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Author
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Topic: A question.........
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bucksnort
Miss Chris from AZ
Member # 202
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posted December 03, 2003 07:51 PM
.......for you predator callers who started over 30 years ago???? You didn't have books, videos or the internet to tell you how to do it, so how did you do? What did you do to learn how to call predators?
These "wanabes" can read these boards, and learn how to call predators in about 5 minutes, but they can't read how to put the "kiss of death" into a call. How long did it take to be successful, or what did you do to be successful?
Take care.
"Buckwheat"
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"There are lion chasers, lion catchers, and lying SOB's."
"Warriors of El Gato - The Lion"
Posts: 368 | From: Tucson, AZ | Registered: Jun 2003
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Pete in Idaho
unknown comic
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posted December 03, 2003 09:30 PM
That's easy, we had the calling clubs.
Serously, before joining the CVCA I went out a few time with a buddy and never saw a thing. We even got lost one night. Walked away from the truck, went over a small rise and couldn't find our way back to the truck--we could see the lights of Victorville though so we didn't feel completely lost. Didn't panic, waited for sunrise and saw the truck easly.
After that I joined the CVCA and went out with an experienced call. Got a bobcat on the first trip out. Pete
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Norm
Knows what it's all about
Member # 240
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posted December 04, 2003 06:05 AM
Hey Buckie;
I had a mentor; While he didn't teach me to call, he did teach me to trap, learn the animal traits, habitat, etc.
While my mentor was my dad, I also learned from the Craig O'gormans, the Gerald Walkups and other members of the Iowa and National Trapper associations.
This is where the calling clubs fit in; You have people willing to be a mentor, show you by example, share in your failures and successes.
The best advice that I have for anyone wanting to learn, find a mentor it is the quickest way to success, plus it is alot more fun.
Carpe Diem; ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Carpe Diem
Posts: 778 | From: Phx AZ | Registered: Oct 2003
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Cal Taylor
Knows what it's all about
Member # 199
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posted December 04, 2003 06:25 AM
Well, not quite 30 years ago, but 25 anyway. I followed the local government trapper around like a lost pup. I wanted to know everything there was to know about a coyote because they were damn rare. I spent most of my time on my dad's ranch near Kaycee WY. and it was a big place in rough country, but there were few coyotes. We were surrounded by sheep men and 1080 was still in use several years after it was banned. (1972). I tried to learn what I could, but didn't get to put much of it to use. Some of you may have heard of that trapper, his name was Bill Austin. A few years later I managed a big sheep place in north western S.D. and actually had a few coyotes to trap, call, and I spent quite a little time gunning out of a super cub. Then in 1991 I moved to southern Utah, coyotes galore. I became good friends with a state trapper there and spent endless days calling, denning, and trapping. I moved back to Wyoming in 98 or so and went to work for a county predator control program as a denner, and the other trapper that worked for the county at the time was (and is) a very knowledgeable coyote man. He had spent time working for Vern Dorn when he was still alive, and he had also spent alot of time with Craig O'Gorman, so, more knowledge gathered. Since then I have been outfitting big game hunts, but I still do quite a bit of private control work for different ranches and have got into some commercial type stuff. And I still like to go out and call coyotes.
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Democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
FoxPro Field Staff Member
Posts: 1069 | From: Wyoming | Registered: May 2003
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Q-Wagoner
FREE TRIAL MEMBERSHIP
Member # 33
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posted December 04, 2003 07:15 AM
Well in my 30 years of experience…. Uh? Wait a minute I am not even 30 yet! DAMN you guys are old!
Good hunting.
