind of stay further away from them if I if I know where they're at and I can stay further away and still have a pretty good pin on on where they're at and if they're consistently in the same place. Otherwise, if I feel like they've moved around, I might have to get closer to them to really pin down where they are. But I'm not afraid to go multiple times a week, specifically this time of year. And then as far as using different sounds, I I don't really mix it up that much. I I mean, occasionally, but I don't I don't That's not something I feel like has ever had a negative impact on the hunt. Yeah. Using using those same sounds to locate. Yeah. I've got a couple more questions we'll cover here before we before we jump off. Um, one here, this is from Mike Bale. He says, "You guys often talk about locating coyotes. Unless I missed an episode, I always wanted Tori and you to explain how you locate and the sounds used to do it." We've mentioned quite a bit of that through this podcast, but but yeah, Mike, go back to episode 26. It's all about locating coyotes. Episode 26 is titled locating coyotes and hunting locating coyotes. We go uh in depth on type of sounds we use how we actually go locate you know what you know if we let out a set of hows and then wait and then let out a different how. It's it's pretty in-depth. So go check that out. It's episode 26 locating coyotes and hunting locating coyotes. Uh the next question here is from Joshua Lewis. Says or ask you locate coyotes. They're 300 to 500 yards out. You move closer and they don't respond and don't come in. What should you do?
Leave. I mean, if you've if you have if if I get into that situation and I feel like that I haven't bumped the coach some kind of way, they hadn't smelled me and I've ran through the typical sounds that I would run for this time of the year. I've done my howls. I've done my social interaction. I've run through the sounds that I think should trigger a coat and then nothing has shown up. I may howl one more time like what whatever they located to. Like if I located the night before with Hello House, going back to what I said earlier, I'll crank that volume up and try to get those cows to locate again. And if they don't, then I'm thinking something has happened. Maybe maybe they've been bumped and I just don't know it or whatever. I'm probably going to move out of there. The only the only exception to that would be is if I think I'm not close enough. And then, you know, let's say I think that they are 500 yards from where I'm trying to call them. If I think that they're that far this time of the year in particular, especially if it's in thicker terrain or if I think that they're in a different tight block, then I may go ahead and pick up and cut that distance and try to get within a couple hundred yards of where I think they are and howl again and maybe run through a few of those sounds. But, um, that's that's about all you can do with that situation. I I wouldn't sit there and just burn their ears off with going through a bunch of random stuff and hoping to get something called in after I've I feel like I've gave them all it should take to typically collect coats if I'm sitting in the right spot. Right. Yeah. Got two more questions we'll hit real quick. One is from Jim Hunter. I love the crosswind stands to give coyotes a comfort zone of approach to the sound it's hearing on the downwind and to help eliminate the backdoor coyote. He adds at what he says do you practice this? Yeah, we practice that. We love we love hunting crosswinds. But his second part of his question is is at what distance do you think on average is the distance that a coyote can smell the call or the scent that you left on it? I'm gonna I'm deferring to Tori on this one. He knows he knows a lot more about their old factory system than I do. Don't have to cover too much time on it, but what do you how far off you think they can smell? Like how far off you think they could win the call? I don't know. So many factors. I mean, I know I don't want them getting downwind of it because yeah, they can smell it a pretty good ways, but wind velocity multiple. I don't know. I mean, it it depends on how much stink stank you put on there. That that factors in to do like like today hot as it is down here. Y'all sweating like crazy rubbing up underneath your armpit. Hell, I think I can smell it from here up in Kentucky right now. Tell you the truth. Far farther than we can shoot. That's for sure. Yeah. The the main thing on that is to get them sucker killed before they do get down with the call or you is my opinion on that.
Let's see what else. They had one more there picked out. Oh, right. Here's one more for you. Uh, obviously over the years, this is from Bradley. Obviously over the years of locating, you've pretty well narrowed down your coyote areas. Do you still stop every mile? Is that what you say? Every mile and a half or so. Or do you just go close to the known areas to save time?
