Jon Collins and Torry Cook discuss the coyote breeding season.
Welcome to the FoxPro podcast brought to you by Fox Pro Game Calls. Hello everyone. We hope you've had an excellent holiday season. Welcome back to the FoxPro podcast. It's time for our annual breeding season episode. I think this might be our fourth one on a topic. Um, I'm pretty sure it is. Joining me is Mr. Tory Cook of MFK Game Calls, of course. Tori, did uh Santa Claus come to see you there a couple weeks ago? I don't know why, but he did. He He stopped by again. Well, did he leave? Did he leave? Did he leave Cole? Is that the reason he stopped by? Well, he he probably should have, but I guess he got my packages mixed up with somebody else and somebody got my coal and I got their good stuff. Good good deal. I'm sure he came seen that grandbaby, didn't he? Oh, yeah. I I think that's the only reason he stopped.
He probably he he probably needed some switches, but he got good stuff, too. I don't know about that. He seemed like a pretty good pretty good young. And I'm sure he was plenty fired up for Christmas. I guarantee you that. Hope he didn't get spoiled. He's four years old now. So once they turn four, you know, it's a and him being a boy and him hanging out with me, there's plenty of he's plenty of got plenty of mischievousness about him now. So the uh them switches ain't too far off for sure. Well, you probably already know this is I know y'all y'all ra y'all raised some youngans and still raising youngans, but I got a 19-year-old boy just walked through here and needs a few switches himself. He he started like you said about four years old and he's still in that. Yeah. I think uh I think especially with boys it seemed like well I don't know my wife says boys never uh mature so it takes them a while before they get out of the the stage where they need some whoopins. Well we got a pretty pretty good podcast lined up here. Uh like I said it's our annual breeding season episode. We've these are always really popular and we've been I've been getting tons of messages when when's your breeding season podcast going to drop? When y'all you know so we're doing it and here it is. And just for you guys it's uh tuning in might be new to the Fox Pro podcast uh to find our uh episodes we've done in the past on this topic. They are episodes number 12, number 38, and number 65. And I highly suggest you go back and find them. All of them's with Tori, myself and Tori, and there's tons of great information in all of them. Now, in this podcast episode, we'll probably kind of touch back on some of the same topics because, you know, you can only talk about coyote breeding season so many so many different ways, but we want this to be as educational as as possible. and and plus we're going to, you know, tell you what's going on in the life of a coyote and give you some tips and stuff on how you can capitalize on this time frame. Um, you know, we're here in the new year and things are winding down for big game seasons all across the country and we definitely start seeing an uptick in coyote hunting across the country uh because of it. Um, and besides for that, this is one of the times a year that several coyote hunters, you know, it's just their favorite time to be out. They love the January, uh, February time frame. And like I said, ain't nothing else going on, so you might as well be chasing coyotes. So, the first thing I want to get into, Tori, uh, I want to talk about the timing of breeding season. Um, it's kind of like, you know, like the white tail deer rut. We know that it is triggered by photo period. What about what about coyotes? What actually triggers the coyote rut? Is it the same uh something similar with whitetails or is it totally different deal? Well, you bringing that up. I've had a handful of people question me on that because they want to relate it to deer because that rut, like you said, the the deer rut is so sporadic, you know, from one place to the next. And like you mentioned that photo periodism, the amount of daylight in a day triggers and controls their testosterone production windows coming to estrus and as you move across the latitude lines north or south, the amount of daylight in different areas changes. So that is what causes that deer rut to change. But coyotes are not affected by that. So they do not operate off the amount of daylight in in the day like a deer does. Their eye does not detect that the same way. They're a coat operates off of hormone and chemical changes that take place on a cycle at a roughly the same time each year. And as those chemicals, especially in the female and also in the male because it triggers him, that female, it takes her roughly nine months from the time she has pups or comes in estrus, goes out of estrus, it takes her body a full nine months or better for her hormones to cycle again to where she can come in in estrus again that following year. So, and when she comes into estrus, what a lot of people don't know is male coats are sterile throughout the year. That's why you the whole koi dog deal that never happens or would be very unlikely to happen with a male coyote and a dog because the male coyote is sterile most of the time. So a female dog could be in heat at different times of the year unless and unless it coincides with when that male coyote actually has sperm, he can't breed anyway. So the female coming in estrus is all due to her chemical and hormone changes just within her body throughout the year that triggers the male to release sperm and he'll be fertile during the coat root and then he goes sterile again. And that's that's why you can't make the comparisons between white tails and coats because what's causing the the hormone changes differs. The the amount of daylight in the in the day doesn't affect the coat. Right. Right. Well, uh, another thing right there on the same lines, you know, we get these questions about area uh quite a bit. like, you know, we might have somebody say, "Hey, I live in Washington State or or just the opposite end of the country. I live in South Carolina." Uh, they'll ask you, "When does when does coyote breeding season start in my area? When should I start running these type of sounds?" What what's the answer to that? like first California versus New York, Florida versus Oregon, you know, completely opposite ends of the country or even say Michigan or Montana or North Dakota, some of these northern states and then South Texas. Is the breeding the breeding season the same across the country, north, southou, east, west, and all that? Yes, it is. As far as timing goes, it's roughly the same. And and another thing to consider and why they're able to do that north, south, east, west is because coats actually den. Going back to the whitetail deal, whitetails and pond survival is dependent on, you know, that that pond being able to tolerate the temperatures, how hot or how cold it is, mainly how cold it is. So when you get into colder, you know, climates, those whitetails have to be born when it's warm enough, late enough so that they can survive. They get past the the brutal winters. Mhm. Furbears, coyotes in particular, are den animals. So they're able to dig in. They're also fur bears, so they're able to counter the winter by den. And so that's another reason why for the most part coyotes across the country are going to breed pair breed den raise pups at about the same time all across the country. You know you that window from basically January February time frame is going to catch you know the bulk of your of your breeding coats. M and like and the peak of it is February is roughly February 15th. Is that correct? And that's that's across the country. Yeah. If people remember Valentine Day, you know, that that pretty much coincides with the peak of the cow rut. And of course, you always have to mention the outliers, but peak is going to is going to take in 70 to 75% of your cow population across the nation. That's when the bulk of your breeding is going to take place. So that's going to leave you, you know, say 15% each side of that for some of them to breed a little earlier, some of them to breed a little later, but those are the outliers and not the not the norm. Well, so like for those outliers, is it usually you think within a couple weeks on either side of that or can it be longer a greater period than that? Can it be a month early or a month late? Could it be that far off? I guess it's possible, but I haven't seen that. You know, everything that I've seen has always been, you know, within a week or two one side or the other that peak time frame, right? But but I think you you see some you see some crazy claims every once in a while. I ain't call nobody out, but sometimes you're like, "Yeah, we saw p we saw pups running around last week of February." or you know you everybody's everybody's seen this. Maybe somebody listening might be guilty of saying it. I mean and maybe they ain't saying they didn't see it, right? But you know what I mean. Or they might or they might say, "Yeah, we we killed a pregnant female and it was it was Fourth of July weekend type thing." Yeah. For the for the most part. I mean, those would be extreme outliers, you know, like that one 2% to where you've got something for whatever reason something like that happen, something odd happened. But I I think for the most part, I mean, you can for sure catch it if you go three to four weeks either side of that, you're catching you're catching. Okay. Yeah. On either side of February 15th is what you're saying. Yeah. I think I think that's going to catch 99% of your your breeding. Well, the and the next thing is and he's kind of go right on the same line of that and I saw you post about this a couple weeks ago. Uh and I've seen some other people post and and I see this like every I start seeing it in December. uh we'll start uh uh seeing pictures of of harvested female coyotes and I've I've already killed a couple that's shown as to you start seeing you know blood spotting in December and every single time you see somebody I actually saw somebody said they saw it over like um Thanksgiving weekend right and of course somebody you'll see a couple people that will comment on that and say oh breeding season's going to be early this year is is that a is that a correct statement or or you know what what's actually going on when you when you see blood spotting in those female coyotes in that early you know December time frame. So that 9-month chemical process where that female recovers from being in estrus and possibly having pups, but mainly from going through her cycle the previous year after that 9-month time frame where she is chemically and hormonally ready to come into estrus again. That blood spotting starts and it's a long process too. This is it's basically pre-estrus. It'd be the beginning stages of her preparing to breed and her preparing to come into full estrus where she will actually tie with the male and it's kind of the start. It coincides pretty close with pairing pairing with the male coat. They'll start spotting but they are not breeding. Just because