The Walking Varminter

Fast forward 4 years and many failed attempts and I was able to shoot my first bedded fox that I snuck on all by myself. It was quite the experience and I’ll never forget it. Over the years fox hunting turned into coyote hunting. In my corner of the world we didn’t have coyotes until the last few years of the 90s. I called my first coyote in by myself on New Years Day, 2001. Actually I called in three and missed them all. I had shot quite a few coyotes before this day but they were all called in by my Dad. This was my first solo run at it and it turned out pretty poorly, however once again….I was hooked.

Coyote hunting starts a mile from the road is what my Dad always told me. I realize now this is more of a “get your butt out and walk” type of statement rather than literal. He impressed upon me the importance of walking out and “making your own luck”. Get away from the road, the vehicle and the commotion and you’ll have more success. For the most part I’ve found this to be true, with the exception of those neat little places we all have in our catalog of spots that are right up along the road, behind a yard or near town. I learned over the years that walking not only finds you more coyotes, it finds you lots of other things. Peace. Relaxation. Religion? Maybe. Watching the sun come up a mile from any roads when it’s 20 below will make you think God is right there with you. It brings you to another place, a place you don’t get to driving around or driving out to your spot. Solitude and a set of snowshoes can solve a lot of little problems. Sometimes it even solves some big ones.

I’ve actively hunted fox and coyotes since i was eight. That's closing in on 30 years ago now. It's something I plan to do until I’m gone. I love it. I’m not an expert, or the best or whatever you want to call it, but I’ve been fortunate enough to be successful (and unsuccessful on a lot of occasions) at hunting coyotes for most of my life. I know I’ve learned a lot about them over the years and hopefully will keep learning about them as I continue to hunt. However I’m worried about where we are going in regards to coyote hunting. What are we teaching our youth hunters about it? One reason I love hunting coyotes and predators in general is I believe it to be one of the last true, pure forms of hunting we have left. We don’t have scores, or years of pictures of one coyote. We don’t have record books and classes of animals. We have coyotes. Fur is of course graded, but I’ve never passed up a coyote because he wasn’t the right one. Hunting at its roots. Marksmanship, strategy, know how. Outsmarting some of the smartest animals out there. Its awsome at its core and the bottom line is, coyotes are plain fun and tough to hunt.

I see it fading though. It seems coyote hunting has turned into a race to see who can shoot the most using any means necessary, rather than the likes of deer and elk hunting where the highest scoring deer or elk is measured as a higher level of success (which is a whole other store), coyote hunting success is measured on how many you can shoot in a day or a given period of time. If you’ve never shot X amount in a day, you’re not very good. Its measured on how many tournaments you win or how many sponsors you can accumulate. It’s measured in too many ways that really don’t measure how good of a “hunter” one actually is. I’m not sure there really is a good way to measure how good of hunter someone is, so maybe this is what the main stream hunting world has come up with to measure it. Is it accurate? I’m not really sure. Equipment is playing a larger role than ever before. Everything we are legalizing to hunt coyotes with takes the advantage away from the animal. Night vision and thermal scopes, spot lights, planes, snowmobiles, tracked pickups, utvs and atvs. You name it, it's probably not illegal. It's becoming mainstreamed and now it’s almost like a popularity contest to see who can out do the next guy. Are we imploding as hunters and not realizing it?

Driving out to a spot and putting an E caller on the hood and sitting in your vehicle is the new coyote hunting. Having the newest thermal scope so you can shoot computer generated images of a coyote is getting to be more popular. Using a spotlight to shine a coyote is a common practice in many states, plus a whole pile of other new and improved ways to kill a coyote. Don’t get me wrong, if coyotes need to be removed, by all means do what it takes. But at what point is it no longer “hunting” rather than pest control?

I’m not in favor of a lot of these things, however if you choose to hunt with the latest greatest technology by all means do it. I’m guilty of it. I use a suppressor now, like many of you. Is it an advantage? Maybe, in some cases. It does help me from becoming less deaf I know. I still believe more hunters in the field are better than less. The point I guess I’m trying to get across is this; If we take a new hunter out, be it a youth hunter or a buddy that has never hunted coyotes, how are we going to teach him to hunt? Giving him a rifle with a thermal scope on it, handing him an E caller and tell him to drive the tracked side by side sitting in the yard to the edge of the shelter belt in the dark and turning on the call isn’t the way I hope we’d teach. Sure, I’ll admit it probably will work at some point. It’s a comfortable way to have success. You’ll have a coyote step out from the shelter belt in range and the hunter will get him or you’ll call one in at night when they call much easier and shoot the image of a coyote, digitally created by its heat signature . Did the hunter learn anything about hunting from this?

I challenge you to find the Walking Varminter in yourself. Find that person who wants to explore, hunt and find more than a coyote at the end of the day. Learn to use a hand or mouth call and practice with it. It’s an art when it’s mastered. Teach someone else how to use one. Listen to coyotes after dark and at night and try to mimic the sounds they make. Become a student of the quarry. Strive to be a better marksman. I know a guy that shot a lot of coyotes one winter in a “one shot one kill” streak, he might have even got two with one shot on more than one occasion. It was impressive to the tune of a couple of full caseguards. Understand the animal you’re after and how to use his disadvantages against him rather than find the easy way of doing things just to have success in numbers. Walk. On top of everything else, exercise is still an okay thing. Teach a beginner or your kids how to actually hunt, rather than how to have success.The success will be a byproduct.

Put on a pair of snowshoes this winter and walk out into the biggest section you can find and blow a call. Glass for a bedded coyote and see if you can sneak to within 200 yards, or less...way less. Then shoot him between the eyes or better yet, through one eye. Try to outsmart coyotes that have been called and chased and shot at more than you can imagine. Figure out a way to make your call sound like the rest of the group or a new member that is challenging the existing population or something so off the wall the coyotes will HAVE to check it out. You’d be surprised what you might find out about yourself, your abilities and your perception of hunting. I challenge you.