fox » Wildlife Callers

Mountain Lion Scouting Video – Scent Station Behavior

Posted April 21, 2010 By Mark Healy and has 2 comments.

For mountain lion callers, scent marking areas are key to successful cougar locating.

Dave Martens and I have placed trail cameras in dozens of locations that have rendered great photos & videos of mountain lions. It wasn’t always as easy as it is today for Dave to locate a lion hot spot to place a camera. Dave’s many hours in the field and the experience that’s come with it, allow him to quickly size up a long ridge or hardpan wash bottom and hang a camera that will produce lions nearly 100% of the time.

Some guys will say, “hey, I’ve taken lots of pictures of lions on my deer cameras on such & such waterhole”. That’s great and we love to get pictures of lions anywhere, but keep in mind we rarely put cameras on waterholes. We’ve had much of our success calling lions well away from waterholes and we’re more interested in how lions travel in their territories and where they go to lay-up after they’ve been to water.

There is, however, a feature that we always look for when scouting for lions. When we find it, our success in finding lions travelling through the area has been 100%. That feature is scent marking areas, or as well call them, scent stations. There are times when we locate a small area that is literally covered in a wide variety predator poo — and poo from many other critters as well. The spot that you’ll see in the video is one such place. Since finding this location we have taken still photos and videos of several lions, fox, bears, and other predators. This location, which unfortunately is well off the beaten path, if called frequently will eventually produce a lion.

Have a look at the first video of a fox, bear, and coati, using the scent station:

Then, have a look at this female lion (we’ve taken many pictures of her) and the way she behaves on the scent station:

Just like humans, where there are ladies the guys seem to just show up. We’ve taken a few photos of lions much larger than this female that we hope to someday call. We have worked diligently in the area to find the best places to call from and be able to see lots of open areas and tight cover. Now it’s a matter of getting the stars to align and be there calling when one or more of the mountain lions are home.

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Thank you all for reading and good hunting,

Mark Healy

Mark@WildlifeCallers.com

Categories: Predator Scouting, Predator calling, fox, mountain lion

Tags: Arizona predator hunting, bobcat, calling mountain lion, cougar, cougar calling, cougar hunting, fox, gray fox, Hunting, Mountain lion, mountain lion hunting, predator callers, Predator calling, predator hunter, predator hunting, Predator Scouting, scouting, wildlife callers

Midwestern Success! Illinois and Missouri Hunters Share Their Photos & Tactics

Posted January 12, 2010 By Mark Healy and has no comments yet.

We started Wildlife Callers’ Blog for a very simple reason – info sharing that creates more success every time a predator hunter heads out to call. Here are two customer stories that were submitted to us just last night.

A big thank you to Doug U. of Illinois and Jason S. of Missouri for sharing their photos, calling tactics, and stories.

Doug from IL says:

I was driving down the highway when I noticed two red fox bedding down in the middle of a snow-covered cornfield. I pulled off the highway and made some phone calls until I figured out who owned the property. A few phone calls later I had permission to go and call for the reds.

I chose a downwind location to enter the field and walked to a pile of snow about 100 yards from the bedding location. The foxes must have been asleep, because they didn’t jump and run. I placed my Mighty Atom 15 behind the snow pile and took up a position about 80 yards away, lying down. I started the stand with cottontail distress, nice and low. It took the male fox just a few seconds to commit to coming in and, bang! he was running hard toward the snow pile. The fox came ’round the snow pile full speed and wasn’t able to stop before colliding with the call and knocking it over. While it was wondering what the heck was going on, I shot it with my .17 HMR and dropped it right to the ground.

Doug U. of Central Illinois and his January Red Fox & Brand New Mighty Atom

I noticed the other red was standing down the field watching what was happening and I was setting up to shoot that fox too. However, the way the second fox travelled, I would be shooting toward the highway and decided to pass. That fox eventually ran off.

This was my very first setup with my new Mighty Atom and it worked very well. The .17 HMR did very little damage to the fox, and it will make an outstanding mount!

Jason S. of Trenton MO told me: (more…)

Categories: Predator calling, coyote, electronic callers, fox, wildlife technologies

Tags: Arizona predator hunting, calling coyotes, coyote, digital wildlife calling, electronic game callers, electronic predator calling, electronic wildlife caller, fox, Predator calling, predator calls, predator hunting, wildlife callers, wildlife technologies

The Budget Bird – Decoys Don’t Need to Cost a Fortune to be Effective

Posted November 20, 2009 By Mark Healy and has 4 comments.