you see blood spotting blood spot in the snow like the pictures I posted or you kill a coat and it's got you know it's starting to blood spot a little bit. Yeah, that that does not mean that that coat is actively breeding or even close to breeding because old-timers a lot of people listening have probably heard this when a dog you know a domestic dog comes into heat a lot of those oldtimes would say you know a week coming in a week dogging and a week going out. So roughly about a 3-w week cycle there for dogs actually coming into estrus then tying up for about a week and then they're kind of going out to where they're still a little bit active but they're not tying up anymore. Coats follow a similar process but it's much longer. Instead of it being, you know, three weeks or so like it is with domestic dogs with coats, you're looking at more like two to three months for that entire process. And if you add that to the 9month process of their, you know, their hormones getting right, you're looking at a full year cycle. And that's why coyotes breed once a year. That's why a lot of the stuff you hear people say about cows producing more pups and breeding m multiple times to make up for people killing them, that's why all that stuff is is BS. They're not even capable of cycling multiple times. And so that that blood spotting is part of that process to where they start spotting. It's pre-estrus that will continue. The pairing with a male will take place during that time frame. Pair bonding will take place as she gets ready to come into full estrus. Once she comes into full estrus, you'll start actually seeing tie-ups. Prior to that, you may see mount to where they're in the in the mounted position, but they're not tied up. That's all part of the pair bonding process, but you won't see actual tie-ups until she comes into full estrus. And then when she comes out of full estrus, you'll see the wind down where you're still seeing blood spotting and it's on the tail end, but tie-ups become less and less and then none at all. But of course, they stay paired. And then you see about the tail end of that u that blood spotting. And after all that has taken place, that's when you'll start seeing the breeding season start turning into the den season. And so you start seeing them start to dig. You know, they start getting that on their mind, right? But it's a it's a fairly long process. you know, the the starting in this time of the year, you know, late December on through January, breeding into February, and then tying into your breeding going into Denon. Hey, I got I got a question for you. Talking about uh size of litters and all that, I took uh we got a fairly young pup here at 6 months old. took her out there to use the bathroom here behind the house and here on the farm across the holler here. Guess what? Just stepped out there just in time. There was a coyote howling and sounded off, you know, pretty good pretty good rip a house and it it was a coyote. It was nobody back there coyote hunting like that. It's our place, so they better not be in there, right? Anyway, I did not hear any coyotes answer that coyote back. Uh, does that mean that that coyote's going to have uh is going to have about 10 pups this spring or Oh, man. I'm just Hey, so you It was out there roll calling. It was roll calling. It was trying to find out how many coyotes is in the area. Estimating the population. Yeah, I think it was trying to trying to tally up so it could decide how many pups it was going to have. Hey, I'll give them animal rights people credit. They come up with some good stuff. They I mean it's really not good stuff, but they they have an imagination. They come up with some stuff. And what gets me is the amount of hunters that will read it, don't know any better and buy into it and then repeat it. I seen a post the other day where it was a some they were talking about, you know, deer season winding down and people were talking about they were going to start trapping and calling coats because they wanted to help their turkeys in their ponds. And I've seen two or three people get on there and repeat that exact stuff. They're if you kill them, they're going to have multiple litters. If you kill them, they're going how and roll call and increase their just on and on and on with it. Well, I hope his co I tell Well, I tell everybody listening. Hopefully, y'all know I'm just joking around. If y'all don't know, y'all don't know John very well. But I I kind of secretly hope Well, there's what's probably going to happen. I plan on going coyote hunting this evening back here because I heard that. So, it's a pretty good chance this female is going to I'm just assuming it's a female. It could be a male. Who knows? But I'm hoping I kill that sucker after a while. But if I don't, I hope it has 14 pups. Yeah. Give you more. Give you more to do. And And here I hope here here's a fact. If if you leave that coat out there, it's definitely going to kill some fonds and and turkeys and stuff. Yeah. If you kill it, one may replace it, one may not. And so we've we've been down that road a bunch of times and I'm sure we'll have to cover it again. Oh man. Yeah. If y'all want to hear a bit bunch of that stuff, I don't even know what episode it is. I'm pretty sure it's coyote hunting myths, I think, is the title. Y'all go Hey, that's a good one. Y'all should go by. We got all kinds of coyote hunting miss stuff. But we're on breeding season right now. So, we Let's get back on hand. you was you was mentioning you was talking about the coyotes pairing up and you talked about the process there a little bit but what's that what's that process look like at the beginning uh when those two coyotes are pairing up and you know we've talked about this before but answer that question you know it's been out there that that coyotes can can mate for life is that true and what does that pair up uh look like at the beginning and what's it and Is it any different uh say established pairs that have mated for years in and years out? Is it different for new coyotes pairing up for the first time? You know, I know it's a lot of lot of question there, but but run with it. Well, that last that la I'm glad you brought up that last part because that's was the first thing I was going to mention is it it does what the pairing process looks like makes a difference on whether or not those coyotes have paired previously and are just pairing back up for the following year or if they are a brand new pair where maybe you've had pups that have busted up and then dispersed and have found, you know, a do what's going to be a home range because they're able to pair up with another coat that they've possibly never ran across before. And so what I've what I've watched with raising coyotes and seeing it both ways, seeing coyotes pair back up, like for example, uh, Hoodlam and Little B were paired last year, they're paired again this year in that process. They steal when they first come back together. So we'll talk about that first. We'll talk about a pair that has paired previously. Mhm. Well, let me reverse that. It's better to talk about it, I guess, in in the correct order. So, the first time they ever pair up, they've never been paired before. I'll talk about uh Hoodlm and Little B the whole time. So, the first time they ever paired, there were three main coats in the mix. Two males and little B. There was Houdlam, Little Heathen, and Little Bee. Those were the three main cows. So, there were two males interested in pairing with her. And the female, the female calls the shots. And I've watched this with with numerous other pairs, too. The female is calling the shots. Those males will circle and try to get in on on the action and all that kind of stuff. And this is in that pro-estrous time frame before when they are blood spotting, but they're not tying up yet. They're they're pair bonding with a male. And what I've seen is the female is the aggressor. And if you listen to sounds like hot sauce or fire sauce, some uh gossip girls, some of those type sounds, hot sauce, fires sauce in particular, you'll hear these cows where they're just Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. And it'll be a male and a female. Usually that female is just right up in his face and they're they're going at it. They do some fighting. There's it's the pairing process is it's it's a it's pretty violent, you know, to begin with. They're it's a lovehate relationship. They're getting along one minute and then she's jumping on him and he's jumping back and those males are fighting each other and the female and the male will eventually that that female little bee would run little heathen off. He was probably more dominant over Hoodum to begin with, but she for whatever reason wasn't interested in Little Heathen. And she eventually paired up with Hood. And that process went back and forth with them. Like I said, kind of a lovehate relationship between all three of them to begin with until she eventually wanted to pair with Hoodlam for whatever reason. Yeah. And then those two, both of them, the male and the female, started pushing that other male coat around, would jump on him, gang up on him, and keep him pushed off. Once that pairing process took place the first time going into this year them pairing again, they still, you know, she's fussy with him and stuff like that and gets up in his face and you still hear not near the degree and there and there's not another male that there other male coyotes around but they have paired and that process seems to be a lot simpler. Yeah. And they even though they even though they kind of split up and do their own thing throughout the year, they're still in the same home range. So they're still coming in contact with each other. So even though they're not side by side like you'll see them during the, you know, this time of the year and early through breeding and early den when they're they're acting as a as a tight pair, a bonded pair. Yep. They're still coming in contact with each other in that home range. So the they're still technically paired and right just just looser, right? You know, they're kind of, you know, how they are during, you know, like fall and after that bust up time frame, you know, your coyotes get scattered out, but that male and female are still using the same home range. They're still smelling each other's smells and coming in contact with each other here and there. So they're they're staying paired in that same home range. And then when breeding season rolls back around, that process of them bonding again is a lot simpler, a lot smoother. It's not near as chaotic. And you know, as it is when they when coaches pair for the first time, that's probably the better way to put it. It's just a smoother process um when they pair back up after they've been paired in previous years. So So when they do pair back up, is that usually when does that happen like when you start seeing blood spotting? I mean, is it is it What's that time frame like? Is it usually December? Pretty close. Yeah. Yeah. I think the blood spotting and that it's that