# Shooting off the deck.



## sharpshooter_boss (Oct 26, 2005)

So, my friend has a farm in a long stretch of farmland sandwhiched in between almost straight virtical hills, and the wisconsin river bottoms. Some of the field are smaller, but most are longer and narrow. There are large brush rows in between all of the fields. His deck overlooks one of the larger fields, with a very large brush row about 300-350 yards out, running parallel with the river. We hear the coyotes every night in the river bottoms. I'm wondering if it would be productive to put a tape player with a bunny in distress tape in the middle of the field and lay on the deck and see what comes in. any thoughts? :sniper:


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## lyonch (Feb 26, 2006)

all you can do is try if it works great if it doesn't then it is another lesson to put in back of your mind.


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## DOGKILLR (Oct 9, 2006)

You can call them in pretty close to houses. I sat in the bushes in front of a friends house and called one into about 75 yds.


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## Kelly Hannan (Jan 9, 2007)

that area around you is full of Coyotes, I used to hunt not too far from you


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## sharpshooter_boss (Oct 26, 2005)

Where are u from? I'm new at this, mostly just do target shooting and a trip out to wyoming for prairie dogs a few times. Lookin to get pointers and such, fresh ideas, old tricks, where to sell fur around here, tube skining vs. selling the whole coyote, etc. any help would be great.


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## weasle414 (Dec 31, 2006)

I, personally, think it would work. Is it legal to hunt from decks, though? I always thought you had to be like 200 feet from a house or something like that. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I grew up thinking that hunting is done in the wilderness, not from the comfort of a lawn chair on a deck.


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## Kelly Hannan (Jan 9, 2007)

I think you have to have permission to be within a certain distance from a inhabbited dwelling. Since your buddy will be with you, and it is on private property, I think it would be ok


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## sharpshooter_boss (Oct 26, 2005)

> I, personally, think it would work. Is it legal to hunt from decks, though? I always thought you had to be like 200 feet from a house or something like that. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I grew up thinking that hunting is done in the wilderness, not from the comfort of a lawn chair on a deck.


Yes, it's legal. I was just getting an opinion on the general layout. The house next door is his grandfathers, who is going to be out there with us, and the next neighbor down is almost a half mile. Like I said, its a long stretch of farmland located between a long vertical hill that runs for almost 5 miles, and the river bottoms. all of the farms are in a line down the one road. I'm thinking of shooting off the deck like a shooting platform, so i can work on my distance shooting. and its still cold out, and u still have to call them in, so to me its still hunting. its definately not a highly populated region, so there would be no danger to anyone.


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## Kelly Hannan (Jan 9, 2007)

sounds like fun, let me know how it turns out


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## sharpshooter_boss (Oct 26, 2005)

Will do. I'm actually gonna go hit a few different stands in about half an hour here. I'll let yall know how the newbie did.


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## sharpshooter_boss (Oct 26, 2005)

So...the newbie REALLY sucked today. lol Wow, not a single dog even came in. I saw tracks right away when I came in, btu they were right down the middle of the access road. and then they just plain disapeared. lol Sat in 3 stands on one property, didn't see anything other than about a dozen turkeys. Went on the public land by the river later and didn't see anything PERIOD. no birds, no rabbits, but there were tons of fox tracks. I'm left wondering where everything else is. Gonna see if my buddy doesn't want to try the deck tonight around dusk, maybe shine a red spotlight. I just want to shoot something at this point. :beer:


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## Kelly Hannan (Jan 9, 2007)

LOL, it will happen. I am surprised you didn't get a fox to come. What type of call did you use? How did you use it? How did you set up?


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## sharpshooter_boss (Oct 26, 2005)

K, so when I was at the local liquer/gun shop looking at calls, they were pretty much cleared out of stuff and getting ready for spring turkey, so there was very little to choose from. I bought a Primos "still jackrabbit", cause it was literally the only mouth call they had. I have a cotton tail tape at home, so i listened to that for tone, but it plays the same thing over and over again with no breaks. So I went to someone's how-to website and they had an indepth thing to call sequence. Ok, here;s the call sequence i used this morning : I waited about 5 minutes after getting to my spot, and then let out about 30 seconds of moaning wails as quietly as i could muffle, but so they could still be heard. waited about a minute. blew soft wail sequence for 30 seconds without muffling, waited a minute. blew louder more urgent wails for 30 seconds, waited 2 minutes (give or take) then blew a scramble for about 45 seconds, waited 5 minutes. did the whole thing over again when i wasn't seeing anything. I did this at every stand. Each stand took around 30 minutes or so. The first stand i hunted was a large draw. Um, there is a smaller draw that goes downhill alongside the dirt road for about 100 yards, and then it joins another larger draw like an upside down y. this large draw winds around the side of a hill and leads up to a huge tall grass field on the top. there are woods joined at either side on the top of the draw. I sat in my deer stand at the top, cause i've shot a few coyotes out of this stand before when driving for deer. nothin. i did this one first, and came back to it and called again when i was done with the other two spots. the next stand was a clear cut for highwires, and the next one was an open grass field with surrounded by woods, with a few smaller draws coming up into the woods right at the fields edge. And then the public property was all flat frozen swamp. I called a few marsh grass neadows if u could call them that. sat in the woods and called. walked up and down the river aways and sat and called. nothin help? lol


