Predator Call

Matt Martinez of Dallas, Texas passed away on March 13, 2009 after a lengthy battle with cancer.  Matt had been one of my closest hunting partners over the last ten years.  While most will remember Matt for his culinary skills, I will remember him for his quick witt and love of the great outdoors.  To my knowledge, he is the only world class chef who hunted coyotes.  He understood that it took more hunting skill to trick a coyote on his turf than to kill a monster buck from a blind.  He was patient and understood that hunting did not necessarily mean killing.  No matter how slow the hunting or brutal the weather, Matt would not complain. I had the honor to visit with Matt a few weeks ago.  Walking with the aid of a walker, Matt never mentioned that we might have hunted our last hunt, rather talked about how good the hunting would be next fall.  He was eternally optomistic and had a special way of making everyone around him feel you were important to him.  While I cherish the time we spent in the woods, it is the time we spent in camp that was most special to me. 

I hunted the open plains in New Mexico 8 days in January.  On three of those days, it was the quietest that I have ever seen it there.  I was almost afraid to turn on the electronic game caller at low volume as the sound seemed excessively loud.  In the past, I would have considered these to be excellent days but with only one coyote responding in three mornings, I have changed my mind.I feel that the reason for the lack of productivity is due to a couple of reasons.  One, as quite as it was you could hear the sound of a pickup driving on the ranch roads from miles away.  Since the ranch hands shoot at the coyotes from the trucks from time to time, the dogs keep track of where they are.  Even though we are hiding our truck and walking several hundred yards from them to make a call.  The coyotes did not want to go near the area where they last heard the truck noise.

Another reason that I feel the coyotes were inactive is a coyote feeds with his nose.  While he will use his eyes to see prey, he will not bite it until he tests it with his nose.  There was so little wind that I could not tell where the pressure was coming from.  When I looked at the Stick Tease (a turkey feather attached to a fiberglass rod) near the caller, I saw it move 360 degrees.  When a coyote cannot decide where to go to wind his prey, he is very nervous. 

On all three days, the wind decided where it would blow from around noon.  It was then that the coyotes started coming to my calls and hunting improved.

Too much grass is a problem that I rarely encounter when coyote hunting in Texas and New Mexico but this year is the exception.  While 2008 was not above average for precipitation, we did receive most all of our rain in August.  This late rain created a great situation for growing much needed grass going into the winter.  Since I was born and raised on a ranch, I am going to be the last person to complain about rain and especially too much grass.  Thought not complaining, I must say that the abundant tall grass greatly affected my animal calling this winter. 

The tall grass kept me from making a call in New Mexico when I was there in October and November.  It was not until I returned to the big ranch country in January that I was able to see a coyote in some areas.  I just returned from a ranch in North Texas where grass greatly impaired my ability to make a call where coyote sign was everywhere.  There were many occasions when we would stop the truck and walk into an area that from a distance looked fairly open, only to walk back to the truck without making a call.  When calling coyotes, it is better not to make a marginal call than make a call where the coyote has most of the advantages.  It is difficult enough to get a coyote up and kill him when the odds are stacked in your favor.

This last week, I received emails and text messages from some young hunters who had recently purchased Compucaller III’s.  One of the young fellows is from Mason and had just won a calling contest in Mason with 36 gray fox taken in 24 hours.  Another young gent from San Angelo won the Sonora hunt last weekend with 20 gray fox and a bobcat.  I met a couple of young hunters at Cleburne and sold them a Compucaller III.  They carried it to the field that evening and called up 5 coyotes, one cat and a fox on three stands.  The next night he hunted again and killed eight coyotes. 

It is great to see all of these young guys out there hunting instead of doing all of the things that get so many young folks in trouble.  Predator control costs taxpayers over $100 million annually and these young hunters kill predators at no expense to any one.  

Last spring, I had the opportunity to turkey hunt with Jon Allen, General Manager, Nikon Sport Optics.  We had a great time and a friendship developed almost immediately.  While hunting turkeys, Jon and I started talking about the virtues of the perfect predator calling riflescope.  A few months later at a Nikon Shoot in Kerrville, I met Jon LaCorte, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Nikon Sport Optics.  Over the next month or two, the two Jons and I visited on the specs of the predator calling scopes.  I was finally able to put my hands on one of three prototypes at the 2009 Shot Show in Orlando, Florida and brought the 3-9×40 Coyote Special in Mossy Oak home with me.