just like just like with other animals. You know how you'll see turkeys are busted up, deer busted up, and then yeah, you know, when you start seeing your pre- rut, whatever the animal is, coons, turkey, that pre-rut time frame, pre-breeding season, you start seeing them pay attention to each other and that the blood spotting with females seems to coincide with them pairing. I think that those chemical changes, those hormonal changes trigger everything and you see that basically pre-root behavior in coats just like you do in any other animal. The difference with coats again being that they do it at the same time just like turkeys do. You know, they pretty much follow the same pattern. Most animals follow the same pattern because they're not on that photo periodism like a deer is. Right. Right. Right. Well, I was want to ask you about Lil Be there and Hoodlam. Was Lil B before Hoodlam, was she ever paired up with another male coyote or has it always just been Hoodlm? She I think that she paired with Smack, one of the older cos earlier on, but I never saw any pups out of that. I saw them showing, you know, pairing type behavior. I never saw him actually tied up and then smack disappeared and yep since then Hoodlm has come in the picture and of course they paired and had pups last year and are paired again this year. So well prior to that prior prior to that uh Rue and Smack had paired Oh really? Yeah. And and had pups but uh I take that back. I take that back. It was not rude. It was Jiggy. Jiggy and Smack. Okay. That's where the Jiggy Smack pair and some of that stuff came from. So like it So if like Smack or uh you know, say if that coyote was still around, uh would Liil be in that coyote still be paired up versus Lil B and Hoodlam? I mean, is it true that they mate for life unless something happens with the other? Yeah, I think I don't think it's I don't think it's a must-have deal, but in general, they they continue to pair with the same male and female. Now, I think you could have I don't think, and I say this based on studies and stuff that I've read, for the most part, in general, they're going to choose a pair and those coyotes will continue to pair as long as both those coyotes are alive. M but you can have and again I haven't witnessed this but it's stuff that I've read about in studies on rare occasion you could have another coyote come in that basically pushes whoops and pushes another co out and might pair but normally what happens when you have a a pair that ends up with a different male or female one of them's been killed something has happened to one of them and then They will pair with another male or another female. Have Have you ever seen a male coyote breed more than one female in a year? I have not. Or is that or is that bond so great that they don't steer away? I haven't seen it. Um those female cos are so territorial and so aggressive towards other females that Yeah. you don't see or I haven't seen that taking place. I think if you had just like anything else and again this is just what I think would happen. I think if you had population, you know, if you had if you had a big coyote population and you had, you know, a lot of males or a lot of females or something like that, I think you might would see some of that. But for the most part, like with they've done DNA testing and stuff like that on on cow dens to see that these females were breeding, you know, like a dog, you can take a dog litter, a stray dog is running around, you can check that litter and there'll be multiple males a lot of times. Same thing with deer. You have a most of the time when a dough has twin fonds or triplets, it's usually not the same buck. They're they have a different the DNA testing on all that stuff. there's multiple bucks breeding doese's and stuff like that. Sometimes it's the same buck, but a lot of times it's not. But with coyotes, I can only think of a couple instances where the DNA testing on it, that litter had more than one father in the uh and I don't even think that that was I don't even think that that was the deal on it. It was uh we've talked about this before. I'd have to go back and look at it. It was where they had took where a female cow had took over a den that already had pups in it and he didn't have her pups in there. You had different age class pups with them. Just kind of Brady bunched it. Yeah. Brought them was raising hers and somebody elsees. Yeah. That that would make sense. And you know, uh you was talking about how aggressive his females are during this time frame. I mean, it's very evident when you call coyotes in. When you call pairs in, especially if you're using coyote vocals, man, those females are usually leading a charge and a lot of times you can tell that they look aggressive. Hackles up, you know, I mean, look look vicious and, you know, the male just he's just there a lot of times from from what I've seen over the years, the females are way more aggressive. uh especially towards each other, but they're real aggressive with the males during that pairing process. I've seen males put them in their place. You know, they can if they choose to. They fight each other. The males and the females will fight each other, but for the most part, it's usually that female that's doing a lot of the especially during that pairing process, she's the one doing all the the bitching pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what about the you know, we mentioned something about pairing up for the first time. Will will yearlings pair up? And if they do, will the female will they breed? Can they breed and have pups? I think we've covered this before, but that's just in my head after I was talking about that, you know, will will yearling coyotes pair up or will one pair up with a with an older coyote? And if if that happens, will they have pups as a yearling? Yeah, they they can. And that goes back to that nine month. You remember me talking about the nine month being hormonally and chemically able to to go into estrus and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. Come into full estrus. 9 months is when a coyote pup is technically mature because that's when they can technically breed. It's possible for them to. They rarely do it. It's usually, and a lot of that has to do with that pairing process, pecking order, not having a home range. Most of the time the the structure the peck and order structure within the coats are not set up to where those younger coats even though they are mature enough to breed they're not in a situation to breed because of other female coats being you know there's you're not going to have course there are always outliers again but for the most part in general you're just going to have one female that breeds yeah in in a home range that that dominant established pair pair. Yep. And that is part of a pair. So rarely do those yearling females rarely are they part of a of a pair. So most of the time it's at least their second year before they actually breed. I got a question here. It could be pretty interesting to think on. Um, right here, you all have heard me say this, you know, right here where I'm sitting at my house, there's basically three roads. I live in this ridge rolling cattle farm country with a little bit of crops. And there's a lot of ridges and deep haulers. Well, my road is on a ridge. Then over here towards the west is a road and a ridge. And then over here to my east is a road and a ridge. I can hunt the road I'm on and I can hunt these roads to the east and to the west. The odd thing is this road that I'm on rarely has the farms through here rarely have any coyotes. I mean there it's just something that coyotes don't like. It's got good deer hunt, but there's usually hardly any coyotes on it. But I'll get in the coyotes right here directly to my west and I'll get coyotes here directly to my east. I mean, there's been times I've been here at the house, like I heard these coyotes howling behind the house here the other night. There's been times I'll hear them over to the west and to the east. Say I go over here to a farm that's over here to my right and I kill every coyote out of that family group except for a yearling female. And then I come back over here on the other side and get into another family group over here and I kill every coyote out of it except for a yearling male. So, the only two coyotes right here in this area are out of two different batches. It's a yearling male, yearling female. Say they get together and pair up. Can they have pups? Yeah. Will they have pups? Yeah, they could. I mean, it's it's possible they are mature enough to have pups. See what I'm saying? that makes unless something else comes in from the south or the north or further west or further east, they almost pretty good chance that they're cuz I don't I'm not in a dense coyote area. You know what I mean? So, it's not like all these spots are just coyotes just constantly moving back in as soon as you kill these other coyotes out. So, it's pretty good chance that they become the dominant pair. Yeah, more than likely they would. And there's some things about the the way that I've learned some of this because, you know, I've I've fooled with the majority of my coats have always been freerange, but I have fooled with pinninging them up and just I've tested stuff. I've done a lot of testing with trying different things uh out of curiosity from sound reasons, comparing it to what some of these uh studies have said and just There's I'm trying to think how I want to word this because there's a reason that you don't I'm not going I don't want to give it away because