Q,
Posts: 617 | From: Nebraska | Registered: Jan 2003
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Rich Higgins
unknown comic
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posted December 04, 2003 07:23 AM
Altough I took my first coyote with a call in 1959 there was no spike in the learning curve until I moved to Calif. in 1970 and joined the bowhunting clubs. I hunted exclusively with a bow from 1970 until 1978 and the numbers I took were not impressive. I hung out at the archery shops in the LA area, listened and talked to experienced callers. Read the magazines and the books that were available and hunted with other club members, Still I learned mostly from trial and error. Heavy emphasis on the error. Called lots of coyotes in close but the longbows I used then were not fast and jumping the string was common. Moved to Utah, started using rifles and started taking lots of coyotes. Moved to Az.in 1983 and found dead coyotes on the roads, live coyotes on the golf courses and in the neighborhoods and knew I was in heaven. Learning curve spiked again when I started to call over the camera instead of a gun and began to see what attracts the coyote and what repels them while up close. Behavior I wasn't aware of before.
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Rich Higgins
unknown comic
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posted December 04, 2003 07:29 AM
Q, go ahead and post your your biography. I know for a fact that you've compressed 30 years of experience into the last 10 years. J-H's saw about 'one year's experience thirty times' works the other way also.
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onecoyote
Knows what it's all about
Member # 129
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posted December 04, 2003 08:36 AM
lol
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Great minds discuss ideas.....Average minds discuss events.....Small minds discuss people.....Eleanor Roosevelt.
Posts: 893 | From: Walker Lake Nevada. | Registered: Feb 2003
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Leonard
HMFIC
Member # 2
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posted December 04, 2003 09:58 AM
Well, lookie here. An opportunity for us old farts to stroll down memory lane! Like; we don't need much prompting, right?
I lived very close to the Archery Hedquarters, in north El Monte, in the early sixties. Who knows, if Rich was also a groupie, at that time, we may have rubbed elbows? Anyway, I bought a Circe Jackrabbit call, there, and went up the Grapevine a couple times with my friend, Richard.(Cooper, are you listening, Danny)
Actually did see a bobcat on one trip, and a coyote on the next. Never fired a shot, though.
A short time later, my uncle hired a guy that belonged to a Club, and asked me if I wanted to attend a meeting. We both went, and arranged a hunt. It turned out that these fellas were not top hands, but we saw the basics, and were grateful, except that my uncle, an Iwo Jima Vet, got so cold that he spent the entire night wrapped in a blanket. Just died, two months ago, BTW. ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
So, I wound up joining that club (San Gabriel Chapter, CSVCA) and got paired up with other new guys. You may think that the experienced men were anxious to take every new guy out and show them everything they knew, but you would be mistaken.
They have established partners, limited funds, and a fear of the unknown. New guys with guns can scare the crap out of anybody! But, there was the conversation, the tips, the advice.
Eventually, I went on a hunt with another new guy, and killed my first bobcat. But, I knew a few things about equipment, areas, and techniques, so it wasn't as if they didn't provide assistance. None of this stuff was state of the art, so to speak; you get basics.
Some guys expect guided hunts, hot coffee, free beer, etc. But, if you get to know the people, and help out, they come up with a lot of help, and maybe they will be willing to take a new guy out, which is what happened to me.
The first weekend hunt, with an experienced hunter, a man name of Mel Mitchner, and we killed six coyotes and a bobcat, won second place on the Club hunt, and I was in heaven.
That was the extent of my apprenticeship. At this level, sure, some information gets shared, but now, you are the competition, and they are a little more close with the specifics. But, it's all in a friendly environment.
This is the best farm system ever devised for sharing experience that I can think of. Sure, you have people that will guide you for a fee, but then you are on your own, and you better learn to swim, or sink.
Anyway, I joined the old CVCA in 1968, and accomplished more in the first six months than in the previous five years. It's been an interesting journey.
Bruce, you're right. These guys don't know how good they have it. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Good hunting. LB
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EL BEE Knows It All and Done It All.
Don't piss me off!
Posts: 32368 | From: Upland, CA | Registered: Jan 2003
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Norm
Knows what it's all about
Member # 240
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posted December 04, 2003 12:26 PM
Q, don't you have a basement or hog confinement that needs pooring? something other than making fun of your elders...
