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

It wasn’t a run-and-gun weekend Dave told me.  He said he and Dan were taking it easy, looking for prime areas, and calling into spots that had the terrain, vegetation, and sign they thought would be the most productive.  Their approach paid off.  Early Saturday morning this big tom came to the call in less than 5 minutes and Dave dropped it with a single shot from his 12ga.  

Dave Martens and Deuce pose with a Big Northern AZ Bobcat

Dave’s calling technique was pretty simple.  Get in tight to the best available cat cover and introduce the sound low and easy.  A mix of mice and cottontail rabbit distress  from his WT Mighty Atom 21 brought this bobcat into shotgun range.  Dave said he would have gotten louder and more aggressive and utilized bobcat vocalizations and/or bobcats & foxes fighting as the stand progressed but never needed to. 

Later in the day Dan spotted another pocket of tight brushy cover several miles from where Dave took his bobcat.  After surveying the sign, terrain and the most probable foot access routes predators would take into the heavy cover Dan and Dave set up covering as much open ground as possible.  Using the same calling technique of low & easy Dave mixed up a combo of bird distress and cottontail rabbit distress to bring this big bobcat into Dan’s shooting lane in about 4 minutes.  Dan fired one shot from his 12ga to close the deal.  

Dan Tone and Deuce the Jack Russell with a Big AZ Tom Bobcat

With two cats in the truck Dan and Dave took a few minutes and skinned them.  A little closer inspection showed one had been eating jackrabbit and the other was full of Merriam’s turkey meat & feathers.  The fact that the cats were both operating on full stomachs didn’t slow them down.  It seems that curiosity (or a little greed) does kill cats.

Wildlife Technologies Mighty Atom 21 and N. Arizona Tom Bobcat

The remaining few stands on Saturday and Sunday morning were unproductive so Dave & Dan headed for lower elevations and into an area both of them have hunted and scouted for years.  They set up a stand with bobcats and mountain lions in mind and Dave started the Mighty Atom playing with a mix of mice, birds and cottontail distress.  Dave got no early takers and began to get more aggressive, turning up the volume and introducing gray fox & bobcat vocalizations into the mix.  After 30 minutes there was still nothing moving in and Dave started dropping in some young cougar vocalizations (whistle sound) in the mix of calls.  About 10 minutes later Dan gave Dave the signal that they had an approaching predator.  

Hoping to get whatever Dan was seeing closer to the speaker, Dave dropped the volume and kept playing various young cougar/fox/bobcat/prey distress sounds and heard nothing more from Dan.  A few minutes later Dave decided to turn up the heat on the stand even more and introduced adult female cougar communicative vocalizations into the sound picture.  There was an immediate reaction from Dan that something was now leaving.  Night was now approaching and Dave wrapped up the stand.  He discovered from Dan that a rather small lion had worked it’s way up a cattle/deer path and veered off the trail into some heavier cover and held up about 60 yards from the caller.  The lion was hesitant to cover the final distance down to the area where Dave had the caller hidden.  Once Dave introduced the adult lion vocals, the small lion turned back and left quickly on the same trail it had come in on.  Due to the size of the lion Dan never fired a shot.  

This was Dave’s second trip back into the field since rolling his quad and tearing his Achilles tendon last year in March.  It seems he still has the Midas touch.  He told me it was all about the basics of good predator calling–let the terrain, sign, cover, and a working knowledge of your intended target’s behaviors be your guide.  I say congrats on a memorable weekend–nice work Dave and Dan.  

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“The Endangered Species Act does not allow the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to list only part of a ‘species’ as endangered, or to protect a listed distinct population segment only in part as the Final Rule here does” 

Grey Wolf - US Fish and Wildlife Service

The Idaho Fish and Game Deputy Director reacted quickly to the action by the Federal Government, stating  “We’re frustrated; we’re angry; we’re disappointed.”  “We’ve played by the rules, but his decision allows procedural technicalities to overcome sound science and common sense.”  Governor Butch Otter and his Democratic opponent, Keith Allred, both echoed that sentiment, saying the State of Idaho should have the right to manage it’s wolf population.  

With the current Obama administration seeking a much larger footprint for the federal government, that might be asking a lot. 

Read more here: Idaho Statesman Article  

There were quick calls for an appeal by Gov. Butch Otter who sees the originally assumed numbers of wolves needed for “population sustainability” being conveniently increaseed by radical environmental groups.  In our last blog post on Idaho wolf hunting we feared that continuous efforts with lawsuits could achieve this setback.  However, we at Wildlife Callers, remain confident that the need for Idaho, Montana, and other states, to manage wolves on locally based field science and declining populations of elk, deer, moose, and other prey mammals will eventually win out in the court system.  We’ll keep you informed of this court case as it proceeds.  