there's a reason that you don't see very many litters of pups coming from a lot of these captive cos. Yeah. You don't want to What you're saying is you don't want to help them out getting more pups. Right. Right. I'm not gonna tell them. I'm not gonna tell them what's going wrong. But there are very, if you just pay attention, there are very few litters of pups born in these cage co scenarios. And there's a reason there's a there's a reason for that. And it kind of ties into what you're what you were saying. Yeah. you know about that if there was just one you know yearling male and one year female would they pair and breed if nothing else was around? Yeah. Yeah. When you put when you have captive coats a lot of times it's not that they won't because it does happen on occasion but more often than not for the amount of coyotes that are in captivity you have very few litters of pups. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's hard to keep some secrets. Yeah, there's a there's there's some there's some uh you tied to there's some reasons tied to cow behavior. Yeah. That causes that. And yeah, you you've seen it both ways. You've you've been able to test with that and then you've done so much with your freerange coyotes. You see a very apparent difference in your freerange coyotes versus if you take some of those freerange coyotes and pin them up. You see a a drastic difference in how they they operate and how they interact. Well, you you can take three female coyotes, put them in a pin with one male, two males, and it's unlikely that you're going to get any pups. If you do, you're only going to get them out of one female and more than likely you're not going to get any bumps. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. We can leave it at that. But a lot of people would think, you know, some of the stuff you you see and you read about pertaining to wild coats and you you'll hear people, you know, making out like, well, this male is running around breeding multiple females and this female is being bred by multiple males and you know that type stuff. I'm not saying that that doesn't ever happen because you could have there's always outliers. There's always exceptions, but for most of the time that that is not taking place. That's not how coyote behavior and the dynamics of of cos pairing and breeding. That's not how it works. That's there's a reason they have home ranges. There's a reason they pair. There's a reason there's one pair in that home range. And there's a reason for the division with all of that. And when you start messing with that, it alters the breeding process, right? It's uh it's pretty it's pretty cool stuff, really. I mean, you think about it. Yeah, there's something we had never really talked about. Fourth fourth breeding podcast in Yeah, I'm sure everybody's sitting there thinking like, get on with it, guys. I want to hear what sounds to use. Well, we're fix to talk about it. Uh Tori, tell me, you know, when breeding season starts to near, you know, here we are, first part of January, uh what do you start doing different with with your calling? Uh and when does that start? You know, we've talked about this before. Um I've already called in coyotes in December. Uh with some breeding season type sounds. Uh when do you generally start putting that type of stuff into play? and and you know what besides for that do you do anything different with your calling? I mean we always talk about we've got a set of sounds that we use and we always start just adding stuff to it. I guess to make this long drawn out question I've asked when do you start doing that? When you start adding breeding season stuff in that till end of December, you know, you could I' I'd use Christmas just maybe a little before. Yeah. Uh as that as that marker for it. And the only thing that I do different as far as changing, just like we've talked about with any other time of the year, you kind of you keep a basic sequence where you're still throwing out all those trigger sounds, but maybe you start adding more of a specific type sound to coincide with a specific time of the year now being breeding season. So that's when I'll start using more breeding season specific type sounds. So some of my social sounds will change from like submissive beggar. That's a social sound. I may swap that out with something like cornered hottie. Same type effect, but cornered hottie is a specific social sound tied to breeding. It'll work year round, but it is a it was specifically recorded from a hot female during breeding season. So it makes sense to use that this time of year. Same thing with some of the fights. You know, a lot of times we're, and I'm not saying that I won't steal pound town or fight challenge or table scraps or sounds like that, but I'm definitely going to add to or swap out sounds like Humpty Bumpty, girl fight, hooked pair, because those are specific breeding season fights. So yes, you can either add those to your other fights or swap them out with your other fights to take advantage of the time of the year. Yeah. Yeah. Same thing with house. You know, if you're running, this is the time of the year where I'm gonna run house like fireball, big girl, pair. You know, sounds like that are going to start becoming,
you know, that's going to be a lot of my sequences, breeding specific type sounds. And I'll still throw in, you know, like we said, we always add more sounds to the sequence. It gets longer. I'm still going to play some of those other, you know, fouls that are just always good throughout the year. But, uh, you talking about the house there and I know we've talked about in in past podcast, you know, we I've asked you what, uh, exactly is an invitation how? And I think it's worth covering that again because, you know, usually the first when we start talking about coyote vocals, usually the first vocal we let out of our call on a stand is some sort of how, right? And you know, there's been sounds in the past, it's just been simply labeled invitation how. But but tell us tell us what an invitation how actually is and the proper way uh to use it. Like what's a how when a coyote gets the howling during the breeding season, what's it doing? So, what separates an invitation how from just a regular lone how is the coat does it over and over again? Usually, it's a lone female. Every time I've l witnessed a female coat in heat that's by herself, a lot of times she'll howl over and over and over again. And where people mess up, if they're trying to truly do invitation howls, they need to howl multiple times because that's what that's what makes it an invitation is that throwing that howl out there. She's alone. She's trying to get the attention of a of a male coat. And so she's howling over and over and over again trying to get, you know, a male coat to come in there. I'm assuming that's what she's doing. That seems to be the the reason part, but that's what separates an invitation from just doing a lone house. So, if you take if you look on your remote and you see a a sound that says invitation out, it can have any name plus invitation and you you assume that's a female invitation out. If you just hit play on that and it plays through one sequence of four or five hows, however many is in the sequence before it loops, then you have done a lone how. That's all you've accomplished. It's just a lone how. It's not an invitation. If you want it to be an invitation, you need to either let that how cycle a few times. And I'm not saying just let it loop over over again, but wait 10 seconds, howl again. Wait a minute, howl again. Wait 15 seconds, howl again. Let that sequence. And what's even better, what I like to do better is I always use little be as a as a good example, but you can do this with any of the other female houses. You could actually do it with male owls and they wouldn't know the difference. But I always use little bee as an example because if you look at the four hows, if I can remember all of them, you've got lonely little bee, sexy little bee, little bee, ready house, and uh there's one more little bee howl. Anyway, you get the there's four little bees. They were all recorded at the same time where she's howling over and over and over again while she's in heat and she's doing an invitation how. So, if I wanted to do an invitation, that's an easy one to do. Just take the four little bee house, play one of them, wait 10 or 15 seconds, like play lonely little bee, wait 10 or 15 seconds, play sexy little bee, wait 10 or 15 seconds, play uh little be ready house. And the fourth one that I couldn't think of while ago is hot little be and or little be hot house, something like that. You can play those four hows back to back to back and that will give you an invitation how and you can continue that out for if you wanted to do a a stand to where your entire sequence is invitation hows you could set their own stand and howl sporadically for 30 minutes for an hour what and call cos that way. Yes. And that's all you're doing is you are you're doing a female imitation and you're just waiting for a coat to show up on those house. Now, right, I rarely do that, but something I will do is throw out those four house and then fall into some of those other breeding sounds like we talked about, you know, covering the the social breeding sounds and the breeding fights and, you know, mixing in some of your other good stuff with it, too. Well, go ahead and go ahead and tell us about that. Tell, you know, tell us what what your stand would look like. Um, you know, minus just all coyote vocals minus any prey distress. There's a couple different ones that are that are really good. Sticking with what we were just talking about, you could do an invitation how where you let out multiple hs back to back. Those four little beehives is is what I would do if it if it were me. I would do those four little bee house and then wait a minute or two, a minute, 30 seconds, something like that. And then I would go into something like uh cornered hottie. I really or or subtle female, something like that. Play that for a couple minutes and then follow it with another breeding sound like bad girls or mean girls. Those are kind of working towards those are those are hot females that are agitated, worked up, and then work right on into something like bumping grind, which is a old sound, but a really good one. Yep. A lot of coyotes. And then in that sequence, and you could play more sounds, more breeding sounds, but then end that sequence was something like girl fight, which is a breeding uh a really good breeding sound. Another good one, and one that uh called up several coyotes on last year is to start with something like those fireball big girl pairs. I like those. I'll play fireball, big girl, pear, and then I'll go into a different type of you could use cornered hottie or you can go into something like stanky leg juicy tail. I like I like stanky leg. I use that a lot. I like that sound. Those are hot females specific to the breeding time frame. And then uh come out of that and go into uh like subordinate male. A very underrated but excellent sound. Works year round but is really good during breeding season. People get scared off of it because it says male. But that subordinate male that was recorded from during the breeding time frame where another male and female are jumping on. It's like that scenario I described earlier. Different coyotes but same scenario where you've got two males interested in the same female and that one male is getting whooped. That's where the subordinate male sound comes from. That's a really good one to mix in a in a breeding sequence. Something else I like to do on a sequence like that is throw in one of those hot sauce or fire sauce sounds for just a not very long. That's where they're I was talking about them being each other. Yep. Yapping at each other and then go from there into something like Humpty Bumpy or breeding specific sequences, you know. Well, and you're kind of telling what the progression is like on these coyotes when they come together. You know, if you've got a if you've got a female out there that's letting out all these invitation house looking for a mate and then that mate shows up, those rest of those sounds you just played out could very well be how that uh that sequence of those two coyotes meeting up, how it kind of plays out, you know, with the with the social stuff after they come together and then agitation and then fighting. So, I mean, that's that's kind of the natural progression of it, I guess you could say, right now that I've