Wildlife Callers

There was time when a single sound of a crying rabbit from your Johnny Stewart mouth call was all you needed to bring Wile Coyote running.  Today the calling pressure is on and times have changed.  Call more “un-callable” critters and get the most from your e-caller by using the whole sound library! 

  

Back in the day… 

a tape recorder with a Johnny Stewart rabbit distress tape, or my Circe twist-top 3-sound mouth call would give a guy plenty of opportunities to call and shoot predators.  When I started predator calling in 1986, the sport was only somewhat popular and unless you called the same spots over and over, the chances of calling at critters that already heard that same ol’ song before was slim.  This was the same time in Arizona hunting history when guys got a December  “Any Antlered Deer” tag and would NOT even consider hunting for a Coues Whitetail!  My, my, how times have changed as thousands of hunters apply for what’s become just a handful of December Coues tags.  

These days it seems that just about everyone who likes hunting has added or wants to add an electronic predator call to his or her hunter’s gear bag.  Several years ago the predator hunting videos took off in popularity and people got excited about calling coyotes, bobcats, and other critters, to the business end of their rifle — especially in states where their chances of getting a deer and/or elk tag was fading every year.  With this sport’s new-found explosive popularity over the past decade, the chances of calling into country that hasn’t been called is slim.  

I just finished talking to a guy who called for a full 2-years with a mouth call before he ever called his first coyote.  Now, I will say that I appreciate this young man’s tenacity!  However, if he’d had some better techniques, better understanding of his quarry, and better calling equipment, I firmly believe he could have cut that figure down by 1 year and 11 months.   

But how? 

Let’s make the assumption that if a domestic dog can be conditioned, then a coyote can too.  I don’t believe that coyotes can “get smart”, but I’m certain that being called and shot at will have a lasting and negative effect on a coyote’s willingness to come running back to that sound.  In prior posts I’ve related it to behavior-conditioned dogs running for the sound of the kitchen can opener.  The only difference being, the hail of bullets outcome is very negative and repelling whereas the food reward from the Kitchen Aid very positive — conditioning nonetheless.  

Therefore, it stands to reason that a coyote that hears rabbit distress cries over and over that have nothing to do with a rabbit, dinner, or anything good, that coyote will become leary of that noise.  How then can it be changed? 

The electronic callers available today have many different sounds not only from the animal your hunting, but animal sounds like crows, hawks, and eagles that can be used to build a realistic “sound scene” that breaks from the traditional “waaa -waaa – waaa – waaa” rabbit cadence and provides the illusion of predator/prey/scavenger interaction that’s real and happening right now.  

So, what is a “sound scene”? 

Generally speaking, it is using a dozen or more sounds on a stand in an attempt to replicate a very busy and chaotic living scene surrounding a prey animal that has been brought down by a predator.  I always try to bring in the sounds of the prey distress and then mix in the sounds of coyotes fighting over food, foxes barking out warnings, or female cougars being aggressive and territorial.  Then to that I add the sounds of scavengers like crows, ravens, and even hawk screams.  In short, I make my scene come alive with animal activity and competition for calories. 

There are a few things that support this calling style. 

First – It’s successful.  I have called lots and lots of predators using this technique.   I have all of these sounds (and then some) on my Mighty Atom 21.  I may as well make use of them. 

Second – My time in nature has shown me firsthand this pattern of predator/prey/scavenger behavior.  For instance, on one of my hunts: 

After watching a cow stuck neck-deep in a soupy mud hole, yelling and raising heck for a half an hour (without stopping) I wandered over to see if there was something humane I could do. Just about 18 inches, or so, of her back was sticking up. She’d been struggling and getting deeper in the mud with her every attempt to get out.

When I got down to the muddy pond, I noticed that coyotes had eaten a hole in the hide on the upper left hind area of the cow. They had eaten away at the muscles along the spine, the back flanks and had pulled guts up and out of the cows gut-sack leaving chewed-up intestines laying on the ground still connected to the screaming cow. To make matters worse, the crows had come in and pecked both eyes out and eaten the front two inches of it’s tongue.

This was a ghastly scene, and I learned a lot from it. While I wasn’t there, that scene was filled noises of scavenging & predatory critters competing for those calories and trying to survive. It was absolutely apparent they did not have the capacity to feel anything for the cow. Screaming dinner… Quiet dinner… They didn’t care, so long as it was dinner. 

Additionally, even though it couldn’t see me, the cow screamed the whole time I was next to her – never pausing.

Not wanting to be accused of a crime (the world we live in) I ended up finding a Game & Fish rep and sending them down to dispatch the cow.

Third – If you watch nature shows like the Nature special  Yellowstone: Battle for Life, you’ll see that the process of predators hunting and consuming prey is sometimes fairly quiet and fast (like a red fox finding a vole and quickly chewing it up) and sometimes it’s a very noisy process (like a wolf pack killing an elk, consuming it while surrounded by crows, hawks, eagles, and magpies, and then killing and consuming a coyote that ventured too close).

What happens in nature supports both calling more quietly and calling aggressively with several sounds.  So I have adopted an approach of starting out a bit more quiet with fewer sound changes, and then getting progressively more aggressive and loud as the “sound picture” I’m creating turns into predator/prey/scavenger scene that deserves investigation by the predators in the area.

This process is covered in more detail, with sound choices, in this blog: Gray Fox & Bobcat Calling – What Sounds? When? How Long? How Loud?

Truthfully, there aren’t a lot of guys that will outlast 24 months of blank stands and still head out for month number 25.  Most would have called it quits in 90-days!  What a shame that would be – this is a very rewarding pursuit.  Actually, once you get the hang of it, it’s completely addictive (in a positive and good way).  So use your e-caller and all of the natural sounds that it can bring to bear on every stand and set-up you make. 

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If you have any questions on how we do this or the electronic predator calling equipment we use just click here or give us a call toll-free at 877-734-1010.  We’re happy to help.

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Thank you again for reading – have a great fall season!

Mark Healy