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Carpe Diem
Posts: 778 | From: Phx AZ | Registered: Oct 2003
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Q-Wagoner
FREE TRIAL MEMBERSHIP
Member # 33
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posted December 04, 2003 01:18 PM
I think books and videos are good learning tools and may be of some value to people that have absolutely no clue. BUT learning in this fashion is of limited value. Watching a video can not keep someone from getting to excited and taking the shot at the wrong time. It can’t make you a good shot. It can’t read sign for you. It can’t choose the best set ups for you. and it can’t handle the coyotes for you as they approach. There is way to much thought process and skill involved in whacking coyotes than soaking up info out of books and vids. It’s like having a tank full of gas in a car with no wheels.
In my experience what costs people more coyotes than anything is setting up wrong, poor sound application, missing shots, shooting at the wrong time, over playing the coyotes, missing shot opportunities because they are to slow, poor sighting ability and laziness. Did I mention missing shots? The faster you can react and the better ability you have to think on your feet the more coyotes you will come home with providing you are a damn good shot. This is an “acquired” skill not a learned one.
Learning how to do it is a world away from actually being able to do it. The examples I listed above are “for the most part,” are gained only by a lot of experience. I know good and well that it takes a whole lot more than “book smarts” to become a proficient coyote killer.
The coyotes hand out the true tests so don’t think for one second that the “wanabes” are getting extra credit for cheating on the exam by simply watching and reading. They are not. To be successful “really successful” you have to be at the top of your game and the school of hard knocks is the only institution in town.
I am shallow minded in the sense that years have less to do with ones experience than numbers. There are a lot of guys I know that have hunted coyotes most all of there lives and yet they know very little about the animal and kill only a dozen or two a year. I can’t help but believe that a guy is consistently killing 100+ coyotes season after season or winning a high percentage of tournaments annually will know just as much about the game as some one that’s only claim to fame is 30 or 40 years of experience.
Numbers are misleading on both sides of the coin. Years of experience Vs. numbers of coyotes killed. The problem is that no one really knows how much actual hands on experience a 30 year veteran has with out some measure of accomplishment to go along with it. Sure, a guy can claim he shot such and such amount of coyotes but how do you know for sure if he doesn’t have any proof. I should have been from Missouri (the show me state lol) because you hear all kinds of claims about “big numbers” but very little if any evidence to back it up. Numbers of coyotes taken is like fish stories except about 100 times worse. LOL Now with all of the information floating around the net anyone with a good writing talent can come off as an authority on the subject and even make more experienced hunters look stupid. That is part of the reason I would put my stock in dead coyotes rather than just talk.
Good hunting.
Q,
Posts: 617 | From: Nebraska | Registered: Jan 2003
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Rich Higgins
unknown comic
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posted December 04, 2003 02:38 PM
I read your post closely twice and I see nothing that I disagree with.
However it says little specifically as to how you learned to call and handle coyotes. Entirely from personal experience? Who influenced you initially? Who shared their knowledge with you?
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Norm
Knows what it's all about
Member # 240
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posted December 04, 2003 03:07 PM
Q, who could argue with you!! I have a couple guys tell me that they aren't killing coyotes. They state they have watched all the videos, etc... when I ask how many stands they make... 3 or 4 in a day... I suggest they watch the videos some more....
nothing beats the experience of missing or getting your thumb caught in a #2 coil spring, letting the coyote get too dry before you try and turn it...
But I am with Rich, how did you get the bug? Who gave you the starter points?
Keep up the great job... sounds like you are having a great fur season.
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Carpe Diem
Posts: 778 | From: Phx AZ | Registered: Oct 2003
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Q-Wagoner
FREE TRIAL MEMBERSHIP
Member # 33
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posted December 04, 2003 03:40 PM
Because I have comparatively little “experience” as defined by bucksnort I am disqualified from answering the question so I responded to this part instead….
quote:
These "wanabes" can read these boards, and learn how to call predators in about 5 minutes, but they can't read how to put the "kiss of death" into a call.
