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coyotes

Looking for advice on the most effective way to reduce coyote population. Should I hunt or look into trapping? I have tried calling and hunting with not much luck in the past, and even if I get a couple over the winter I can't imagine it really has much impact on the number in my area (Granby). I've been listening to them all fall. Last night I shot a doe, a bit back at the end of the day. I waited until 8:30 pm, found her 100 yrds from where I shot her and she was 75% eaten... just crappy. Any advice is appreciated!

Trapping without a doubt over shooting. Although you could always do both. But if you think you will reduce the population you will be disappointed. Just think that each one may help.

Is there a mandatory state course? What's the best kind of trap? I'm sure there is a ton to learn about it, and a whole art to setting them!

Yes you have to take the state course. There is also a second course for "Land Trapping", there are a lot of specific regulations related to Trapping in CT. Lots to learn for sure.

I suggest that you do both, hunting AND trapping. While you learn Trapping techniques you can try some calling and hunting.

You also have to have the traps with certain features on them if I remember correctly. I used to trap here in MA but they were banned years ago.

Coyote trapping is not ad easy as it looks...

Regular trapping course. Land trapping class for coyote. Soft catch traps under 6 inches in width. 6" chain length with plenty of swivels and spring to soften lunges. Anchored securely ( either double staked or Earth anchors). But, trapping is much more effective than hunting, especially here in the east where you may never see the dog come in to the call. They work 24/7.

Trapping without a doubt. Hunting maybe a few coyotes in a season. Trapping your limited by how many traps you set and works 24-7. That being said trapping has regulations to follow and specific traps to use, you willmlearn in class. The coyote land class is required to set traps on dry land otherwise you have to set in water which is much harder for coyotes. The Land trapping requires 10 acres min btw. Trapping will be effective but has to be done each year. Otherwise new coyotes move into vacant spots where trapped yotes were before. Coyotes = big problem. At least state allows some options to deal with it. Hardly easy solutions but at least something.

I'll disagree about trapping. For dirt hole land set basically dig hole and cover with dirt. Not much skill. Not much patience. Set and move on. Regulations are no more then shooting with rifle. For cost. Combine e caller, rifle to traps I would say cheaper. Main issue is you have to check sets every day. Commit to checking your traps. Rain or shine sun or snow every single day. Sometimes sucks to check when weather is off and have to go to work but way, way more effective for removing coyotes. I have done both and traps have the volume with enough sets.

"I'll disagree about trapping. For dirt hole land set basically dig hole and cover with dirt. Not much skill. Not much patience. " I would imagine that a guy with that perspective has caught very few coyotes in traps.

If you dig a hole and then cover it back up with dirt, does it still count as a hole? ; )

Nature that's a land set for coyote and it's in the second part of the trapping coarse.

Yes. I was just kidding.... Similar philosophical question to the old "if a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around, does it make a sound?"

Tyler; I'm a Granby, East Granby guy too. Makes sure there aren't neighborhood dogs running near your sets. We don't want any bad outcomes and Granby is over run with PETA's

No, that's the dog owner's responsibility to keep their dog under control. How the hell is he supposed to make sure the neighborhood dogs are not running wild? Set legal traps and release any dogs as needed, or call animal control and let the owner get fined.

I have had my buddy's birddog get caught in a padded foot hole....I think it is tougher on him...the dog was fine once we freed her....

That would be a tricky one to explain to the neighbors (even though it's my property)! I'm going to put a little more effort into calling and hunting and see how it goes. If the state really wanted us to have more of an impact, I would think they'd allow night hunting like some of our neighboring states.

Can someone provide the best shotgun load for coyotes and how to set call and set up? Early morning? Any time? Decoys? I might want to give it a try while hiking.

Bob, the best advice I could give you is to go to predatormasters.com. Those guys know what the hell they're doing. Of course, every state other than ours has better laws, but lots of info there.

I like black cloud 3 inch BB shells. I also use federal #2's that work well but not sure where to get em. I got them from my brother in law and i never see them for sale anywhere. Most of the yotes ive got ( which aint many) were with the black clouds and 40 yds and less there awesome. Also took 2 with a .17 wmr.

I didnt think yotes lived for 16yrs..oooooooo

TPB - I just finished listening to a podcast about predator impacts on deer. Very interesting info. They talked about various tracking studies for fawns and coyotes. Turns out coyotes often roam more than 100 miles in a matter of days, (a couple in the study roamed more than 200), so killing one on your property today doesn't guarantee there won't be a new one there tomorrow from the next state over. While it might seem like shooting coyotes is doing the deer population a solid, the study showed that extensive hunting and trapping had almost no effect on fawn survival. The best way to promote fawn survival is by creating better fawning cover. The analogy they used was that if you can toss a basketball and still see it, it is not in effective fawning cover. Fawns need acres of cover waist high in order to survive. So if the intent of this thread is to ultimately promote fawn survival, your time is much better spent creating habitat as opposed to killing coyotes. Hinge cutting, clear cutting and controlled burns that allow more sunlight to hit the ground were the techniques that were found to be the most effective.

N8.....kill every coyote you can. And smile when you see a road killed one too. Every coyote killed from now till June effectively saves fawns born this year. Kill every one.

Blood trail - If you want to save fawns, create better habitat for them. If you want to kill coyotes, go for it, but science says doing so won't make a significant impact on fawn survival.

From qdma "The results of recent coyote research agree that coyotes can affect deer populations through fawn predation, although the magnitude of the effect differs from one location to another." Conn deep results "fawn mortality results from 2015. Using vaginal transmitters inserted into a doe sample they tagged 28 healthy fawns within 24 hours after birth. Only 3 survive as of today. One killed by hunting. 24 killed by predators. This study was conducted to identify why the herd was crashing in the NW corner of CT. Bears were about 1/3 bobcats were 1/3 and coyotes were 1/3. Every location is diffrent. Bears are not a significant predator in shoreline conn. So removing coyotes is an effective option there. Of course beter habitat is also an option but much of conn is mature forest which lacks secure fawn bedding and exposes fawns to predation. Good luck getting people to approve large c,earcuts in conn woods. So about only option is remove coyotes. And yes it needs to be an annual ritual to be effective because wandering coyotes always replace the removed ones with in a year or two.

I read that same study, Oneeye, and I agree that in order to be effective, you need to trap/kill coyotes year round, especially in May before the does drop their fawns. But even if we somehow managed to wipe out all of the coyotes in CT, 2/3 of the fawn predators would still remain according to this study (except for fewer bears along the shoreline), and within a year, the coyotes numbers would be right back since many of them tend to be wanderers. From what I have read, the most effective way to increase fawn survival is by giving them more cover to hide in. Limiting doe harvest wouldn't hurt either.

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