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## Kelly Hannan (Jan 9, 2007)

sounds like you were doing everything right. make sure your not walking into your stands where the coyotes might be laying. I use mostly cottantail distress, and I really don't worry about volume. I might spook a couple, but my opinion is that the rabbit is going to be loud everytime. He doesn't start off quiet and get louder. When I go out I will start close to the road and work my way farther in, about 1/4 - 1/2 mile apart for sets. Sometimes a coyote won't come if he too far away and sometimes it doesn't matter, if he hears you he will come. It may have been a bad day, give a couple days and try again. It will happen soon, your in a good area and sounds like your doing it right. Try a little higher pitched call, or maybe the tape. When I use my e-call I just let it play I don't stop it. Make your mouth call sound exciting, because the rabbit is going to die if he doesn't get away. Good Luck


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## SHA (Feb 11, 2007)

From what i've been told and it does seem rational, a distress call is always loud. An animal in distress is not going to whisper their pain. But everybody is taught with deer to do soft tending grunts at first so not to spook deer close by. and then get louder to pull deer farther away in. Being a newbie coyote hunter, just regurigating what i've heard.

As towards the shooting from a deck or in this case from an inhabitated dwelling. Where I am from there are two legal jurisdictions. One is the gaming laws, which 100 yards from an occupied dwelling. The second is the local ordinance for the discharge of a firearms or type of firearms. In both cases permission of the owner is all that is needed. Unless its within 500 yards of a school. Another local ordinace is the discharge of a ordinance at a range (including a back yard permited home range) only within certain approved hours of the day.


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## bighands (Dec 12, 2005)

I called in 3 coyotes off our deck the day before Christmas with a mouth call and shot 1 of them. My son called 2 from right behind our house and shot 1 of them another day. We have also shot a few that were called in from friends houses or very close to them. Check to see if it is legal first and you might be suprised how good it works. Also if you have any close neighbors, you might want to let them know what you're doing so they don't call the cops.


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## neb_bo (Feb 3, 2007)

now i dont know personaly  , but i here you can clean out every stray cat in the area by calling off your porch. :sniper:


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## SHA (Feb 11, 2007)

i like how nebo uses legalese of " I do not know, but i hear you can ..." wonder if he runs stray cat sprint races out of his back yard at night.


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## fingerz42 (Aug 13, 2006)

SHA, the low calling volume for distress animals isnt to emulate a quiet distressed animal, its just to keep from blowing a coyote out of there if he is too close and you come calling to loud.. If you start with a short series at a lower volume, it wont terrify that yote thats sitting 50 yards away in that thick cover. You come in there and SCREAM on that distress call, he may come in or he may bolt off thinking its big foot. Thats why people usually start with a soft call then build up to loud.


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## SHA (Feb 11, 2007)

finger42 i think we are saying the same thing. or maybe not............but like I stated I was regurgitating what I had heard............and this is why i figured it was rational. I understand the point of it not being "emulating a quiet distressed animal". My point is the theory I heard was that an animal in distress makes their distress as a certain decibel level. A predator like coyote can hear a long distance and also locate. The rational is that the first call will be at that same decibel level. So if the level is lower than lifelike at a distance of 50 yards, then it'll will seem artificial. Or are you saying lower level than normal so that a coyote at 50 yards away will think you are 100 yards away?

And another rational is that a distressed animal's highest decibel levels will be when first attacked and more full of life, than its last calls when its weakened and near death. So the first distress calls have to have a higher decibel level (lifelike level) at first and then get lower.

so are we saying that your first call in a series should be at the lifelike level for your target area (50 yards in your case) and wane down over the series of calls. and if you are then going to move your target audience further out, then your volume goes up in the next series of calls and again wanes down?


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## Fallguy (Jan 23, 2004)

SHA

A lot of variables and "what ifs" in your last post. Lots of good thoughts there though. :thumb:

I can make this comment though. If I have a coyote in sight, I like to use a very quiet distress call. So the coyote can barely hear it. Start soft and if they don't respond then gradually build your sound. The last 4 coyotes this season that I got shots at I was able to see anywhere between 400-700 yards out. One of those coyotes was aways out and I distressed loudly and he charged in very hard. I wasn't able to stop that coyote. The other 3 I did my coaxing (soft calling) and it seemed like they came in at a more manageable speed. This could maybe be due to their individual nature, but I think the strategy of keeping them curious works well.


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## MossyMO (Feb 12, 2004)




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## SHA (Feb 11, 2007)

Fallguy thanks for the insite. Yeah, at this point I have way too many "what if's?" But I showed some restraint, what if the coyote is blind in his left eye and deaf in his right ear,you approach from his left or his right? lol.

So would you say the loud distress call inwhich the coyote broke hard, was because he had no doubt about the call; so charged. And the soft calls peaked the coyote's interests, so they just came closer to further discern what the call was about? 400 to 700 yards - i can see why there is so much discussion on flat trajectories and scope powers.

And yes you are absolutely correct about their individual nature's, I know have to realize that generalizations do not work always on an individual highly instinctive animal.

And MossyMO's picture is absolutely hilarious. I heard the scope manufacturers now changing their scope specs.........Fog proof is no longer any good.........the new specification is "hot tub steam proof".

But MossyMO, after this week's news; the setup is missing one thing . Where is your QUIZNOS sign?


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## SHA (Feb 11, 2007)

Here is the link to the Quiznos loving coyote

http://wn.whdh.com/global/video/pop.../news/articles/national/BO47985/&rnd=45762243


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## Bo (Aug 16, 2006)

hell yea try it.


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