It was not intended to be a slam in any way shape or form to the more “experienced” callers. No more than it was intended to imply that my accomplishments are merely a result of the information age rather than hard work, determination and skills. I would just like it to be known that I don’t believe that it was more of an accomplishment to be successful years ago than it is today and that no matter what kind of learning curve you fallow there is more to it than information. You can’t attribute the successes of us younger fellows based on the information available to us. We have our own challenges and obstacles to overcome such as predator callers increasing 1000 fold or better.
Today’s predator hunters have laser rangefinders, sophisticated e-callers with remote capabilities, better guns, better scopes, better ammunition, more reliable vehicles and all the information we could ever use to help us seal the fate of a few more predators. YET the boards are chalked full of people still wondering what to do or what they are doing wrong and are not killing any coyotes.
I understood the question completely but I just wanted to add those thoughts to the mix to help keep things in prospective. Experience is experience weather it was yesterday or 30 years ago and most of us that are successful today learned how to do it in nearly the same fashion that the hunters did three decades ago did. I guess I thought it wasn’t right to automatically assume otherwise just because of the information that is available to us. Not all of us learned to hunt coyotes over the net.
Good hunting.
Q,
Posts: 617 | From: Nebraska | Registered: Jan 2003
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Locohead
World Famous Smoke Dancer
Member # 15
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posted December 04, 2003 04:14 PM
Most of what I learned, I learned in the field. I did however, read a book or 3 about hunting coyotes before I actually tried it. I learned to sit still, blow tiny puffs of air so as not to sound like a 200 lb. jackrabbit, things like that. I learned by reading to continue calling after the first coyote is killed. Lots of simple little things can be taught by someone more experienced than ou. I just thought of something. Everything in life is like that. It's a no-brainer. Everyone learns from everyone. !!
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I love my critters and chick!!!! :)
Posts: 2219 | From: CO | Registered: Jan 2003
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albert
Knows what it's all about
Member # 98
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posted December 04, 2003 04:35 PM
I think that there is lot of truth to what Q said. Expierence is more that just number of years. Part of expierence is willing to try new things and to learn from your mistakes. In that sense I think that the net has helped a lot of newbies that are willing to learn. I learned alot from there. I lot of people fail because for various reasons. In one of Ed Sceerys videos he says that it is important to be a "die hard". I agree.
I started calling about 7 years ago and one the first times I went out My uncle took me he has called coyotes since the seventy's maybe even in the sixty's. Now when we go out I do the calling and we get way more coyotes. So who has the most expierence?
Who did I learn from? No doubt in my mind I learned the most from Leonard and Wiley E. I have personally hunted with both of them.
Hope this makes sense
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for what it's worth, eh!
Posts: 195 | From: Parkland, saskatchewan, canada | Registered: Feb 2003
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varmit hunter
Knows what it's all about
Member # 37
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posted December 04, 2003 06:55 PM
Q. I could not agree with you more. I have been at it for 43 years. I had no one to tell me anything.
The best way I know how to put it. I was trying to learn how to box with out ever seeing a boxing match. Wont to guess how many bloody noses that gets you?.
I kept dragging myself back in the ring. Then one day one of them fell down instead of me. I paid a hell of a lot of attention as to why. Before long I guess you could say I developed my own style. Which includes the things you have pointed out very well.
As far as numbers go. I think that is just like a business. Location. Location. I know I treasure one of my home boys that comes off of a 150 acre pasture.That I have been calling for twenty years. I can run up to the Texas Panhandle, And drop ten to twelve a day on one of the giant ranches. Somehow its just not the same as a single home boy.
Does it take seniority. Hell no. It takes paying attention to every thing they do, And everything you do. Not just one time, But every single time you climb in that ring.
Man I would love to be abele to look up from hell in another thirty years. Just to see what kind of Coyote killing machine you turn out to be.
Ronnie
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Make them pay for the wind.
