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Father and Son Coyote Hunt in Idaho

Posted October 10, 2011 By Mike Healy and has 1 comment.

This is a guest blog entry by Mike Healy from his home in Idaho.

My son, Carl, is thirteen and we enjoy coyote calling as often as we are able to make time to get into the field.

Carl didn’t have school on Friday so I took the day off and we went coyote calling. The window of opportunity was excellent as it was a weekday and Idaho’s rifle season for deer hadn’t opened yet.

In the early afternoon we were calling on a small parcel of state land surrounded by private property and had a very energizing experience with several nearby coyotes.

Our truck was well concealed behind a small hill with a headwind in our favor. Seated on a hillside with adequate cover and a good view, I placed my Wildlife Technologies electronic caller downhill about 30 paces in front of us. Instead of hiding the caller in a bush, I placed it in the bottom of a waist-deep sinkhole.

I started the stand with two loud female coyote howls and then paused to listen for a response. Within 30 seconds a couple of coyotes responded by howling back at us. They were to our left and just beyond a low hill. I waited another 30 seconds and played a few red tail hawk screams. The coyotes to our left responded again. I then paused for a few seconds of silence to let everything soak in and another coyote started howling directly in front of us.

Scanning the land directly in front of us, I couldn’t see the coyote that was howling. Carl was seated to my right and I didn’t want to miss any movement on our left flank made by the coyotes that were howling over there. I shifted my focus to the left and let Carl sort out what was likely unfolding in front of us.

Manipulating the remote control below the level of the sage brush to avoid detection, I lowered the volume and played a squeaky mouse vole distress sound. The coyotes to the left continued to howl and were obviously upset by the intrusion that my original howl represented. After a minute of the mouse vole, I silenced the caller. The coyotes to our left were still howling sporadically.

Struggling to pick out any movement at all, I finally spotted a coyote running from center stage to our left at 500 yards out. Carl then clicked his safety off. I figured there was something else going on that I couldn’t see so I went back to watching our left flank.

As we sat motionless with Carl’s safety off, I ran through the following sound sequence two or three times:

red tail hawk screams
pause
crows mobbing a meat pile
pause
coyote pup distress
pause

Amazingly, the coyotes to our left continued to howl during the above sequence.

I then reverted to the mouse vole distress sound on low volume to wait it out and see what was going to happen. We were in the range of 10 to 12 minutes into the stand when suddenly… BANG! I shifted my eyes back to the center just in time to see a coyote fall to the ground. Carl had been monitoring its approach and fired when it stopped at 121 yards from where we were sitting. He first spotted the coyote at 450 yards and observed its deliberately slow advance for many minutes before taking the shot.

Idaho Coyote, October 2011

Having the caller in the sink hole probably helped us out on this stand. Coyotes have that amazing ability to pinpoint the precise location on the surface of the earth where a sound is coming from. In this case, I suspect the coyote felt compelled to get close enough to see into the bottom of the sink hole to conclusively determine the source of the sound.

Regards and thanks for reading,

Mike Healy

Categories: coyote, Predator calling

Tags: Arizona predator hunting, calling coyotes, coyote, electronic predator calling, electronic wildlife caller, Hunting, Idaho hunting, Predator calling, predator hunter, predator hunting, wildlife callers, wildlife technologies

Dave’s Got Just One Day to Predator Hunt — A Bobcat and Coyote Go Down

Posted March 11, 2011 By Mark Healy and has no comments yet.

Dave Martens of Wildlife Callers has a single Sunday to hunt and heads out with a bobcat/coyote/gray fox “AZ Predator Slam” on his mind. By his fourth stand two are down.

Good Morning Calling - Dave Martens with a Bobcat and Coyote in Central Arizona

With just a single day to hunt and gas prices climbing, Dave heads to a location not too far from his East Valley home for a day of mixed-bag calling. Dave’s mission was simple–get an “AZ Predator Slam” (gray fox, coyote, and bobcat) in one day–if he called and bagged a cougar too and made it a Predator Grand Slam, that would be big icing on the cake. The weather had prevented a multi-day hunt and he met sloppy & frozen road conditions almost immediately as he headed north.

Snow Covered Roads and AZ DPS Officers Dealing with Wrecks

Dave figured once he got to where he was headed he’d be able to get a gray fox right away and then work some other areas to find a coyote and bobcat. As it turns out, he started his first stand with about a minute of Adult Cottontail Distress, a minute of Ravens Fighting, and then back to about 20 seconds of Adult Cottontail Distress and a medium-sized female coyote ran in and stopped just a couple yards from his Wildlife Technologies Mighty Atom 21 and about 12 steps from his 12ga. Bang! Dave’s got a coyote on the quad.

His next two stands–both of which are rock-solid gray fox locations–immediately draw blanks. Dave was undeterred and headed a little higher up the hill to a location he’s seen fox and bobcat sign in previously. Dave got into a promising looking location and within a minute or two had located a set of bobcat tracks that had a light dusting of snow covering them. Figuring they’re as fresh as he was going to find, he dropped into the canyon the ‘cat track headed into and set his Mighty Atom near a bush and sat down about 15 yards away under a juniper tree. Just as he was sitting down a hard snow flurry starts blowing and Dave can’t see more than just a few yards.

