i've got serious coyote problem. they've already ran off one flock of turkeys behind my house, and now they are moving in on my honey hole a few miles up the road. my uncle moved a couple of donkeys over there to try and keep them away. does anyone know if this really works or not? A buddy lives across the road from another spot i hunt ocassionally and he's told me he hears a big pack almost every night. I've got no experience hunting the damn things but I need to learn fast. Any tips on how to call them in or baiting them?
Don't worry about it. For one thing, turkeys have been living with coyotes since long before people came into the picture. And, There have been various government coyote eradication programs since the 19th century. They don't work. We've got more coyotes than ever. Where we hunt, we've got coyotes, wolves, bobcats, bears.....and turkeys. Make sure you've got good nesting habitat. That will guarantee you more turkeys than shooting a couple of coyotes.
And by the way, turkey decoys do work great for coyotes, and from personal experience, bears, when you're hunting turkeys.
Eastern turkeys haven't been living with coyotes for very long actually. Yotes used to be a western predator. But turkeys are smart and wary, and if the habitat is good, they will survive the yotes.
expanding yote populations do effect turkeys to a point you must change your tactics for awhile at least, I've had yotes spook gobblers that I was trying to hunt, had yotes stalk me while calling (the ones who are close enough that they start lickin they're chops don't last long). around here they just harrass the turkeys enough to mess up your hunting. Here's an example, I had several good gobblers located on public land that is heavily hunted. I work 12 hr. shifts sun, mon, and tues. nights. On my way to work I would pull over along the road above the big basin the gobblers called home and howl a couple times, no gobblers gobbled there on mon, tues, or wed. I hunted thur and they would rock the mountain gobbleing. In southern va in areas of high yote density, the turkeys fly down at dawn into a field, feed, gobble, and strut for a couple hours, then about 10:00 AM, they fly back up in a tree until about 4:30 PM, then fly back down into the field and feed till dusk, then back up to the roost. Don't know if this is permanant or if the turkeys will adjust to it, but this is something different that has just started the last 10 years as the yotes have expanded and populated our area.
My advise st1 is to learn all you can about coyotes, they are most vulnerable oct thru march, they mate in jan/feb. learn to hunt them they will give you a run for your money. you think a gobbler has keen eyesight? they need a white cane and seein eye dog compared to an old educated coyote.
RR
This is gonna sound nuts but Alpaca scare the dickens out of coyotes-a guy out here put a wild burro and an alpaca together in the same field and the coyotes cleared out almost immediately. Nice thing is you don't have to do much besides water and occassionally trim the alpaca-takes care of everything else itself.
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help-coyotes