As soon as I returned to Texas, I mounted the scope on my Savage Model 10 Predator Hunter and went to the range.  The first shot impacted the target 2.5″ to the right and 1″ low.  Since the riflescope features precise hand-turn 1/4″ click adjustments, I moved it 10 clicks to the left and 8 clicks up.  The next shot cut the vertical line one inch above the bullseye.  I fired two more shots and that produced a .6″ group in spite of a 20 mile per hour crosswind.

The characteric that makes this scope different is the reticle.  Instead of the usual crosshairs, the vertical and horizontal lines are interrupted by a 3″ open circle.  With my .223 shooting one inch high at 100 yards, I simply put the target inside the circle and squeeze the trigger.  When we first began conversations about building a riflescope for calling predators, my primary concern was to develop a product that would reduce target acquisition time.  With this scope, you simply see the target area in the open circle and shoot, there is no need to find crosshairs or look for a dot.

Two weeks ago, I met up with a couple of buddies for a New Mexico coyote hunt.  We hunted three days and in spite of  30 plus per hour winds one afternoon, called in 30 coyotes.  The moon was full but did not seem to slow down the responses; if they heard the call, I think they came.  The bright nights did make the dogs very active at noon and early afternoon.  On two occasions, I had coyotes run over the caller and on three occasions, had them within 5 yards of me or the hunter. The COMPUCALLER III electronic game caller worked flawlessly.  Temperatures from 15 to 78 degrees did not seem to affect it’s ability to deliver a high quality sound that the coyotes could not resist.  We made an average of eleven stands per day, I never recharged the battery on the caller for the entire hunt.

I just returned from the 2009 Shot Show held in Orlando, Florida, though attendance appeared to be down, the enthusiasm of the crowd was not.  I spent most of my time with Savage Arms, Nikon Sport Optics and Mossy Oak, as you would expect, traffic was heavy at these booths.

There was interest in Savage’s newly introduced Accustock which will be standard on most of their bolt action models in a short time.  The Accustock is simply defined as a 3D aluminum block/rail that is molded into the synthetic stock creating an extra stiff foundation.  This system should really benefit the shooter who is using shooting sticks or a bipod.

The Coyote Special riflescope was the hot item in the Nikon Sport Optic booth according to the folks at Nikon.  I had a hand in the development of this scope, as I wanted a product that would help reduce target acquisition time.  After fifty years of shooting with crosshairs, this new aiming system will require a period of adjustment.

It seems that the interest in predator calling continues to grow.  I am sure that there are many reasons for this growth and another is a weak economy; predator and varmint hunting are inexpensive.

Paula, who had just purchased a COMPUCALLER III for her husband’s Christmas present, caught me after church yesterday morning.  “That caller I purchased is the best machine ever built or we have the dumbest foxes in the country.  Two nights ago, nine hunters loaded up in a pickup and drove down in the pasture.  We called twice and killed two foxes!” I responded, “Chances are it was a little of both, that is a really good electronic game caller and perhaps those were young foxes.”  It seems that when a young predator “locks on” to a sound that he/she thinks is an easy meal nothing else seems to bother them. 

Across most of the country, it is time to pull out the predator calls and begin calling critters.  While there are a few hunters who call predators year round where legal, most of us wait until it cools off and the brush and trees loose some foliage.  Most of the country that I hunt is covered with a very good turf of knee high grass, making it almost impossible to see a critter responding to a call.  As a rule, I like to wait until the first of January because the cattle graze the grass short enough to increase my visibility.Good luck and have a safe and productive hunting season,

Make your hunting trip more interesting by bringing along patented predator calls. The sport will seem so much easier if you use the calls, but they actually make the hunt more challenging too. Using the calls means you have to keep a watchful eye on what animal comes along.

You will need to be alert for any response to your call. And since these are small callers, they easily fit in the palm of your hand. Then you can easily slip them into your pocket as you await for any action.