Uh, I will still I will still typically hit those those I'm going to make that loop and stop every mile or so most of the time. Now, with that said, areas that I have located for multiple years and I've heard coats in certain places over and over again, in years past, I might would have stopped in a, you know, a half mile before I got to that spot. So, I have adjusted my routes to where my my consistent spots that hold goats correlate with places that I stopped along my route that may have been different than the first time I ever rode through there. If that makes sense. But I'm still not going to leave big gaps. you know, if I've got, you know, if I if I locate a a set of cos here and then it's five, six miles to the next group that I've heard on years past, I'm not going to skip that. You know, I'm going to make at least a couple of stops in that gap just to make sure that I hadn't picked up another group. And and over the years, you will find that coyotes will be in places where you may have not heard them before. We actually just killed off of a off of a group for years and years. They've always been on the what would be the west side of this dead end gravel road. Well, I located off that where I always do and I could barely hear some coyotes on the east side way in there. They had come in and cut a little bit of timber, so habitat had changed some. Those coyotes had moved to a different spot and it ended up being a really good stand this morning. So, you never know what changes year to year with the habitat. So, you need to keep a check on that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I actually have one more and we can hit this one real quick. Uh then we're going to wrap this thing up. This is from Bradley again. Uh when you've set up on located coyotes, like you've got coyotes located, you're going in to hunt, how close do you want to be to those coyotes before you start calling? That one's going to depend on terrain. And if we're talking about this time of year, um, ideally this time of year, I want to be within It's It's kind of tricky. You don't You don't want to overshoot them and bump them out. Um, I'm going to say within 200 yards is ideal. You run the risk at 200 yards. think it's the dynamic we've kind of seen a little bit where the adults and the the youngsters are kind of in a kind of split up dynamic where at that distance you may bump the adults off if you're if you're targeting a family group but I mean you still have to be inside that bubble. I I like to be within 200 um pretty much no matter where I hunt, whether I'm here or whether I'm in Illinois or I go out west, if I And part of that is if we're hunting, you know, if I'm doing a rifle stand, if I'm within 200 of where I think they are, all I need them to do is break cover and I've got a shot, right? U you know, if I'm doing a shotgun stand in the corn, I want to be close enough that they're gonna react to the call. And 200 yards seems to be about that that the furthest I want to be from them when I start the stand. If I ideally I like to get right on top of to start the stand. As you you probably you know you got to see last. Oh yeah. And I and that's my answer there too is it it's pretty simple. I want to be as close as I can to the coyotes without bumping them before I start calling. That is one that is one thing I have seen that's different hunting some areas of the country versus others. In some areas, certain states, coyotes will come from a greater distance. I'm talking about a huge distance compared to other states like say a western state like a Montana, Wyoming, or you know, Arizona, any type of states, you can watch coyotes come from way over a mile. Look like little bitty dots with this little bit of like a cartoon. Little bitty dots with a little bit of dust kicking up behind them. And next thing you know what it is is coyotes headed your way from over a mile away. Well, here in Kentucky, you ain't calling coyotes from a mile away. We just talked about this the other day. If I go straight east from where I'm sitting at right now and go a mile, you're going to cross three black top highways. You're going to cross three big deep hollers and probably 15 to 20 woven wire fences. Those coyotes ain't gonna come through all that to come from from a mile, but they might do it in Wyoming. So, in other words, I want to be as close as I can to the coyotes without bumping them. And that's just the short answer of it. Yep. All right, guys. I hope uh hope y'all been sitting in a truck in the air conditioning. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We've been in the heat all except everything except this podcast has been in the heat. So, we're taking advantage of this. air conditioner in the podcast. Now, only other thing I'll add to the question that you just asked. If people are trying to target, I agree with everything y'all just said. If you're trying if if a person is trying to just call up a coach, get as close as you can to that to that family group. If you are somebody that's trying to pick off adults, start a little farther away and then you can a lot of times you can pick off those adults that are acting as satellites and then you can move on in on the pups if you want to kill them. If you don't, you can leave them. That's uh sometimes when you move right in on top of those pups, those pups will run in, you know, Joey said 200 yards, those pups are going to cover that distance no problem. when you move out farther away from them, you know, like say down here where we're at, you move to that 400 yard range, you pretty much eliminate calling in pups, that opens the door to get those adults killed and then you can move in closer if you want to kill pups out of the group. So, that's just one one little tip on what you're targeting and what you want to get killed out of that family group. All of them, just the adults, yeah, don't care. and you want to you want to up the odds of killing a coat and then get as close as you can, you know, some some different what's your goal type deal. Yeah. Yeah. No, 100%. Well, that pretty much wraps up that round of questions. And we do have a couple more that that has to do with wind and locating that we're going to throw in on the next episode or two uh that I thought is a little bit different. Like one of them just give you kind of tip you off. One of them is going to be over hunting an east wind, whether it makes a different difference or not. Uh, but on our next episode, we're going to cover questions on coyote calling, coyote behavior, and then we're going to throw some more uh random hunting questions in there. Uh, but this has been a pretty cool episode. I'm glad we got to answer some of y'all's questions. I think these are pretty cool ones to do. Uh, Joey, uh, Tori, y'all have anything else that you all would like to add before we hop off here? The usual. Appreciate everybody listening and appreciate all these questions. I'm I'm looking forward to the uh to those oddball questions that episode. I think that one will be fun. It it will be. Well, you two y'all have have luck while you all spend the rest of the day hunting. Y'all hunting today and tomorrow or y'all today's the end of it or what y'all got lined out? Well, if if Joey can stick with me, he came into battle. He's got his snake chaps on and everything else. So, he's he's ready for war. So, we're planning on uh getting right back after him when we jump off the podcast and then maybe hunting a few stands in the morning. That'll that'll wind us up. I hope he gives me the go ahead to shoot. Awesome. Well, good luck to you guys and and good luck to everybody out there listening if you're going to be hunting this week and weekend. But we hope you enjoyed this episode and we hope you join us again right here on the Fox Pro podcast.