got that is going on right now. As you know, of course, I know the podcast is going to come out just a little bit later, but it'll still be going on, but till end of December going rolling into January. Right now, this this will be out on January 6th. All right. It'll still be perfect timing. The the female cow named Brett is pairing up for the first time. There are two male coats down there fooling with her. Dempsey being one of them and Little Heathen is the other one. He just The girls don't like him for some reason. He's He's a blonde male. So, I don't know if that blonde hair, long blonde hair throwing them off or what. He's he's looks sified or what, but he's trying. But he may have better luck this time, though, cuz Dempsey's got a blonde, too. So, I got you. But both of those males are fooling with that brat coat and that yapping up in each other's face, all three of them. I mean, they're making all kinds of racket right now. But, uh, so that that time frame for, you know, playing out that scenario, I don't necessarily think the coach care what order you play anything in, but they do, right? They do know what those sounds mean. Exactly. and will trigger to different sounds like that wherever you've got them in your sequence. I usually just play them in the order that they that they follow. You see people you see in conversation, especially on I just saw it just the other day. People say, "Well, it don't matter. You don't have to have a sequence or you don't have to have an order of the sounds you put them in." Um, and I I truly believe that, too. But why but why not? It's a lot easier to keep track of what you played. just play it out how it would naturally progress. You could keep track of it a lot better if you're somebody that does it that way. You know, why not? And it it makes sense because that's what the coach typically do. Cole how they'll come together. You'll hear some of those meet and greet social type sounds. Then coach will bicker and you know, a lot of that stuff plays out, especially the uh the breeding type stuff. You know, you'll hear a lot of those sounds before you get to a sound like Humpty Bumpty. That is them tied up. Not only tied up, but a pair of coaches tied up with other coaches trying to fight them and them fighting, you know, trying to fight while they're tied up and hollering. Just a crazy sound. But, uh, yeah, I mean it, like you said, if you play it in the order that it takes place in, it it makes it easier, makes it all easier on the human brain anyway. Yeah. Well, and the other thing, too, the sounds and sequences we usually talk about on these podcast, y'all don't have to run them. You know, it's one of those things, you know, we're just sharing with you guys how we go about doing things and what we found success with in the past and we're just sharing it with you. Uh I've said this many, many times. I was talking to a guy earlier today that had a lot of questions and you know, he was unsure of how he'd been calling. He thought he'd been messing up and everything. He told me, "Man, sounded great." Great. I was like, man, should as he's talking like, man, if he's on coyotes, he should have been calling coyotes up and killing them, you know, if his setup was good. And what I'm getting at is there's many, many, many right ways to call up a coyote. There's so many right ways to do it. You know, you might hear us and somebody like, I don't do all that crazy stuff. I just go out there and do this and the coyotes come running in. Well, he telling you the truth. He probably that's probably what he does. But we're just sharing with you guys what we found to be successful uh for how we go about coyote calling. Sharing it with you. you guys can take it out there in the field and hopefully you guys can have the same success or even more success uh than myself and Tori and everybody else that that we have on here. Um, one thing that we left out and I told you talk about the sequence there minus pray distress uh there there's never a time hardly ever through January um and February that I don't play a little bit of uh prey distress. I'm always playing prey distress. A lot of times I'm leading my stand off with it. Um, talk about that a little bit. You still putting you still put pray to stress into your sequences this time of year, Tori? Yeah, if you hadn't brought it up, that's what I was going to ask you. I said I was about to say, I bet you're still putting mixing some prey in there regardless. And yes. Yes. Yes. I mean, I think it's always going back to before you asked me about specific vocal type sequence. You know, we were talking about we always make our sequences seems like as the year gets towards the end of the year, our sequences get longer and that's because you're adding sounds to and swapping some sounds out um with what was already working. But any once that family bust up time frame takes place in the fall all the way through until they start den I think it's a good idea to mix some prey sounds in there unless you know you hear some people say well prey sounds my coats are educated to prey sounds or you know can't call them up with prey sounds at all. Well then you might want to stick with that vocal stuff we just talked about. But in general, most of the time you've got bobcats, fox, coats, you've got multiple predators on the landscape and prey distress calls all of them, even coons. So, uh, it's always a good idea to mix in some prey sounds. And normally what I do this time of the year, that's what I'll start with before I roll into one of those breeding. And I do that because you might have a coat right there, but more specifically, you might have a cat right there. So, exactly. A lot of times I'm going to start with, you know, one or two or three uh different prey distress sounds or I might start with a couple and then somewhere throughout that breeding sequence. There's nothing wrong with coming back around and mixing that prey in, you know, in the middle of your your sequence there somewhere. I don't think it hurts a thing. Matter of fact, I think it helps trigger sometimes. I think it helps trigger after you've played, you know, if you play those prey sounds and you don't get something and then you go into those v vocals and that coat is sitting out there and just listen to those howls and maybe some of those social sounds and then you throw a bird or a rabbit back in the mix. He may trigger on it then when he didn't trigger on it at the beginning of the sequence. So, Right. Right. I think it's a good idea to mix two or three prey sounds in your sequence this time of the year. You you was talking. This is funny because this was something else that was brought up just a couple days ago. U you mentioned you'll see some people say, "Ah, if you try to play prey distress in my area, they just took tail and run. You cannot call coyotes to to rabbit or bird, you know." Well, they'll just pick some kind of, you know, category out. And anyway, this conversation came up the other day and it's it ain't going to call nobody out, but how does that they said that same thing? Well, if you play those type of sounds, you're just, you know, whatever in the wind, you they're going to turn and run. You can't do that in my area. That just don't work here. So, I asked I said, "What area you in?" I'd be dang if we just didn't leave that area. I'm talking about the dag on town. He mentioned we stayed there. We just left there filming coyote hunts for Foxro Hunting TV. Yeah. We burned them up on what he said don't work. That's what we played. That's what we started off with. And they was just running in like crazy. I just said, "Well, maybe you should try it." You know, I didn't say that to I was like, "Well, I think it'll work that maybe." Hey, that happens. That happens. That's That's the thing about this podcast, though. We don't keep no secrets. Yeah. Well, you Hey, you you kept a secret earlier, though, about them caged coyotes. A little a little bit. I probably said more than I should have said, but I still don't I don't I don't think it'll there ain't there ain't much way around it, so I don't think it'll it'll hurt anything. good. Well, one thing I want to ask you here, uh, and and this is another reason why I've run some I do run, you know, at least at least a few minutes of prey distress in my sequences this time of year. And it's not, you know, you mentioned it, too. You got the cats and stuff like that. But even these breeding, even these paired up coyotes, they're they're still eating, you know, and they'll still come to these prey distress sounds. Uh, but another big reason is because we've got a lot of subordinate transit coyotes that's out there on the landscape that would love to eat a juicy rabbit or a, you know, a wounded woodpecker that's hopping around. It could be a nice tasty treat. They love that stuff. Uh, but one of my questions here I want to ask you about is about those subordinate transit type coyotes. How do they respond to these breeding specific sounds? Uh like these breeding fights and uh these whimpers and and stuff like it like the sounds say like the stanky legs, the cornered hotties, the subtle females, uh all those type of sounds. uh female whimpers, uh female breeding growls and chirps. What how do these subordinate transate coyotes that are not part of a pair, it could be yearlings or whatever, how do they will they can you still call those coyotes with those type of sounds? Yep. Yep. I think they come to those sounds. Part of this ties back to the pecking order. You may have some that are a little more cautious and you I think this is a big Well, it's not I don't think I know that it's a big misconception that people have always made. You hear it with howling, you hear it with vocals, you hear it with any type of coyote sound. You'll hear people say, and you'll even read about it in some of the older stuff especially, you still see it spread around now, but you'll see that stuff where they say, you know, subordinate coats, female coats, young coats, they'll say that these coats are are scared of just about any coat type sound, whether it be house or your breeding sounds or whatever. And that is simply not true. Especially when you're talking about coyotes that were higher ranking within the pecking order when they were part of a litter. When they when they bust up from the family, they still rank higher than some coyotes. And that's how they go about finding a spot. That's how they go about getting a mate. That's how they go about filling a hole. They have to go into these areas where there are other coats. If they're ever going to pair with another coat, if they're ever going to be anything other than a transient, they have to go to and and associate with and get in the mix with other cos. Those type sounds attract them. They they go to check that stuff out. And then it's just once they get up there, it's finding out are are they in a position to fill a hole? Are they in a position to whoop the other coat that they run into? Or do they need to tuck tail and run and and continue to be a transient? But they do