Posts: 932 | From: Orange,TX | Registered: Jan 2003
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Tim Behle
Administrator MacNeal Sector
Member # 209
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posted December 04, 2003 07:02 PM
I've been "calling" for thirty years or more. But it was several years before I actually called anything in, and probably another year or two before I killed anything. My Grandfather gave me my first call when I was probably in the second or third grade. Problem was I wasn't allowed to carry my .22 outside with out Mom or Dad. But I carried that call with me everytime I went to the woods, almost daily. Being allowed to stay in the woods after dark was another hurdle to cross later. I do remember carrying my first red fox home one night just after dark. My first hunting vehicle was a Ford 8N, but I'd killed several before I was old enough to drive it after dark.
I did hunt some in High school with a friend, but he didn't have any experience either. We were pretty much self taught and book learned though out the entire trapping and hunting process. We learned to imitate the sounds made when we grabbed one of his sisters meat rabbit and made it scream. That sound reproduced on a mouth call brought in quite a few fox for us.
Then the coyotes started moving in and the fox disappeared. I ordered a book on coyote trapping from a man in Kansas. I can't recall his name right now, but he sold lure under the JL Brand. I met him and spent several hours talking with him years later at an NTA convention. That book opened a new world to me. I started catching coyotes, and by learning the habits of coyotes, and where to catch them, I started applying the same to my hunting stands. I bought a JS 512 when they first came out, retiring my kids Fisher-Price tape recorder and tried to learn from every coyote or fox I called.
Calling got to be a habit and I lost interest in much else. I got tired of running low on coyotes every year, so in 2000, I picked up, sold the family farm and moved to SE AZ. I even joined my first calling club when I got here. The PVCA, but I didn't fit in well. They are pretty much a pure handcalling club, and by then I was firmly sold on the wonders of the Electronic.
I guess I'm mostly self taught, my biggest help being a pen full of meat rabbits and learning to trap.
Is that close to what you wanted Bucksnort?
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Personally, I carry a gun because I'm too young to die and too old to take
an ass kickin'.
Posts: 3160 | From: Five Miles East of Vic, AZ | Registered: Jun 2003
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onecoyote
Knows what it's all about
Member # 129
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posted December 04, 2003 07:27 PM
Leonard, you know I knew Copper from way back in the mid 50s lol. But did you know I also hunted the old Ridgeroute AKA N-3 back in the 60s, got a few fox and cats off that road but not many coyotes. Seems all the new guys in the CVCA hunted that road lol. Awwww the memories, if I could only remember em, ![[Wink]](wink.gif) Good Hunting
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Great minds discuss ideas.....Average minds discuss events.....Small minds discuss people.....Eleanor Roosevelt.
Posts: 893 | From: Walker Lake Nevada. | Registered: Feb 2003
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Krustyklimber
prefers the bunny hugger pronunciation: ky o tee
Member # 72
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posted December 05, 2003 01:56 AM
quote:
These "wanabes" can read these boards, and learn how to call predators in about 5 minutes, but they can't read how to put the "kiss of death" into a call.
As Q states, even with "the kiss of death that's not enough...
There are many more elements to success, even if that success isn't measured in triple digits. (the most famous hunters in my state got 75 coyotes, between the pair of em, in one year)
But, I don't agree, that the modern hunter is necesarily endowed with so much greater equipment... at least not in every case.
My vehicle is almost 25 years old, and it like the modern ones my peers drive, is left miles behind at the locked gate so we're all pretty much equalized with a 100,000 year old form of transportation (unless you wanna count modern footwear).
My rifle is older than Q, and so is the scope it wore until today.
And despite the compactness of my e-caller, other than an upgrade from 8-track to a cassette player, mine is not much more sophisticated... I am still winding and unwinding wire like they did.
And the game laws in many states hasn't made learning easier, in my state we cannot trap... so learning from a trapper is out. We can only use lights for part of the year and never from our vehicles, so the methods most employed by the novices, and experts alike, of 25-30 years ago aren't even legal anymore.
And in the 70s the fur prices were high, this made it economical to get up and going, not like todays novice, who may have to foot the whole bill for his "hobby" for two or three years... or possibly forever because the coyotes he hunts have zero commercial value.
