About 10 years ago, if someone around here said they had seen a yote you'd call them crazy. Now the 2 counties I hunt are ate slap up with them suckers. I have been the property manager of my hunt clubs land for the past few years. We lease right at 20,000 acres and we have seen more coyotes in the past few years than we care to see. I am one of the few guys in the club that live amongst our hunting land. For the most part the 20000 acres is pretty much continuous and joins to each other somewhat. I never leave the house without my 243 now just incase I see one while I'm riding around. We killed at least 30 during the gun season. I have killed 17 myself since December but it looks as if we havent even put a dent in the population. Had a guy come in last year from deep in NC and let him stay at the club house for 2 weeks just to trap. He trapped over 40. I do not know what to do about slowing there population down. Ten years ago you could go out in february and kill 20 plus rabbits in a day hunting with a group, now you are lucky if you kill 4 in a day with a decent group of guys. Its ridiculous. The county pays 75 dollars a head for them thats the only plus to it. I'd rather not have the money and have less coyotes. I am scared that they will start to work hard on the fawns. The deer herd hasn't been hit too hard but in the last 5 years I can definitely tell that the deer are just not there like they use to be. There is still a high density of deer but not by VA/NC standards. I'm just worried about what the future may hold with this epidemic. Does anyone else have serious problems with yotes and what actions are y'all taking??
Are you guys continuing to hunt them through spring? I know a lot of guys say they are even more successful. Keep after them year round if you can and you will eventually decrease the local population. If yotes brought $75 a head here I might quite my job. 20,000 acres is a lot of land. You are going to need more trappers.
The catch on the $75 dollars is, it is a set budget. Once the county runs out of that money they will stop paying you. The budget has just been reset with the new year but the budget is almost already out of funds for the year 2014 due to so many kills thus far. The other county is the same way but only pays $50. We have 35 members in the club but only about 10 are locals and only half of them are willing to hunt these things with me. I'm going to try to find me some more trappers. I have a few traps but not enough to do much damage. I'm going to be looking for some serious trappers.
Hold a club competition or setup a local police officers vs firefighters tournament. Or see if you can do a gun raffle and use the money to pay for more trappers or people to come in and kill them.
Find a couple of guys that run dogs for them you will take 20+ a day Sent from my iPhone 5s using Tapatalk
Hunt them all year and keep doing it. I hunt yotes almost everyday here in illinois. We took 63 off 2000 acres just during the spring and summer. Bait them at night thsts what we do were allowed to and just watch how many will show up to that bait pile. We will use dead coons , rabbits and whatever we can. I recommend only using a call during the day or evening they work better then at night for done reason well here at least. But we hunt yotes to keep them off our property so we can maintain a great deer heard also i hunt them for my buddies uncle he breeds pheasant and game birds for the state and the yotes come in crazy for the birds and tare up there nests so we are always out killing them you gotta realize yotes breed 1 to 2 times a year with 6 to 11 pups so they can become a overwhelming population in know time at all. Just keep hunting them hard as much as you can.
I've got the same problem here though not nearly that much land or that high a yote density. All we can do is keep plugging away and hope or the best. Every one you take out is fewer young ones and better deer survival.
That's a lot of land. I have trouble wrapping my head around that kind of acreage. I would maybe even try to consult other hunt clubs that size to see what they do.
If your county county pays 75 dollars a head, I would gather the guys together & their buddies for a fund drive for the club, that is a coyote hunt fund drive. Then throw in a $100 to the one that brings in the largest yote. There should be guys coming out of the woodwork to get a chance at that. If they bring in 40 yotes that would be $3000 it would be easy to kick back $100 to the guy that takes the largest.(yote problem solved)
You'll never shoot enough coyotes to make a real dent in their population. They smarten up real quick when their shot at. A few muffed shots and calling and you'll never trick that coyote again. Trapping is the only way to really reduce their population.
