superstrutter

Down here, stray dogs and coydogs are more of a problem than coyotes. I will shoot all three without hesitation. Despite the three, deer populations thrive because very few are taken by them.

Champlain Islander

Yotes are opportunists and will always survive. They will eat anything and have no problem killing deer especially when in a pack. One day several years ago with 6” of fresh wet snow on the ground I was hunting along a field edge and came across a spot where a deer had been killed. There was blood all over the place and bone parts were scattered in an area about 25 yds wide. Legs were separated and parts of the backbone was broken and all were picked clean of meat. All that was left was part of the hide and separated bones. There were coyote tracks and scat all over the place so I decided I would try to figure out what had happened. I back tracked the scene until I left the area where the struggle had occurred. There were 2 deer that were obviously feeding along a wooded section of field. By the age of the sign I figured it had to be the late afternoon or evening of the day before. Along a stand of tall goldenrod I could see belly prints of the yotes as 2 or 3 lay in wait and another few sets of running tracks that came in at an angle towards the feeding deer. It looked to me like the running yotes chased the deer towards the other members of the pack who were laying there. One deer track left the area running and the other was caught and you could see where it struggled all the way to the area where it was eaten. I have no way of knowing the age or health of the deer that was killed but looking at what was left of the carcass it appeared to be a yearling doe probably about 80-100 pounds. A large percentage of the northern New England coyotes have wolf DNA mixed in and are quite a bit larger than their western cousins. I have personally seen a 70 pound male that was killed near my camp and weighed in at a local sport shop. That lay in wait while the others chase is quite common around here. One evening while I was in a bow stand along a field edge I saw 2 coyotes walk along a woodrow and lay down right where it joins the swamp. 2 others went down into the swamp and about 15 minutes later I could hear them coming and a doe popped out with them about 50 yds behind. They all ran and I could see the other 2 yotes try to cut that deer off. It looked to me like the deer got away but there is no way of knowing how long that chase went on.

petasux

[QUOTEIt's very rare for coyotes to take down a mature buck, at least down here it is. Maybe it is more common up north where snow could hinder a bucks escape. Most deer taken by yotes are either fawns or wounded or sick deer. Regardless, those are neat but sad pics. It's a shame a buck that nice has to go that way. ][/QUOTE]

We have a lot of snow here most years.The only time I recall the yotes really taking out a lotta deer was 3 or 4 years ago.There was so much snow it lasted into the spring when I normally am out looking for shed antlers.A combination of things led to them killing so many deer that year.

First we had a lot of ice storms, and in between we had a ton of snow that piled up deep.The layers of ice in between the snow made it real hard fo anything to find food, it was about impossible to dig through.The deep snow also buried all the foodplots the deer would normally use.They were weak and starving by mid winter.

The yotes found out the deer would bust through the snow drifts if they could herd them towards a fenceline where the snow was the deepest and become stuck in the belly deep snow.The yotes were lighter and could stay on top of the crust, it was easy for them that year to pick off starving deer snuck in the deep snow.I found somewhere between 45 and 50 deer dead that spring and I would guesse almost 1/3 of them were coyote kills, you could still see the tracks in the snow on many of them. Once you got away from the fencelines there were starved deer, and deer that hunters had lost and cars had hit but the yotes had pretty much left these alone.

I dont recall out of all those ever seeiing one biger than a button buck though, certainly no mature bucks were killed by the yotes.

Champlain Islander

Here in the Islands they have another pretty effective way to kill deer. There are some large islands in Champlain that have both deer and turkey. In the winter there aren't any people there and the coyotes move in. When the ice is bare without snow cover the coyotes go on the islands and chase the deer off. When the deer hit the bare ice they can't get the speed and traction that the coyotes can and they often split and fall. When ice fishing around the Island I often come on a carcass when riding my 4 wheeler. They are usually within 100 yds of shore so it must happen pretty quickly. Some of the locals hunt them in winter. They spread out along the shore and send dogs on to the island. The coyotes bail out and are easy picking.