This predator hunting decoy cured my brother’s “hang-up” problems with open prairie coyotes near Boise Idaho and didn’t break his budget.

Has the $30, $40, and sometimes $100 price tag kept you from calling with decoys on your predator stands? Here’s a how-to guide on building an effective visual enticement, with wind powered motion, for all types of predators, and it can be done on the cheap. We’ve included a complete parts list on this post.

The Budget Bird Decoy w/ Goose Feather Attractor

Like most do-it-yourself projects, the Budget Bird idea started as a solution to a problem. My brother, Mike Healy, lives near Boise, Idaho and likes to hit a few coyote stands in the afternoon near his home. Most of the area around Boise is rolling grass prairie covered with lava rock, grass, and short/small stands of sage brush. There is plenty of hunting pressure and there are plenty of predator callers in Boise.

There were lots of coyotes everywhere he went, and he wasn’t having any problems getting the coyotes fired up. However, once he had them all hot & bothered, he’d hit the prey distress and the coyotes would come just close enough to see the area/source of the sound and stop. Some would work their way downwind, but many would just look for a few seconds and leave. Very few would commit themselves to anything closer than 250-400 yards.

Sound familiar?

His first stand with the Budget Bird was in a place that he’d called before and had coyotes hang up. He and his son Carl called in two hard charging coyotes to under 30 yards and both were fixated on the Budget Bird decoy. One even came running in from the downwind side!

Here’s how he cured the hang-up problem:

(more…)

Categories: Decoys, Predator calling

Tags: bobcat, calling mountain lion, cougar, coyote, decoy, fox, Hunting, Idaho hunting, Predator calling, predator decoy, predator hunting, wildlife callers

Gray Fox Calling Up Close – Video Attached

Posted October 16, 2009 By Mark Healy and has 6 comments.

Call ‘em close and keep ‘em close. Gray fox are just one predator that can be manipulated with animal vocalizations and distress sounds – watch this little guy talking back at us.

On one of my last trips to Central Arizona for a lion scouting and calling trip, I found myself, as I often do, in the middle of several gray fox. Because my focus is calling mountain lions, I rarely shoot fox these days. However, I’ve had some newer guys to this predator calling sport ask me to do some educational videos of animals coming to the call. I thought this was an excellent idea.

Arizona Gray Fox

Because my intent is not to harvest a fox, I have the unique opportunity to film the behavior of the animal from the time it arrives to the time it leaves. Also, while I have the fox in the area of the caller, I have the opportunity to use the sounds from my Wildlife Technologies caller to capture and keep the attention of the animal for long periods of time. The result is video that shows people some basic ways to scout for and to call a fox, but the video clips also demonstrate how animals respond to being called and what happens during various sound changes on the caller.

In this video I call in a very vocal fox that comes in fast, stays for a long time, and puts on a great show. (more…)

Categories: Wildlife Photography, electronic callers, fox

Tags: Arizona outdoors, Arizona predator hunting, calling mountain lion, fox, gray fox, Predator calling, wildlife callers, Wildlife Photography, wildlife technologies

Grey Fox Calling Video – Scouting and Success Go Hand in Hand

Posted September 30, 2009 By Mark Healy and has 2 comments.

A morning trip to scout for mountain lions turned into grey fox filming. This is a great video of how a fox can be manipulated with a variety of prey sounds and fox vocalizations.

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While in the field recently, I was working my way along a decomposed granite road looking for lion tracks and other lion sign, when I came across the tracks in the photo below:

Fox Tracks on Tire Marks

When I found these fox tracks I noticed right away that they were right on top of a tire track, indicating that they were at least more recent than that tire track. I took some time to evaluate the tire track the fox had walked on and found the tire track was on top of all the other tracks on the road, thus it was from the last vehicle to drive through. The area is fairly well travelled and my best guess was that the vehicle had passed through the prior evening.

Realizing that the fox tracks were just a few hours old, I set up my Wildlife Technologies electronic caller in a rocky canyon running adjacent to the roadway. (more…)

Categories: Predator Scouting, Predator calling, electronic callers, fox

Tags: Arizona predator hunting, electronic predator calling, electronic wildlife caller, fox, grey fox, predator hunting, Predator Scouting, wildlife callers