FOREST AND STREAM 
805 
Coyote Hunting as a Sport and as a Necessity 
The Elusive Little Wolf of the Plains is a Real Pest to Advancing Civilization, and it is Absolutely Essential 
To Keep Him Down 
T HE readers of Forest and Stream who have 
hunted coyotes with hounds can under¬ 
stand the pleasure and excitement that 
goes with the game. It is up hill and down, and 
look out for holes, but be in at the finish if you 
possibly can make it. 
Of course there is considerable risk and ex¬ 
pense attached to game, but if our chickens and 
turkeys are to be saved something has to be done 
once in a while to lessen the number of depreda¬ 
tions. When a man comes in from a day’s hard 
work, only to find that the coyotes have taken 
the finest gobbler, four large turkey hens and 
about twenty-five young ones, all in one short 
day, he does not feel that the coyote is a benefit 
to society even if he does catch a few jackrab- 
bits and gophers. 
Looking at it from the purely mercenary side, 
I believe a good stiff bounty, on coyote scalps 
in Nebraska, which we do not have now, would 
go a long way toward decreasing the losses from 
this source. It would then be worth the while 
of the persons who could find the time to do so, 
to get out and get them, either with hounds or 
by hunting single handed. 
Contrary to general belief, the coyote question 
is really serious here in western Nebraska. Thou¬ 
sands of dollars worth of poultry, chiefly tur¬ 
keys, as the “little dogs” seem to like them 
best, are annually destroyed. Then there is the 
large number of young calves and sheep which 
are cut off from their mothers and killed. I 
think if estimates of the losses were made they 
would be surprisingly large, as I know of sev¬ 
eral hundred dollars loss in this immediate lo¬ 
cality. 
Now farmers as a rule would be hard put to 
it to take a day off and start out with their 
hounds and horses for a day’s hunt. And, of 
course, this means that fresh horses would have 
to be used, which many would not have. But 
for those who can take a day off once in a while, 
and who are interested enough in the sport to 
pay the necessary price to get a pair of good 
hounds, or else get a pair of hound pups with 
good breeding back of them, and train them well 
they would afford their owners many a day’s 
fine sport. 
There is just one difficulty about hunting with 
hounds. The country as it is being fenced up, 
makes it increasingly difficult as the years go by 
to follow the hounds and as serious a pest as 
the coyotes are, people are bound to object when 
their fences are torn down, and not only that, 
the fences are too much of a delay. Of course, 
there will probably be some open country left 
in which hounds could be run, principally up in 
the big hay meadows for which this country is 
famous. 
Now this is where my hobby comes in. I be¬ 
lieve there is no finer sport than to take my old 
By John W. Davis. 
Winchester, some fine, quiet, sunshiny day, and, 
starting up the wind or quartering with it, say, 
“This is the day I get a coyote.” You may say 
that I display undue confidence when I say this. 
A coyote is an animal of certain habits, and if 
these are watched and noted, and your hunting 
done accordingly, you will get him. 
He never goes over a hill without first taking 
a long careful survey of the other side. He de¬ 
pends on his nose to bring the scent of any pos¬ 
sible danger to him, so he does not look much in 
that direction, but for that very same reason he 
does keep a very sharp lookout down the wind. 
That is why I prefer to work quartering across 
the wind. In this way he will not get your scent 
and at the same time he will not be so apt to 
look directly your way. And if he catches a 
chicken, he will seldom run to exceed a half a 
mile with it, up the wind. 
Unless he is frightened, a coyote will not 
move over the ground very fast, traveling along 
with a kind of a “double shuffle,” so if when 
you are about the place and happen to see one 
loafing around, get the gun and go after him if 
you can get there in thirty minutes or less. As 
you cross each rise or hill, crawl up in the grass 
like a snake, take off your hat too, it shows too 
plain, and look carefully over all the country 
you can see within six or seven hundred yards. 
He won’t stand still long and when he moves 
you can see him, and plan to get within easiest 
range possible under the circumstances. It’s bad 
to miss one and let him get away, because he will 
be so much harder to get the next time. Better 
take an hour longer if necessary, and down him 
with the first shot. 
When I am going out for a real coyote hunt, 
I go prepared to stay all day, taking a lunch 
along, and just loaf around, sitting down once 
in a while, and practicing sighting on gopher 
mounds. Then when I crawl over a hill and see 
Mr. Coyote I am used to the light and feel con¬ 
fident of making a hit, and the lying prone posi¬ 
tion is the only one in which to make a long dif¬ 
ficult shot. There is another great advantage in 
taking a prone shot. Being down in the grass, 
neither you nor gun more particularly, are very 
much in evidence, and if the first shot goes wild, 
and there is always that possibility, the coyote 
is not apt to run far without turning to look 
back. Then is the time to get in the finish shot. 
I had a practical demonstration that this 
method is a good one. I had sighted a coyote 
making for a heavy cane brake, and I had to 
shoot at long distance and quick. There was a 
stiff south breeze blowing and I was on a low 
sand hill. The coyote was down in the bottom 
of the valley. He stood almost squarely broad¬ 
side to me looking over his shoulder to try to 
locate me. Firing from down in the grass I just 
grazed his chest, I had allowed too much for the 
wind. Instead of running, he jumped back and 
continued to try to make out what it was that 
was after him. That time I gauged the wind 
correctly. If that shot had been made standing 
he would have been gone like a flash, and there 
would have been another wise coyote. 
There are many old wise ones around in any 
community that have been shot at before and let 
get away, and these are the ones that it will take 
the very best kind of work to get. I never carry 
my gun over my shoulder. It’s much too con¬ 
spicuous that way. I prefer to carry my rifle 
in my hand, “at trail.” 
When closing in on one to get a shorter range, 
I wait until he has passed over a hill. Then, is 
the time to run in on him. In this way by care¬ 
ful work I can keep a rise between him and my¬ 
self and get up to the desired range. This ne¬ 
cessitates some pretty strenuous running some¬ 
times, all the more reason for a steady prone 
shot. 
Whenever the question of what rifle to use 
comes up, there is some lively discussion, and 
each man is sure his idea is the only one. I have 
notions too on the subject. 
For hunting in hilly country where there will 
be a good back stop for the bullets, and where 
it is as sparsely settled as here, stock is the main 
thing to look out for. My ideal of a good coy¬ 
ote gun for such a locality as this is a Govern¬ 
ment rifle (30) with a telescope, using soft point 
bullets. I fail to see how they could get away 
from that. Of course, in settled country a 25-20 
is as big as is safe to use. But power and lots 
of it is what it takes to kill a coyote, and for 
this reason a higher powered rifle should be used 
wherever safe. 
The chief point in favor of a bounty on coy¬ 
ote scalps is this: They are much easier killed 
in the summer time, but summer shot hides are 
not worth much, if anything. Therefore, the 
hunter is out his time and the expense for car¬ 
tridges, which with a high power rifle is consid¬ 
erable. With a bounty, coyotes would be picked 
off in the summer months, and five dollars apiece 
is some better than fifty cents or a dollar. This 
is taking if for granted that the bounty should be 
five dollars for old ones and two and a half for 
young ones. 