come to that stuff. They do come and check it out. A lot of people are under the misconception that when a a a yearling coat or a transient coat that is not a dominant coat at that particular time is scared to death to get close to another coat and that's simply not true. It's no different than when you it's no different than any other animal. A lot of times people just don't get to see it with goats, but they get to witness it with deer. They get to witness it with turkeys. They get to witness it with all of the other animals out there to where you see these spike bucks, year and a half old bucks come running to horns, running to grunting, turkeys, you know, Jake turkeys. And and not only that, they'll come in and try to jump on gobblers. And even though most of the time when they show up, you know, if a spike buck comes running in there, he's going to get pushed around, you know, pushed out, but they're not scared to associate with other members of the same species. And coats react the same way. When those young coats, subordinate coats, transient coats, female coats, when they hear other coats making sounds, they're attracted to it just like the dominant coats are attracted to it. They may approach it a little different. They may not come running in, hackles up, ready to bite, but they will come trotting in or walking in to get a look, and that's all you need. They're social. They're social animals, and they're curious for another thing. So yeah, and that's all that's yeah, that's all you need. They just come show themselves. You you've called a coyote up busted, right? I think if you're scared to play sounds, if you're sitting out there with that mentality and because there are a lot of cos that for whatever reason today on this particular stand, if all you play are prey distress sounds because you're scared you're going to scare a code by playing code vocals and that code is not triggering on prey distress sounds that day, you hadn't lost anything. The only way you're you're leaving goats out there if you don't play multiple sounds to try to trigger them. Throw some variety out there. And that it's just another thing just when you're talking about that. Remind me is, you know, kind of like what we've been little deals we've talked about right here. Uh but I see I see this often and again saw this just here recently. You'll see people say it's just on the lines like, "Well, you can't come here and play that category of sounds that coyotes are wise to that and educated. You they just run away. I can't do that here." You also see these guys talk about all I do is ever play coyote vocals. That's I'm just straight coyote vocals. Or you'll say, "I just Clay Reed famous. There's a I see heard the sound. I've been hearing it on TikTok all week. I'm a rabbit guy. I just turn the rabbit on 10 minutes. Here they come. I kill them." Oh, you know, everybody loves Clay and I talk about I love Clay Reed. He a great guy, but Clay's a he's a rabbit guy. He use some other sounds. I I read He does. He does. But, you know, that's his famous thing is play the rabbit, you know, play Ky. Um, and he does play other sounds. You know, I'm just using as example, but you'll actually there's guys like it's all I do is play pray to stress. That's all I do. And you got these guys I'm all I do is play vocals. you know, I ain't I ain't wasting my time with with prey distress. I'm a firm believer no matter where in the world you are, where you're calling at if you're not if you're you're not firing on all cylinders, if you're not trying to take advantage of your prey distress sounds and your coyote vocals, especially when it comes to wintertime coyotes and going right into the breeding season here, uh, early January. I mean, you they could trigger on any of that stuff this time of year. They're practically, especially early January, they're just coming there. Everything, especially if you get into some fresh coyotes, they're going to come. But, uh, just a wide variety of anything you could play. It could be baby bobcat. It could be, you know what I mean? It could be a bird distress. It could be a a rabbit distresser. Any number of these vocals we've talked about. Well, one thing that backs that up is you've heard me talk about before being able to to test the codes and I can sit out there with them, these freerange coaches, I can sit and watch them and have somebody else run the call in the remote. The coaches don't know what's going on. You know, I'm just getting to watch their reaction to different sounds. I do that a lot when I'm testing new stuff. But you'll have the same coats. These are the same group of cos and you'll see them trigger sometimes on a sound one day and trigger to it quick and then the next day that you play that same sound or a little while later and they may not be as interested in it or the first time you played it, they may not been that interested in the next time you hit them with the same sound, they jump up and run towards it, run over. Just you never know what mood different coats are in and people have got to see that you know especially thermal night calling. You go out there in the field and you're playing you play through multiple sounds and then all of a sudden this particular sound triggers that particular code and then you go to another field down the road and it doesn't trigger on that sound that you just used but you call them up with something else. you trigger with a different sound on a different code. So, you just you up your uh you up your odds of calling more codes when you play a variety of trigger sounds from different categories. Yeah. And another thing another thing with that, we've been getting a lot of questions on uh y'all follow us on TikTok, you see that we'll answer questions from time to time as good as we can, you know. Um, and a lot of the stuff people ask us about the sounds do certain time of year and stuff like that and we'll answer it. Or we might get a comment that says, "Well, you all are in this area. What about up here in Montana? What do I need to play up here?" Well, my I get asked this quite a bit and this is this is I don't even know how to explain it to some people, but we travel with Foxro. You know, we're trying to film coyote hunts. We like to take this stuff out there and show you guys how you can be successful with it. Depending on the time of year, it's like I'm in Kentucky right now. I'm going to be calling this evening, going to be calling the rest of this week. And then here in a couple weeks, I'm going to Florida. Well, the same sounds that I play right here and have success with, I'm going to go to Florida and use them. And guess what? We going to be calling coyotes and killing them. Uh we just left Kansas a couple weeks ago. We was in Kansas, played the same stuff with killing coyotes. We might go spur the- moment trip, might go to Montana, we might go to Oregon. I'm not going to play anything different in one of these other states. And I would play right here. They're the coyote's a coyote. And just like we was talking about earlier, the breeding season's coming in at the same time no matter where you're at. So don't you know some of these sound like we was talking about some of these sounds we talk about don't be afraid to use the the coyote you know if we tell you coyote vocals you know if we put out a sequence out there and you're somebody wanting to run what you're interested in what we got to say you want to take what a sequence that we put out there and try it don't think well man Tori's in Arkansas John's in Kentucky what do I need to do what I need to do in Oklahoma, it's the same sounds. Yes. I mean, do you agree with that, Tori? I mean, I'm sure you get that a lot, too. Yeah. Yeah. And something else that backs that up, if people will just pay attention on like you said, y'all are traveling all over Killing Co. That's that's showing it. You can watch it on YouTube and see that wherever you're at, you're running a variety of sounds. And Killing Coats on a variety of sounds. no matter where you're at. You're killing them on prey, you're killing them on vocals, you're killing them on those same that same variety of sounds no matter where you're at. But something else people can do is just pay attention to the hundreds or thousands of posts, thousands weekly of posts that come across all these different predator pages on Facebook and stuff like that. And if you pay attention to where those people are from and the sounds they're using, you see that those cos are getting killed on vocals and prey sounds and yeah, one guy's in, you know, one guy's in this state and another guy's in the same state. One of them using vocals, one of them using prey sounds. I mean, you see that just over and over and over and over again, the variety of sounds that people are are using to call and kill coats. But one guy because he has success, you know, just playing prey sound, that's all he'll use. And that's fine as long as it's working. If you if it's working and you're killing coats, I mean, I don't guess there's a reason to change. But if you start having blank stands, then you ought to expand on the sounds that you're using. You know, if you're not playing vocals and you're not playing some of these fights and breeding sounds and all you've ever run is prey sounds, then start mixing some of that stuff in. And if all you've ever run is vocals, start mixing in some prey stuff. If you've ran a particular rabbit and have never called anything in on it, swap to a different rabbit or a different bird. I mean, y you'll you will find prey sounds and vocals that trigger codes no matter where you're at. One one prime example of that, we were on just a couple weeks ago, we were calling and we're doing pretty good that day. We filmed filmed a handful of stands and we were calling. It was actually a three-day trip, so it was more than just one day. Uh but we killing everything predominantly on prey distress sounds. We'd play a couple rabbits and they was going to show up just the most the coyotes was showing up to one of those two rabbits. And uh we got on this one stand where was on a tail end of our second rabbit that we was playing at the time and on a pond dam out there 400 some yards away. I kept seeing this spot and uh I finally looked at it through the scope. Well, guess what? It's a coyote sitting there. And I think the thing had been there for a few minutes. I think I kept seeing that spot and what you know how you do that you you see something and you you don't think it's a coyote and you finally look at it it's a coyote or a deer or whatever. So that's what I think that coyote actually been out there for a few minutes just listening to the rabbits and it was not advancing. I think it had been bedded up right there. It was a daytime hunt. But anyway, we done run through probably eight minutes worth of rabbit two different ones and it wasn't it wasn't coming. I howled at it. It just sat there. Didn't run off. Didn't run to us. Didn't do nothing. Well, I I heck got to get this thing on its feet. Right there in my presets. I had bam stanky 