Scouting...What to look for.

[Jimmie in Ky]

A fellow I met at the 2008 LBL hunt brought something related to this subject to mind. He was trying to relate coyote territories to deer and turkeys. When you start looking at or for a groups territory you have to think in a much larger picture. A turkey sticks to a few hundred acres. A deer has a territory of maybe a mile and a half. Coyotes may have territories of 20 square miles or more.

This territory size is a good part of what makes finding them so hard for the eastern hunter. A coyote traveling in a steady fashion in a more or less straight line is showing you something. He is going to feeding or bedding. Look up from the tracks and note landmarks ahead in the general direction. Look for washes, roads, fencerows, saddles in the ridge or other terrain features that wildife would use in their travels.  Move on ahead and look for more sign of the coyotes passing. Keep checking ahead and make notes of where you find the sign and where it goes. Always keep the possible food sources for your area in mind and where the coyote would find them.

Get out your notes after each trip out and study them  bit. You will begin to see patterns of travel as you put the peices of this puzzle together. You will learn a great deal about food sources and cover choices from these notes. Good luck . Jimmie

[Frogman]

Wow!!  Great thread guys. 

Jim

[vvarmitr]

I always try and give the coyote a good approach lane, this makes them feel comfortable in comming to the call. I want them to have some kind of security of cover to use to get to me.

I use a decoy here allot, set the decoy were they feel they can work the edge of the cover to get down wind of the decoy and put them right in my lap!

Just thought these two points need repeating.