We are also keenly aware of the millions of private and taxpayer dollars being spent to keep the wolves from being de-listed and keep them completely untouchable.  But, how small must the ungulate herds get before special interest groups claiming to care about the environment actually allow hunters to balance the wolf population against the deer, elk, and moose populations? 

A Shiras Moose tag in Idaho is already a “once in a lifetime” tag–on par with hunting a Bighorn Sheep in Arizona (currently being eaten to extinction by cougars with the help of “environmentalists”).  The “environmentalists” keep telling us that the gray wolf is a national treasure–we contend the Shiras moose population in the US is too.  Why must one be completely decimated so the other’s population numbers can satisfy an unscientific good feeling about wolves grounded in raw emotion and anti-hunting sentiment? 

For a good article about large wolf populations in the US and Canada (wolves ignore borders), wolf control efforts in Canada, funding for the wolf introduction program, impact to the Yellowstone elk herd, and more click here:  Has The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Become A Rogue Agency? 

Anti-Hunting Ideology… 

What’s very interesting is that when reading an article that’s anti-hunting and pro-wolf, the concerned “environmentalist” almost always makes mention that hunters “only” want to lower the wolf populations so they can continue to hunt elk and deer.  As if that is somehow a bad thing.  The truth is, they are anti-hunters and do think it’s a bad thing.  Given the option, they’d much rather see gray wolves hunt elk and moose to near extinction than to ever see a trophy bull hanging on your wall.  If hunters are free to hunt and kill wolves then the wolves aren’t killing trophy game animals.  

Remember, to an anti-hunter a wolf killing a 6×6 bull elk is beautiful nature and a hunter killing that same bull is premeditated murder.  It’s all part and parcel of an illogical, but well coordinated anti-hunting campaign in our schools (kids are a huge target audience), in our courts, and more and more inside our state and federal game agencies.  

What’s even more interesting is the number of death threats we receive from anti-hunters who read our blog.  Some of them will post a visceral hate for hunting, “animal murder”, guns, and “rednecks” in the same flowing and profane sentence and then follow up with statement that they’d like to “find us in their crosshairs and shoot us in the f#$@#ng head!”  

Irony so thick you could cut it with a Buck knife!

The silver lining… 

Nothing has changed with Idaho’s Fish and Game rules allowing electronic callers, wolf sounds, and antelope, deer, elk, and moose distress and other vocalizations, for hunting wolves.  All we need now is a court ruling that favors the rights of Montana and Idaho to manage their own wildlife.  

When it’s finally time to go hunting we’ll let you know and help you with an Wildlife Technologies e-caller full of real wolf sounds just for the occasion.   Both the Mighty Atom 15 and Mighty Atom 21 game callers can be outfitted for your wolf hunt in the United States or Canada.

Thank you again for reading.  Subscriptions to this blog are free and comments or questions are welcomed below.

Keep up the good fight and good hunting!

Mark Healy

Back in the day… 

Mark Healy and an Arizona Coyote & Gray Fox that Fell for Cottontail Distress - circa 1986-87

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.

Another Cow - Victim of Drought and Ravaged by Predators & Scavengers - Post Mortem

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. 

If you enjoyed this blog, subscriptions to it are FREE!!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

Predator callers, especially the newer guys, often wonder when a stand is “burned” and what if anything can be done when a coyote has winded them, or they have fired a missed shot at one.  The short answer is yes, something can be done.  Here’s a video that demonstrates that a coyote can be called (in this case, called and wounded) and then immediately re-called if the caller reacts quickly, changes positions, and gives the coyote a new scenario and sound picture that gets its attention back. 

Does this tactic work every time?  No – but, then again, nothing works every time.  However, it’s one more tactic for a coyote caller to use in the field.  Let’s face it, coyotes have no idea what a gun is or what sound a gun makes.  You always have a fair chance at re-gaining control of the coyote’s behavior if you change its mind. 

Coyotes aren’t always easy to find and we always try to make the most of the ones we’ve already located.  We believe that most unproductive stands are unproductive simply because we’re calling and there’s nothing close enough to be listening, or close enough to care.  Finding coyotes and knowing exactly where they are is definitely more than half the battle of successfully calling them.  Once you have one or more coyotes located, exhaust all opportunities to put ‘em in your truck. 

Thank you again for reading.  If you or a friend would like a FREE subscription to the blog, just put your email below and click SUBSCRIBE. 

Your comments are always appreciated – just scroll down to the bottom of the page to submit your questions or thoughts. 

Good hunting,

Mark Healy

mark@wildlifecallers.com