Dave considers waiting until the snow stops blowing or possibly just leaving, but goes ahead with stand number 4 anyway. Dave said the snow continued for about 3-minutes while he was calling and then stopped all at once, just as quickly as it had began. About 30 seconds later a nice AZ tom bobcat walked to less than 24 inches from his Mighty Atom E-caller. A single shot from his 12ga dropped the bobcat right next to the speaker. Dave’s Wildlife Tech sound combo was exactly the same as his first stand–Adult Cottontail Distress/Ravens Fighting/Adult Cottontail Distress/Bang!

Nice Bobcat Dropped Right Next to Dave's Wildlife Tech Mighty Atom 21

Dave Martens and a Late February Bobcat in Central Arizona

It’s now mid-morning and Dave is feeling confident that a Predator Slam is darn good possibility–he’s got a bobcat and coyote strapped to his quad and several more hours to hunt for a gray fox to add to his predator collection. Dave’s thinking that he might even be able to put a fox in the bag early and ride down into some of his better mountain lion setups and try to achieve a Predator Grand Slam. But, in the end, as often happens with our sport, his hunting luck turned around and he called 7 or 8 additional stands (into outstanding gray fox habitat) and came up empty.

After a long ride on his quad in the dark back to his truck, Dave took inventory of his day out and couldn’t complain. Any day you take the time to load up all your gear, make the trip out to the field in miserable weather, and call in/take a bobcat and a coyote is a great day.

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Thank you again for reading — and good calling,

Mark Healy

480-882-1210

info@wildlifecallers.com

Categories: bobcat, coyote, fox, Predator calling

Tags: Arizona predator hunting, bobcat, bobcat calling, electronic predator calling, fox calling, gray fox, grey fox, Mighty Atom, Predator calling, predator hunting, wildlife technologies

Flextone eR1 ECHO HD Predator Call & Game Caller – Good Early Customer Reviews

Posted December 5, 2010 By Mark Healy and has 17 comments.

The new ECHO HD eR1 predator call and game calling machine from Flextone Calls & Wildgame Innovations is making a quick rise in the lower-priced electronic caller market for some good reasons.

The Flextone ECHO eR1 is a new e-caller for the 2010-2011 predator hunting season, but with little more than a month of service in the hunting field, our customers are telling us this compact remote controlled call sounds great, is easy to use, and above all is calling coyotes to their stands. The Flextone ECHO HD comes preloaded with 100 calling sounds. More than 90 of the sounds are from Wildlife Technologies and sound very clear—just what you’d expect from a WT sound. Most of our customers are buying it for predator hunting, but several have been sent to guys intending to use the generous number of deer sounds for calling big bucks. CLICK HERE to view the sound list.

You can CLICK HERE to view the caller in our Wildlife Callers’ store.

Flextone Echo HD eR1 Predator call and Game Caller

Game Warden Note: Make sure using an electronic call is legal in your area for both predators and big game animals! It likely is for predators, but might not be for deer—double check your local regulations.

I’ve taken the Flextone ECHO HD out for some field testing with the remote control. The remote contol has an LCD readout that’s back-lit for night hunting and shows the caller’s volume level on the readout. The manufacturer states the remote will work up to 300 yards. If you’re a predator hunter who’s used a remote controlled caller, then you’re likely aware that the advertised effective yardage of the remote control is almost always less in real-world calling setups. I set the caller up in various positions in rocks, heavy brush, and tall grass, at 20, 50, 75, and 100 yards and from a seated position was able to effectively change sounds, change the volume, and mute the caller without any hesitation from the machine. The remote has a spot on one of the lower corners to attach a lanyard, reducing the chances of dropping or losing it.

Flextone Echo HD eR1 Top View and Remote Control View

The ECHO eR1 comes with a black carry strap and sports bi-directional twin speakers for maximum volume from the 8AA battery power pack that runs the unit. You can use the speakers individually or both at the same time. The remote control is stored in a docking & charging station on the side of the caller. The caller comes with a 110v charging cord that plugs right into the side of the caller and charges the power pack and the remote at the same time. The remote control for the eR1 uses a flat Li-Ion rechargeable battery pack that took a while for us to find, but we eventually did. CLICK HERE to see the battery for the remote control.

Battery Note: The AA batteries that came with the unit charged up just fine, but didn’t last as long as we expected they should. We bought a set of Energizer AA rechargeable batteries, put them in the caller, charged it overnight, and then let it play for more than 12 hours at volume 2. The battery life of the unit is great—so long as you use a quality set of batteries.

Overall, the Flextone ECHO HD eR1 is a well thought out, great sounding predator call and game calling machine in the caller class that it’s designed to compete in—actually it costs less and hunters tell us it sounds as good or better than the callers it was designed to compete with. With a functional & useful remote control and good hunting reports coming in from satisfied customers, this new caller will continue making quick inroads into the e-caller market space. The next thing to test is the longevity of the machines in field service. That’s happening all over the US and Canada right now. Only time will answer that question.

If you have any questions or if you’d like an ECHO HD eR1 sound demo just give us a call.

Good hunting to all,

Mark Healy

Toll-free 877-734-1010

info@wildlifecallers.com

www.wildlifecallers.com

Categories: electronic callers, Game Callers, Predator calling

Tags: Arizona predator hunting, electronic game callers, electronic predator calling, electronic wildlife caller, predator call, predator callers, Predator calling, predator calls, wildlife callers, wildlife calls

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