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Most coyotes I’ve ever seen- folks noticing this????

Sligh1

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Been years I’ve noticed we needed to hunt some coyotes. THIS YEAR..... I’ve never in my life seen this many on camera mainly. Even from stand & seeing eaten deer- im certain im over run on any farm I hunt or been on. I’ve literally seen ZERO fox in 2 years now. Do see tons of bobcats on other hand which seem to coexist quite well with them. Is anyone else noticing an explosion on coyote numbers????

I’ve talked about snaring & had very little success. Obviously a talented trapper is needed. Guns going to do little to dent population. Seen more fawnless does than ever as well.

Mild winters and low fur prices with few trappers to blame? Plenty of food for coyotes with abundance of coons, possum, rabbit, etc etc. maybe a cycle? Is it just me or has anyone else noticed this? Snaring and trapping most effective but any other ideas for dealing with them that would really pummel the population and stay on keeping it down?
 
We noticed a ton of coyotes and the same, very few fawns this year..we plan on hunting them heavily, but dont have a "wide" tract to hunt in the area... they have been pounding them in the area for years so not sure how they are thriving as much as they are. When I hauled out my bow buck it sounded like 3 very large packs were howling in different areas...
 
I would guess there are a lot of them left due to not much snow cover last winter. Our group only hunted coyotes a handful of times due to no snow or the ground being soft. We will normally kill a half a dozen each weekend on average when there is snow cover especially.

I also have noticed the abnormal amount either by sighting, or hearing more than normal while bow hunting.
 
Terrible, see them all hours of day in Union County. We saw 5 in one group while shed hunting last spring. Not a day goes by without seeing at least one, while hunting.
 
I've actually seen less this year both on camera and live. For my area, which is a little more open country than virtually anything south of 80, the coyotes get pounded by a couple of truck groups in the winter. Although...we did kick 3 or 4 out of a property on Thanksgiving morning during a pheasant hunt.
 
Skip - I've trapped 120+ off our farm the last 5 years. Last year we caught 36 and neighbors shot a few more... you'd never know a single one was killed this year. We've already shot three with out bows and should've had two more. They're part of Mother Nature... trapping them in pretty large #s doesn't have any long term impact. I've heard that killing them only causes the population to increase more because coyotes that normally wouldn't breed begin to breed when others in the pack are killed.

We have noticed some short term positive impact on our farm by taking off large #s of coyotes in December and January but by next fall just as many will have moved back in. It's helpful going into fawn/chick/baby wildlife season and also helps to take them out so they aren't running through food plots during late season deer hunts but we've noticed no long term impact from trapping these things HARD. They fill right back in.
 
I've seen 1 with 100 hrs in this fall. I hear WAY more in the evenings than ever before. Last year's sightings were pretty high however.

There's a word for it...slipping me. About how they roam and fill into open spots. Very discouraging.
 
We are definitely seeing an uptick in coyote numbers this year too. (I did get one with my bow earlier this season. :)) I think it is related to very little snow last winter as the guys that go after them with dogs are held back by lack of snow. They will still try, but they don't get as many. Also, fur prices remain low and consequently there aren't nearly as many dudes trapping in our area now either.

What seems to really be blooming though is bobcats. We have had them around for many years now, but the last 2 years it seems like there is suddenly 3x more than ever. My main theory there is that I had a big pond dug out last summer(2016) and there are still 5 or 6 very large brushpiles leftover from that. (I was going to burn them down last winter, but I waited until there was snow cover enough to keep the fire from spreading and I never got the snow, so they are still there.) Those brushpiles are magnets for rabbits, etc, and the bobcats end up where the food is, etc.
 
seen same thing here. tons on camera and seems like more does with no fawns. Have not seen any from stand though, which is unusual.
 
I threw a bunch of yard apples in front of a trail camera and got more coyote pictures than anything else!!! As many as 5 at a time munching apples. Strangely enough, I got a few fox pics also. Don't know if the deer didn't like the apples or didn't like the number of coyotes they attracted?
 
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No shortage of these but for sure not a concern like the coyotes are.


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No shortage of cats and dogs. Saw seven together. yes 7 coyotes one after another from tree.

Bobcats are exploding too. No idea why we are limited to one a year.
 
I was listening to a podcast not long ago where a biologist was being interviewed. It was very interesting. One thing he talked about was the range of coyotes. It was insane how large it really was. They did quite the long term study on them. Concluded that you could hunt/trap them for sport but neither of them has much of an effect on the long term poplulation. Mostly because they traveled so much. They fill right back in. I've taken the approach of killing any of them I can because every drop in the bucket is still a drop.
 
Only advice I have is snare the interior fence lines (along road is illegal ) . Can usually drive right along the fenceline and set the hell out of them. If its woven wire on the bottom cut a hole, yank it up out of the dirt or find the brace post and go there.
 
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Traping coyotes takes talent and time... when they're only worth $8 average it ain't worth the he time.

Yotes are getting $20 easily. They’ve been the only good market the last couple years. I trap and know quite a few trappers, and many of them have left the coon sets in the shed the last couple years and focused on yotes because that’s where the money was. If you swing over to Iowatrappertalk you’ll see that’s the case this year too, yotes are still bringing in money. One of the posts I read said just shy of $20 average. Last year a couple friends of mine were getting in the $30-40 range for yotes. Coon is still horrible though at under $5 average.

Coyote population is an interesting thing to try to figure out. There is plenty of literature out there that says they will breed more when their numbers are down to repopulate the pack. Some swear that’s not the case. What I know from talking to guys that trap/snare them is you will never wipe them out. As long as there is an area with a food source/habitat for them, they will be there. When you think you have them gone, others move into the area.
 
The more you kill the more you'll have. When they sense numbers are down litter numbers go up. Unless you can really turn up the pressure and keep it up it's a loosing battle.
 
You'd almost have to trap year round to do have even the slightest chance at controlling their numbers. Trapping hard Dec-Jan helps a little for a very short period of time.
 
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