The clubs that existed in the past are no more now too, and in some places there never were any. So finding an experienced caller, willing to take you and show you anything, or even talk to you because "New guys with guns can scare the crap out of anybody!" (Now this makes sense, and offends the crap outta me, all at once).
And the one thing most important of all... THERE HAS TO BE COYOTES THAT WILL RESPOND TO A CALL! With so many more callers today, and an ever shrinking supply of land to hunt on, coyotes and all predators are more likely to have been called then those of yesteryear. And in other places the dwindling land for wildlife has move predators away for lack of habitat and food. Not to mention growing firearms restriction areas, limiting or prohibiting firing at all...
No, hunting in general, was much easier 25 years ago, and probably easier than that 25 year sooner...
I have just been reading a predator calling book written over 25 years ago, and the information in it is as relavent today as it was then, though some of the technical data is a little behind, so I am sure plenty of guys "read their way into the sport" even then.
Is the internet a magic bean? Nope... "the boards are chalked full of people still wondering what to do or what they are doing wrong and are not killing any coyotes."
YUP!
It is the interactive part of the internet that allowed me to meet guys like Bofire, BearmanRick, and Mark (who bear hunted with me). And it's these guys, who show me by example, that I have learned the real things that will make or break my success from.
So far I haven't learned a single thing from coyotes that I have never seen or heard... except that they poop in the road, they eat pheasant as fast as the game department can release em, and they don't give a crap what kinda howl I play/make come from an e-caller... they ain't got squat to say.
Man, I got an opinion about this huh?
Jeff 
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Think about how stupid the average person is, then realize that half of them are stupider than that!
Posts: 1912 | From: Deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia | Registered: Jan 2003
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bucksnort
Miss Chris from AZ
Member # 202
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posted December 05, 2003 06:03 AM
Ya know, I started this thread because I knew it would get you guys to talking, and we all started out different and we all do it differently today, and for different reasons. The areas we hunt and very different. The area Q hunts in is much different than the Arizona country and the country that Leonard and Danny hunt in.
Even what we expect out of a day of hunting is different. For some, if they don't kill coyotes in a day of hunting, it is a big let down. Personally, if I don't kill a coyote in a day of hunting, well, it doesn't mean a thing to me, and I think most of that comes with age, and I can remember when I lived for it, but not now. To just get out in the country for a day, is more than I need.
And of course, we all shoot different rifles and different scopes, and different loads, and different bullets, and we do different things with the coyotes, some of us use hand calls, and some use electronics, and some hunt at night, some of us hunt in open county, and some of us hunt in brushy country, and some of us use camo and some don't, and some of us hunt in snow, and some of us hunt in the desert country, etc, etc.
So, you see it all comes down to what YOU want and expect out of a day of hunting, and how YOU personally fulfill that personal want.
Take care.
"Buckwheat"
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"There are lion chasers, lion catchers, and lying SOB's."
"Warriors of El Gato - The Lion"
Posts: 368 | From: Tucson, AZ | Registered: Jun 2003
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Rob
Knows what it's all about
Member # 75
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posted December 05, 2003 01:28 PM
Tim the coyote trapper from Kansas name is James Lucero. He lives in New Mexico now does control work for the Mescalero Apache Res.
[ December 05, 2003, 01:32 PM: Message edited by: Rob ]
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"Where did all these #$%^&* Indians come from?" Gen. George Armstrong Custer
Posts: 224 | From: Clancy Montana | Registered: Feb 2003
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Leonard
HMFIC
Member # 2
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posted December 05, 2003 04:41 PM
I've hunted that Res. I'd say the man has his work cut out for him. Extremely good area, they have it all: mixed bag. I'm jealous.
Good hunting. LB
[ December 05, 2003, 04:42 PM: Message edited by: Leonard ]
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EL BEE Knows It All and Done It All.
Don't piss me off!
Posts: 32368 | From: Upland, CA | Registered: Jan 2003
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