Running hounds for Coyotes.

[Magnarson]

How is this done? Turn the dogs loose....then what. Cant tree a coyote. What obvious fact am I missing.?

[IceHawk]

We hunt with hounds and this is how it goes for us. Hopefully you have a fresh snowfall the day before the hunt to locate a fresh track or tracks if not you free cast. If it snows A couple of us guys go out early morning looking for good tracks. Once a good track is located we usally cover the entire section to see if the coyote or yotes are still bedded and didnt travel out, if they stayed in the section usally they are bedded. We have hunted the same areas for years so we have gained permission to alot of acres so we usally dont need to ask to hunt in fact alot of farmers call us to come and hunt there land. Once we get a game plan on where to start the hunt we drop a jumpdog on the fresh track. He cold tracks it until the coyote is jumped once its jumped we will drop one or more hounds out of the boxes and its game on. The dogs chase the coyote and hopefully past one of our hunters who are postioned with rifles in open fileds etc around the section and shotgun hunters in the woods.

There are guys that hunt with sight hounds but we run tracking hounds that we gun over. This is the basics there are other ways guys hunt with dogs also.

[K_Josh87]

some guys run "chase" dogs and then release a kill dog or dogs after a mile or two of running them...

[Magnarson]

So you need many guys to do this. Sounds like a fun way to blast some fur. Boy, chasing dogs for two miles. Id be afraid dogs coyotes and all just keep going. Do the yotes ever attack the dog(s)?

[IceHawk]

We run with about 7 guys and 5 dogs but at times have had around 10. I know of some local groups that hunt with alot more. You really dont need alot of guys on a hunt it can become dangerous and very unorganized quick. Most of us have been hunting together for a while and we all know the lay of the land in our area well. Interecepting the coyotes at good vantage points and travel locations is fairly easy.

As far as a yote attacking a dog yes they will fight at times but most dogs will pin them at bay once the yote turns on them to fight. I will comment a couple of our dogs have some nasty scars from yote bites but it gives them a little more character.

[Eric Wettschreck]

A good friend of mine hunts yotes with Greyhounds. I've been known to tag along with him......often.

The yotes really don't stand a chance.

The method we use is mostly sight hunting. In a nutshell, see a yote and unleash the hounds. With Greyhounds it doesn't take long and they're on the yote. If they turn it towards one of us, we shoot it. If not, they kill it in aboot 1/2 of a millibleep of a second.

[hawgchaser]

My neighbor hunts with hounds and uses much the same method as Ice Hawk. He takes pictures of every set of tracks and has a logbook in his vehicle so he can distinguish the coyote activity from one day to the next. They get between 40 and 50 coyotes a year within about a 6 mile radius of home. For those of you old enough to have seen the movie "The Man From Snowy River", it reminds me of the large roundup scenes once the dogs get on hot scent...cars, dogs and people racing to intercept the running coyotes. They communicate with each other via radio.

[MaxGoldman]

I know of guys that run dogs like icehawk and more than half of the time the dogs get the kill, can't think of the breed however.

[Musky Buck]

Hey guys, just a weird thought but now we have timberwolves in our area not that they parachuted in, there numbers have been growing steadily in our farmland areas, but last winter the guys did hardly any coyote hunting, lack of snow etc. lack of interest some, this winter they are really making up for last winter, do you think that changes anything thinking my dads cousins really get after yotes, what becomes of the hound(s) if they intercept a wolf track and follow it up ? Without having to make a call, do they try to avoid the known wolf belt we'll call it ? I know wolves and yotes don't mingle, but you could in that area find a fresh yote track and get into that section and then what develops ?

[IceHawk]

Hounds and wolves usally dont mix. Usally the wolf will turn on the hounds and try and kill them especially males and a pair. I know alot of guys wont run yotes in wolf country but ocassionaly you will encounter one and the outcome can be devastateing. We supposedly have one a big male running in our area we have seen his tracks and when we do we avoid the area. Another fact coyotes tend to kill fox less competion in their world. Well we are going to freecast hounds in western mn tommorow we try and do a couple runs a yr out there. Some of the local farmers out there have contacted us with coyote problems so we will do our part to end them.