8week. I hit that coyote run up there and we shot it at 60 steps. Yeah. It listened to three different sounds. Didn't move an inch besides the set down on that pond dam. And I hit bam stanky fight 8week, which is a 8week pup fight. Yeah. So that means you recorded that in the summertime, right? Or late spring or whatever. So here the thing came running right up there. It was like we shot it at 65 70 steps, something like that. So it's odd how them things will will swap. And I always think about our Texas our first couple Texas trips. You know, we went to that first one, that first trip out there, and I thought we had it figured out from then on. I mean, you turn on woody wood, good woody, broke back, any one of them wood sounds and it was I mean, we didn't we couldn't do no wrong with those bird sounds. We was calling up a code on every stand and same almost like the same deal we was talking about like the two sounds we you know, it was I was running two different rabbit sounds there a couple weeks ago and on that trip it was two different bird sounds. It was It was It was broke pecker. MFK Brokepe Pecker and MFK Goody Woody. They was going to come to one of those two bird sounds, wasn't it? And Yeah. And sometimes those are for whatever reason that's just what they are biting on. That's the that is the bait that they want. And if you get stuck on that, going back to the the Texas example, you know, I was kind of stuck on those those bird sounds, man. They working so good. Why change? So we go out there the following year, make a handful of stands running bird sounds, and guess what? We ain't calling much. We call one cat. We call one cat and didn't call the first coyote a woodpecker, I don't think. In the same area at the same time of the year doing nothing had changed other than the mind, I guess the the mindset of the cow or what they the mood they were in. And then we started playing some different sounds and before long calling in coats on a variety a lot of vocals but a variety of uh like rabbits and and vocals and howls and bites. I mean we call in coyotes on a little bit of everything. You kind of said it right there. You said whatever the mindset of the coyotes were on those two different trips was totally different. And we had to change our mindset of what sounds we were going to play before we got got back in coyotes. If we' have spent them two days sticking with them woodpeckers, we might have just ended up with just that one cat. Yeah. I think a lot of people I know I used to do it when I first started calling. You'll call something up. You'll call up a coach, you'll call up a cat, whatever. Maybe you call in a couple two or three of them and then you can't hardly break away from whatever that sound is that you were using. You make stand after stand after you hit that dry spell. Man, I I still do that now. It's hard. It's hard when they're biting on something. It's hard to swap. But I have learned, especially if you know or you have a pretty you feel like you're making good stands and you feel like there ought to be animals listening and yeah, you know, you were calling stuff and now you're not calling stuff. That's usually a pretty good indication that that mindset or whatever it is about them has changed. And it's not that they won't call, they're just not calling on that sound. And a lot of times when you start going through some of those different I always just call them trigger categories where you're going through your prey sounds your out in this time of the year. Yeah. Specifically those breeding season sounds because if you have just like right now I was talking about those coyotes down there. The only thing they're interested in is each other and pairing up. If you're sitting three 400 yards from them coyotes and you're screaming with a rabbit or a bird or something, the odds of you breaking one of them coyotes loose while they're in that pairing process, slim enough. Slim, they're probably not going to come to it. But if you introduce another coyote to the deal, you might get one of them to break and come running right in there. especially if you're playing similar sounds that correlate with what they're engaging in right now. You know, behaviorally, that stuff is some people downplay that, but I get to witness on a regular basis. whatever the cos are doing plays a factor into how how strong that sound attracts or or it heightens it, you know, right? But, uh, I one one thing I want to point out with with me talking about those, you know, we calling stuff in on those two rabbit sounds and then finally we got to a stand where it wasn't. Well, we had some dry stands there, but we actually got on the stand where we could see a coyote that wasn't advancing to the call from what had been working. Yeah. If we, you know, I was kind of in the mindset. I was like, it's like I'm a rabbit guy this week. I'm a rabbit. But I'm just going to play the rabbit and they going to come or they, you know, that's what my mindset was at the time. But well, I got to watch that coyote sit out there and then when we switched to coyote vocals, which was a pup fight and that coyote run in there. So now my mind switched like, well, I'm a I'm a I'm a coyote v vocal guy now. They going to come to coyote vocals. You know, if if you fell into one of those situations where, you know, you could get in that rut and I do, you know, and just like you talked about, hey, that's what they were coming to. But then we finally found a coyote that was not going to come to it. And if we hadn't if I you know I could have maybe played three or four other sounds that coyote would have never come off that pond down. Um but I finally hit that right trigger that 8week pup fight brought a December coyote in like a string of lightning. Yeah. And you you you could have the flip of that too to where you're watching a C. You see people we've had people comment, you know, on uh I think one of the podcast deals and we had some comments. I think it's when we when they were asking questions when we had that one. But you'll have people say something like kind of similar situation what you were talking about where they're watching a coat, they're calling and they play a sound or a particular sound and that coat doesn't come to it and then they want to write that sound off. And sometimes they're throwing away a top-notch sound damn because one coat didn't or maybe even two or three coats didn't show an interest in that particular sound right then. The point is play multiple sounds, phrase sounds and and vocals and stuff like that. And especially if you're making blank stance and you know not having success with your prey sounds or your vocals or whatever, swap it up and uh add some sounds and you'll probably start calling coats. Yep. Especially this time of year with it being the breeding season. Um you definitely need to start putting in some of these breeding specific type sounds that we mentioned earlier. And like I talked about before, we've done three other episodes. episode 12. I'm pretty sure it's episode 12, 38, and 65. They're excellent. Excellent breeding season, time frame specific. We talk about all kinds of different sounds, all kinds of different sequences. They're worth going back and listening. I'm telling you, you'll get a lot out of them. Um, one thing I was want to ask you before you hopped off here, Tori, is how I got asked this today. So, this is one reason I wanted to put this in here. Uh, how long are your stands generally during the breeding season when you're just out pleasure hunting? Oh, pro, you know, most of mine are probably a minimum of 20 minutes, if not a little bit longer. Just because I'm I'm us I usually am giving a little bit time on that front end to try to call in a cat or a coyote on some prey stuff before I get into the to the vocals and breeding side of it. So that that makes my stands, you know, a little bit longer. And sometimes I'm a little more patient, especially if I'm running, you know, some of those howls to begin with. I don't put a whole lot of silence in there, but I will, you know, set for 30 seconds, minute or so between sounds sometimes. So I'd say minimum of 20 minutes and probably closer to 25, 30. Yeah. And we, like I said, just talking about this, usually on average, I'm probably in that 15, 16, 17 minute mark, you know, when you're talking year round calling. But when it does come to this time frame, January, February, um I'm my stands are longer. It's probably is probably the time frame my stands are the longest. You know, probably on average 20, 22 minutes, and I stretch them. Some of them be 24, 25, 26 minutes. Yeah. And they and I've noticed that you call coyotes in. It's I don't know what it is, but historically for myself, uh especially around here, it just because this is usually where I do most of my January callings right here at home, but some for some reason I get into a lot of late stand callins for some reason. And when they do come in late in the sand, it ain't like they just come mossy in, they come ripping in a lot of times. I tell you what my theory is on that, going right back to what we were just talking about. And and another thing you talking about making these longer stands. They don't seem longer because of the variety of sounds and you're kind of swapping from almost like one mindset on an animal. You're kind of thinking bobcats or coyotes or just predator in general with part of it. And then as you progress into those breeding signs, you start getting almost like coyote pair specific is kind of where where my mind goes. I start thinking, all right, a coyote or a bobcat head. This is my theory on why you see those coats come in later in the stand and come blazing in. In that first part of the stand, you're just kind of thinking general predator calling. You know, I'm trying to call the cat. I'm trying to call any coat that'll that'll take the bait. Then as you start progressing, you get past that, you start getting into those breeding sounds and breeding specific sounds. I think that's when you start targeting those coyotes that are doing just like what we talked about a while ago. They're in that pairing or breeding frame of mind and they're in that behavior process to where that's the only thing they're going to trigger to and they've listened to you play the prey sounds and go through some of those early sounds in the u in the sequence in the stand and it just doesn't trigger them. And then all of a sudden you get into those later breeding specific sounds that correlate with what they're doing right then and they hear another co participating or what they think is participating in the same activities they're trying to participate in and all of a sudden you have one of them aggressive females or a male whatever could be anything they come tearing in to that sound. Yeah. Yeah. And they just wouldn't trigger on those earlier sounds. Yeah. Um, and I think that happens a lot during this time of the year is you have Well, I can remember I can remember talking to Jamie and Dayton when they were and I've brought this up before. They were talking