I'm new to this forum but I've been popping coyotes more years than I probably should admit. Coyotes, in my opinion, are a fantastic animal and a more than worthy adversary. I read an interesting article on canine vision the other day that I think might change some of the ways I hunt.
Dogs, it turns out, are not as sharp eyed as we might have thought. What a human can see at 75' a dog has to get as close as 20' to make out clearly. That's in broad daylight, unfortunately. In conditions of reduced light they have a 4:1 advantage over us.
They aren't color blind either, not completely anyway. They have only 2 cones in their eyes while we have three. They can see violet, indigo, blue and possibly a bit of red; everything else shows up as various shades of gray. The problem is they are great at determining one gray from another and are really good at contrast.
Movement is their real ace in the hole. They can spot movement at half a mile from an object they would not notice at 600 yards. The chink in this armor is that they don't notice streaming video much - but, if it stops and starts they gotcha.
A few years ago I started setting up behind a short cammy screen with my electronic call about 75 yards away from me. It made a big difference in my opinion. Now I'm wondering if I could go to a more digitized pattern, like the USMC's utilities if that would help even more? Any of you tried it?
I see Utah has put the nobel yote on a bounty in some parts of the state. I doubt it will make much difference. I think there are more coyotes now than there were when I was a kid, in spite of better guns, faster bullets, electronics and mechanized decoys. I'm convinced that when humans no longer exist as a species on this planet, old brother coyote will have figured out how to take what's left of an environment and make it work for him. You don't see many states with a coyote restoration program like they have for the wolves I notice. They still amaze me after all these years.