Coyote population saturates Massachusetts

[mwalsh9152]

That is impressive. How big is your dog?

he's about 80lbs. Hes a Rotty Lab mix, his bark is about twice as big as he is.

That's crazy. What do you think drew them in?

Wish I knew. They have really been active hunting in the woods around me in the past few months. Right out my back door is a tract of land that runs parallel to the main road we live off of. Its long and somewhat narrow, probably several hundred acres. I hear them near, and far in both directions. They are obviously getting VERY bold though.

 

[HorizontalHunter]

Those east of 495 or around it have great deer populations. You have light hunting pressure, lots of pockets deer can live without being bothered.

Out in Central and Western Ma when coyotes came in about 20 years ago. The deer population is down. That is also due to allowing liberal doe permits and the incoming law of allowing two bucks a year. Plus expanding archery, muzzleloader and shotgun almost all at the same time. And killing all the deer in the quabbin which was a good sanctuary and carryover for the local area.

Out here most of the land is open, large blocks of mature woods which deer take many years to recover from over harvest.
It took 60 years for the quabbin to overpopulate. They knocked it down to area wide density in 3 years of hunting. Now its like hunting everywhere else around the area.

The insurance lobby loves it. Less deer car collisions. They shouldnt be managing wildlife though.

To build upon that we now have most hunters because they rarely see a deer. Shooting everything they see. The only positive is that with very low population you do get bigger bucks. But your lucky as heck to see one. Ive shot corker racked bucks over 200 pounds in very overpopulated areas of CT. Id rather have more deer.

Some of you guys see a few deer during a weeks hunt or see even one deer and kill it and say deer are plentiful. Thats a joke. Ive hunted areas in ct that your guaranteed to see 10-20 deer a day and the deer are nice and healthy. You get to watch them, pass as many as you want, pick out certain bucks and pass the little ones letting them grow.
Not kill the first one you see because thats all youll see all week.

Having too many coyotes ( I hear them in the back field at least one to two nights a week) is not helping our deer numbers. When I moved to my house years ago it was tough to see a coyote. Now, I could probably shoot one a week at night if we had a decent way of taking them. Bears and coyotes hammer fawns in the spring. We have plenty of both around and fish and game does not give us the tools to properly manage. Shooting at something in the dark with a .22 is NOT a way to take out coyotes, it's a recipe for an accident. Until we can take them in the dark with lighted or thermal topped real calibers, it's a no go for me, I feel I'm wasting my time.

Lots of truth in this post. Spot on.

I will add that I have hunted Quabbin since it opened missing only a year or two in this time. It is a deer ghost town at this point. The success rate has been lower that's the state wide average for the last few years. Current word for this season on the Prescott peninsula is that close to 300 hunters took 6 deer. (I'm basing the under number on last years numbers from the newsletter.) the number of deer harvested came from the Quabbin hunters Facebook page. I only heard one shot all morning. Pathetic. Terrible mismanagement of a public resource.

Bob

 

[swatgig]

He opposes the state’s policy of allowing coyotes to be hunted with relatively few restrictions.

I can see right now Jonathan and I are not going to be best buddies.

Maybe he believes there should be NO restrictions

 

[Point37]

https://www.northeastshooters.com/xen/threads/cat-vs-coyote.343598/

 

[mwalsh9152]

That's crazy. What do you think drew them in?

I just remembered this. Last night right before I went to bed my wife went to take the dog out, and brought him right back in because there was a deer standing at the edge of my yard in the trail leading into the woods. I assume that the rest of their herd of 4-5 were there as well. 5 hours later the yote's were at my back door. That is likely what brought drew them in.

 

[sbandit]

Went out this last Friday and Saturday. I had found some pretty new rubs and scrapes on Friday in my solo mission so I sat down with my little brother hoping this was going to be the day.

Saturday rolls around and he walked around the location of the scrapes and got into position on the opposite side about 400 yards up at a vatage point across a small swamp. I started to move in on the rubs and I got a grunt call at me. Excited I radioed him and warned him that something might come running. 15 minutes pass as I zig zag slowly towards his location and nothing. So we both sat and watched the area to see if his curiosity would get the best of him. When zig zagging I through 2 quick grunts as I walked so he likely was responding.

40 minutes pass and it's now getting closer to 9am. We hear a long grunt call from the location of the rubs. He's still here. I vocalize a simple doe bleat and again we hear a longer deeper grunt. I turn on the thermal scope to scan the area and I see nothing. 15 minutes later it happens. I see a mid sized grey coyote walking through the thick brush in a zig zag pattern almost the opposite of what I just did. I throw a bleat call and in 1 min a large blonde Coyote pops up right out of the bush next to us. Now me and my brother just sat there for 3 seconds in awe of how close it is and as soon as I make a move to raise the gun it ducks back into the brush. We no longer heard any grunts but this was only our first encounter of the day.

We decide to migrate to the other side of the conservation land and on the way we see a large grey one scurry across our direction in hot pursuit. Annoyed I suggest we head into the swamps. Once again awesome sign and much larger scrapes. Now we are 1 1/2 miles from the original location. Same process as last time and we start getting grunt calls returned. Pretty cool but once I did a doe bleat sure enough we see a small grey coyote and a half black one walking through the thicket staring us and moving quickly. 7 hrs on saturday and we saw zero deer, heard 2 and physically saw 5 different coyotes all in a 1 1/2 mile distance.

I spent a whole year scouting this area and found herds of deer at times. Now I can only find coyotes. sad day as there are 19 days left and we have no backup plan. Hunting zone 5 northern side.

 

[Wickedcoolname]

Ive seen coyotes around my place a few times, and i see their tracks just about everywhere in the woods around my place. I hear them quite a bit, but I rarely see them. I've seen way more bears at place then coyotes. Of course they aren't exactly sneaky. The bears will come right into the garden even if the wife and I are sitting out on the deck talking. They give zero shits.
Actually had a couple of bobcats recently.
I've got a flock of 18 wild turkeys that spend most of the day in my back yard. I'm surrounded by state forest on three sides and conservation land across the street, so I'm the only house around. I'm guessing they like my ant infested yard and the bird feeder scrounging.
I was watching them a couple of days ago when all of a sudden they took off flying and running. Most of them stayed up in the tall pines near the house and a few just hopped up on stumps and logs. A few seconds later a pair of bobcats came down the trail from the back yard. They didn't really chase the birds. They just sniffed the ground where they were. They only hung around for a couple of minutes then they just moved on.
I've seen one in the yard a couple of times, but I've never seen two together before. Pretty cool.

 

[HorizontalHunter]

Bobcats are very cool. It's super to see them together like that.

When it comes to coyotes kill them every chance you get. Thue eat a lot of fawns and they are really smart critters. They will rarely come in to the same call a second time.

Bob