Using Live Bait...

M

MilitantBob

New member
We have had a bit of a problem with yotes around my grandfolks ranch. Me and my brother decided we would try our hand at coyote hunting the last time we where up there, and bought a few predator calls to try and get them to come out...

Well, either we where doing the calls wrong, or our coyotes are a bit more sly then the average because we didn't hear so much as a howl the whole time, much less have an actually coyote grace us with its presence.

About half way through my bro had the bright idea of using live bait to bring in the yotes so we wouldn't have to try and imitate calls and such.

Thus the idea:
Buy a live chicken, tie a length of string to its leg and stake the string into the ground in a clearing. Let the chicken bring the yotes to us. Ideally we get the coyotes before they get the chicken.

Has anybody ever tried hunting predators with this method? Anyone see any potential problems with this idea? Comments? Questions? Insults? :D
 
You want to bait in some songdogs, you need a crate with 3-4 just weaned pupies.
Songdog will come for mile to eat puppy.

Sam
 
Hmmm, weaned pups will be a might bit harder to obtain. I only know one person with pups around that age, and he would stake we to the ground and use me as coyote bait if I tried it. :D
 
For live bait you could use chickens, pheasants, grouse, pigeons or anything else like that. You might want to break one of their wings or something to try to get it to squeal a little more. I'd imagine that a rabbit with its legs tied up to a tree would work pretty good too. Cruel, yes, but it will take care of your coyote problem. There's traps you can buy for catching live pigeons and such.

For dead bait: You could start making a "coyote bait pile". Mine consists of road kill, leftovers that I collect in a 5 gallon bucket, put the lid on, and let bake in the sun for a week, and any other animals that I shoot get thrown in the pile too. Just make sure you're down-wind of where you think the coyotes will come in.
 
A novel approach using live bait. But is it legal? I would guess breaking a chickens wing to get it to yelp might, in some areas be considered over the edge though.
However, I was hired (hired is a strong term we were given all the shells we could shoot) to control yots in the eighties. All we had to do was watch a flock of sheep and they came, it was fun.
Bill
PS I went coyote hunting a few weeks ago and called in a bear.
 
Uhh, is there anyone else here who gets a little twinge of uneasyness reading this? I can understand using live bait if the bait is not going to be injured, but breaking a birds wing just to make it suffer so you can shoot the scavengers seems very unethical to me.
 
Yeah, I never intended to break the chicken in any way, that seems kinda cruel.

Maybe I could agitate the bait in a way that isn't harmful (thinking alone the lines of how cats go berserk and make all kinds of unholy noise when you put scotch tape on their tail or legs). Definitely not up to snapping a bird’s wing and letting it scream its fool head off.
 
That kinda bothered me as well. Not only cruel, but unnecessary. Combining caged live bait with one of the many electronic game callers out there that work very well does a good job of calling in the trickster.
 
MB-
I'm willing to bet you brought in coyotes....they just saw or winded you before you saw them. Some of the hand held calls are outstanding.....but you have to know how to position yourself.....there's lots of resources on the web for that; including wind and terrain conditions.

Recently, we've tried a commercial "lure". Simple rabbit fur on a spring connected to a stick. Run by a battery, it wobbles/shakes. Here's an ideal setup: Caller gets into a V-shaped defilade or draw with lure placed downwind about 30 yards.

The coyotes coming from left, right or downwind will see the "bait". At that point they tend to lock on and go to visual targeting. We've had great success this way.

The electronic lure is probably less expensive than that live chicken....and much easier to handle. Let me know if you want a link.
Rich
 
Uhh, is there anyone else here who gets a little twinge of uneasyness reading this? I can understand using live bait if the bait is not going to be injured, but breaking a birds wing just to make it suffer so you can shoot the scavengers seems very unethical to me.
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yeah that just seems wrong to me.


i have had great success with a handheld jackrabbit call. i have seen lots of yotes with it but theyre getting wise and know its me. if only i could afford a dedicated .22-250 so they wouldnt have a chance to get wise to me :( .
 
Something else that works good is a dead cow! When a rancher has a cow that goes down (dead) the yotes will come from everywhere. Just find you a good place to set up and wait. You may be there all night. I found that when you touch off a round or two at a yote they all stay away for a while. (a month or two)
 
Just to clear things up, I've never used live bait, and I doubt I ever will. MB asked for suggestions on live bait to use, so I threw a couple out there that would probably work if he really wanted to do it. Sorry if I sketched anyone out.

Also, as Impact said, dead cows and calves make great bait for coyotes. Just make a stop at all of the dairy farms around your place and tell them what you're looking for and leave them your phone number, they'll be more than glad to help you out.
 
You want to bait in some songdogs, you need a crate with 3-4 just weaned pupies.
Songdog will come for mile to eat puppy.
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You don't have to take the pupies out to the field to use them as bait. Make a tape recording of UNWEANED pupies that have had momma pulled away for a little while. Their frantic cries will do the job. (After making a 20 minute tape let mom back in. :) ) Go back and record a blank sound for 1 to 2 seconds every five minutes in the tape. As you hear the pauses when calling, it will work as a good timer on how long you've worked that area (time can pass REAL slow when you don't see anything come up). If you haven't seen anything in 15 to 20 minutes, it's time to move to another location anyway.

This is the most inexpensive and effective way I know of to call in the dogs.
 
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Stand next to a group of gun hating California type liberals with a tape recorder. Tape a half hour of their normal conversation and then use that out in the field. If 30 minutes of that simpering and whining doesn't bring the coyotes running, then a dying rabbit call doesn't stand a chance... :D
 
There's no need to "break" the chicken, just tie the legs and hang it upside down. It will scream its head off for a while and you don't have to break its wing or anything.
 
Well, whether you shoot any coyotes or not - you can put that chicken over a fire when your done. After you've killed it of course :D
 
Check your neighborhood for small, yappy dogs. A white poodle type or a red Pomeranian will add color as well as sound. Tell the neighbors that their dog is a "natural born hunter", and you really want to give it a try. Get a 10 foot leash, a corkscrew anchor, set up downwind, and keep telling yourself you really would rather shoot the coyote, not the dog. Any self respecting coyote would not tolerate such an abomination in his territory, which says something about the sad state of affairs of current dog ownership and neighborhoods in this country as relating to small yappy dogs.

On a more serious note, a rooster in a cage has been widely used as a lure for trapping coyotes in the old days. His crow carries, and since a coyote likes to see what is making the noise before charging towards a prospective meal, it eliminates the problem of trying to be noticed while trying to be unnoticed, which is the challenge/problem of predator calling with a mouth call.
 
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