about hunting eastern and getting on these coyotes and they can watch these coyotes in the thermal. Could not get these coyotes to trigger. And this was happening on multiple coyotes. Of course, they end up and I don't know if it was Eastern or the Elite or whichever one of those. because eastern elite I think they are watching these coyotes and can't get them to trigger on multiple sounds and then all of us and these cos they they could tell that the coaches were you know chasing each other around and you know they could tell that they were breeding coats anyway they started playing girl fight and they started triggering these goats that wouldn't trigger on other sounds over and over and over and over again and you know that I think that's what it was the frame. The bulk of those coyotes were right in the peak portion of breeding. And so a lot of those coyotes had that on their mind and it was taking those type sounds to uh to trigger them because they were interested in each other and weren't interested in coming to a prey sound. So, right, they had to get breeding specific sounds to uh to trigger some of those goats. And I think uh and man, did they ever trigger them. I think that was the hunt where they killed like 40 some in in basically a night. Oh, once once they got on that once they figured out and you've seen it happen a bunch of times just like we talking about the Texas trip woodpeckers was the it sound. You couldn't do anything wrong. Turn it on. Here they come. They got it figured out to where and it was the opposite of prey sounds. Yeah, a breeding vocal fight hot females. And it seemed like every time they hit it, cos were coming. I'm not saying they didn't call in some more cows with some other sounds, but the B, that's what they were triggering on. So, but uh and one other thing, some questions I've had, then I seen it on uh I know we've been on here a while, but one other thing I'll mention, I seen this on a post a year or so ago, and I've had a couple people ask me about it. They want to know if breeding season sounds like the tieup sounds are legit. And I've got some. They're not quite ready to release yet. Hopefully, we'll get them released in February. You've heard heard some of them. Yep. But, uh, they absolutely make noise and make sounds when they are tied up. So, those breeding sounds, I've seen where some people say the cows don't make noise when they're tied up. that these breeding sounds are, you know, not necessarily really sounds that these coats are making while they're tied up. Yeah, let me tell you, they make noise. They make a lot of noise. And uh I put just a little short video clip up, you know, a couple weeks ago where you hear hear them making a little bit of noise, but I have I have some video and of course the audio too for some of these new sounds where not only do they make noise, they make a lot of noise and some crazy noises. Hey, we'll be back. We'll be back in Texas here in a few weeks. We'll test them in. Yeah. Yeah, we will definitely I bet they'll work. I bet they'll work again. I guarantee it. Guarantee it. Um, talk about recent questions. This kind of come into a question answer thing, but um, people seen me night hunting a little bit. Been ragging on me and one of the questions I don't answer. Don't start. Don't start. Don't start. One of the questions I've got because the seed where I've just always day hunted. Um, and I get we get asked I guarantee you get asked this, Tori. uh you know we'll talk they'll know that I'm a day hunter they know Tori is a day hunter we'll talk about these sounds and sequences and stuff and they'll say what about uh it's almost just like the the area specific stuff you know people like what should I use up here I've had multiple people reach out and say well I want to know what you're doing different at night far as calling and you know they're asking me if I'm playing different sounds I I don't do only thing different is the time I'm going and how I set up I play the exact same sounds. Now, I'm not a professional night hunter. I ain't but every time I went, we've called killed coyotes and I just I treat it just like it's a dayand. I I'm used the same sounds and the same sequences and the same manner, time frame, everything. It's so when we tell you guys these sounds and sequences, they can be used day or night. Would you agree with that, Tori? Oh, yeah. Yeah. 100%. I mean, I get I get asked a lot like, "Won't y'all do a nighttime uh podcast?" Well, they're all nighttime podcast. They're all daytime and night time. You everything we talk about, you can do you can do both ways, you know? It don't matter. Yeah. Yeah. All All of them. Throw it out there. Listen, if you can call a coyote, if you can get a coyote that's laid there dead asleep, if you can get him up on his feet in a broad daylight with a sun up high and he can come running to you, what do you think he'll do at night when he's on his feet and wide awake? Yeah, I think that's the only thing that really changes most of the time is is coyotes are more active typically or more active at night. That's that's about the only difference in day versus night calling. You might have to get a little closer to them in the daytime because they're not as active. But exactly. My my biggest difference is where I'll set up and how there's and how I'll set up the places I'm going been going or are or places that I can't call during the day because of how the there's no cover to get to or how it rolls or something like that. I've always thought, well, man, if there was a tree or a bush, it was right over here on this spot. I could I could call that. Well, now I just walk out there in the pitch black dark and just stand there. Yeah, that's the difference. Going to be able to make stuff I never could make before. But anyway, I got one more question for you, Eric. Um, this is going to be one of those if you could only have three sounds type things, but you're actually going to have four sounds. You're going to you get a prey distress. You just you just get to pick a you've got already got a prey distress that you want to use. So you've got a prey distress, but I need you to pick three breeding season specific sounds to go on your X24 X360 that you're packing out in addition to your prey distress sounds. So you're going to have four. You don't have to mention the prey distress, but mention three breeding season specific sounds that you have got to have on your unit for you to kill all the coyote you can through January and February. All right. Well, for for a prey distress sound, just cuz I like it this time of the year and it's newer, so I'm I'm still running it a little bit. Rose bush cot on the uh on the prey sound. Then for the breeding specific stuff, if I can only have three sounds, I'm gonna go fireball, big girl, pear.
Uh,
I'm probably going to go
I I know a couple that I want to say, but since we haven't released them yet, I'll keep those. I'll go available. Uh tease teasing everybody. Yeah, there's some brat sounds and some uh some stuff like that. Some that are pretty good that I I want to say, but I'll I'll go with the stuff that everybody can get their hands on right now. Uh so, Fireball, Big Girl, Pear, uh Cornered Heightty, and Humpty Bumpy. Pretty good. Sounds pretty good to me. And I could swap it with girl fight, but I I'll go Humpty Bumpy. I like it. I like it. What you What you going with? Pretty similar. Um um for a prey distress, I'll probably have to pick Ky just because it has been so good to me forever and I couldn't see leaving it off. Although the last uh coyote that I killed came to Rose Bush Cotton and I think the the coyote before came to Cottail Sauce, but that's a different story. So all of them rabbits I mean Oh yeah, KG and Bism Cottontail. They've been around a while. Everybody knows about them, but there's three or four of them rabbits now. Cocktail sauce, which that's Yeah. the the one you helped record. And then uh uh rose bush. Those are all kind of interchangeable. Good good rabbit sounds. Excellent. Excellent. So I'll take that as my prey distress. And I'm probably going to take little be ready house. I like those house. They're good house that you can that I can pause and chop up and bust up and I can take that and repeat it in ways that you know I can get my good get my good imitation sequence out there. Right. So I'll take that and then you mentioned one of them I'd probably have to have cornered hottie. That's a that's just a good sound. I it's it it that kind of takes the place of my social sounds where I would normally have like submissive beggar or greeting wines and stuff. Although some a lot of times I still play those sounds but but that's a good one. So Ky little be ready cornered hottie and then I want to have a fight and um it's probably man it's probably going to be just for breeding season it's probably either going to be bumping grind which is old or humpty bumpty I guess just flip a coin and I'll take either one. Yeah. And of those of those little bee houses, little be ready is my favorite of the four. A lot of times I'll use little be ready owls even in the summertime just cuz I you know, like I said, if you just pull it out and play it as a single owl, it's just a long owl. I use little be ready owls a lot, you know, year round if I'm if I'm looking for a how. But uh yeah, them's all good. And uh like I said, Humpty Bump is hard to beat. Girl fight is interchangeable right there as far as a a specific breeding season fight. But uh yeah, then we'll kill some coyotes for sure. Well, you got anything you'd like to leave us with? We've been on here for I don't know, probably an hour and 40 minutes. Yeah, it's a good one. Yeah, we kind of got we kind of got like uh we just went off on some side roads there a little bit, but yeah, I don't know. Yeah. Well, I'll just mention that uh anybody listening, hey, I like the night hunters, too, even though I don't do much of it. I'm glad y'all uh y'all kill a lot more coyotes. So, uh I appreciate the night hunters and the day hunters and everybody that uses our stuff and uh and listens to the podcast. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. We wish everybody luck out there. We We love seeing it all for sure. Uh just just to recap, guys, if y'all's looking for some more calling information for breeding season, definitely go back and check check out episodes 12, 38, and 65. I'm pretty sure those episode numbers, they're breeding season specific. They've got Tori on there. We give several different calling uh sequences and talk about a lot of sounds. Um go check them out. I think you'll get a lot out of them. And I'm hoping to see a lot of breeding season coyotes piled up this this year. Heck, tag us in them if cuz I want to make sure I see them. You know, tag us so I can see you big piles and stuff. Um, some of these sounds that Tori mentioned and I mentioned if you don't have them, uh, you're interested in getting them for this breeding season, you'll be able to find those at goofoxpro.com and mfkgameco.com websites. We hope everyone enjoyed this episode.