He hasn’t been missing any meals

In my book, killing one coyote carries the same point value as killing five hogs.

Killing a female coyote calls for a beer or 12.

Had one after my chickens this morning, wish I could have gotten a shot on him.

That’s a big one!

Looks like a big 'Ol East Texas 'Yote'.

Nearly all of mine look like that.

The ones we had in the Tularosa Basin of New Mexico were mostly little fellas, not much bigger than the desert foxes.

I don’t shoot them. I know that they prey on deer but, since I now have a helluva lot more pigs than deer, I figure they are my only ally. Nor do I allow anybody who visits to shoot them.

That is crazy. They are fawn and yearling killers.

Most definitely. Studies have found that coyotes are responsible for 90% of fawn mortality in areas where they live. In other words, if you have coyotes, 9 out of every 10 fawns that don't make it were killed and eaten by coyotes. Or more simply put, there are fawn killing machines.

As for feral hogs, my approach has always been to kill the producing sows and let the coyotes I never see and other predators work on their young.

Pigs and Yotes always at first sight. No matter what time of year or day.

Shoot every dang one of them!

The highest density of yotes I’ve ever seen was Webb county, it’s also top 3 BC entry county in Texas….. maybe they are doing what most people won’t and controlling carrying capacity densities in a good way.

Been thinking that way for many years now.

It makes sense when you think about it.

The yote culling studies down there are pretty interesting. Virtually ineffective due to such high dispersal once a dominate pack is removed. Add in it’s not like west where aerial gunning is very effective and you have pretty limited legal removal means.

That's an interesting perspective.

It would be number one if they were shooting and trapping coyotes.......

How legally effective can you be with 5 strand fence at truley controlling them.

You and I have one off about it before. Webb is crazy with yotes and I think it helps and you do too . But take Pecos and mule deer that typically has lower fawn recruitment in general and I think it crushes the MD.

So which fawns are these selective yotes killing? Which rutted down mature bucks are they killing? I'll wait for your answers. To many coyotes is never a good thing. They are not selective. Most people are to lazy to manage their place so they use the coyote as a crutch to keep numbers down for them. A coyote is never selective...remember that statement next time you pass one.

There is no discrimination, just best opportunity, with that said best habitat that provides the most tonnage will be the one that is continually under utilized. The fawn predation will be exponentially higher than adult predation. Fawn predation has greater effect on overall herd health than the vastly smaller number randomized post prime adults.

I’m not saying don’t shoot yotes, I’m saying if you arent intensely managing herd and predator numbers all around, the random inefficiency of occasionally shooting yotes doesn’t do much, and in some instances helping you

Let’s be honest when it comes to you , you are the anomaly in management. There may be 1-2 other people out of 85k on this forum that have the time and resources to actually manage habitats and herd like you do. It’s your life. What you do 365 days a year. Most ranchers don’t even put much effort in yotes. If they did Webb of all places would be void of them.

And Webb county is still a 3 buck county.

I know of a 800 acre HF place in Webb County that had a horrible fawn crop for years....I am talking 5% to 10%...10% was a great year for them. They ranch a small cow/calf herd also. Their total deer herd numbers were starting to decline even with limited hunting pressure due to lack of fawn crops. IIRC their ratio was 1:2 bucks/doe. They started snaring coyotes and went after them hard everyday for 2 yrs. After two year they averaged 1 coyote per day in snares...so over 700 coyotes off of 800 acres that was surrounded by a couple of larger ranches and some smaller ranchitos. Their fawn numbers went from 10% on a great year to 80%-90% per year for two years. They now were overwhelmed with huge fawn crops and lot of deer had to be killed just remain at their target numbers. They were struggling with have to kill more deer than they had tags for...no MLD. What did they do..they stopped snaring and within a couple of years fawn crops went back down to where they had been. They went back to shooting all they could and doing selective snaring from late Jan till Juneish. You will never kill coyotes down to where you have none in South Texas. I know of a very large ranch in Panhandle that flew a helicopter for 5 days and killed over 1500 coyotes on 100+k acres....the next year they could not tell they had put a dent in them. They had light deer numbers to begin with but there problem was with livestock predation.

It's a constant battle. You can shoot 75% of them off a place in a single day and without taking any additional numbers during the year, you will be right back where you started at the end of the year.

Best time to get after them is late March.

I shoot them, I trap them. I snare them. I do things that some may think is not legal to kill them. But there are always more. You folks that think they are a great tool at wildlife management are kidding yourselves and looking like fools.

Look like fools? You mean comparing freerange deer to goat pens?

Free range Deer management isn’t goat pens. I see why you think that and continue to allude to it but it is a very narrow scoped view. You don’t have an over population of goats, you just take them to the sale. If you didn’t cull them year to year annuli growth would be significantly impacted if you weren’t doing serious supplementation. Only way for you to maintain a health herd would be predator if younger mouths.

No body said it was a great management tool, just it takes up alot of slack in population control of deer.

The Webb county example has been pretty consistent over decades. As long as yote populations are high something is supporting it. Been that way for decades in Webb and it still produces giants.

Grand reality is very few places are managed the way you think and way STXranchman actually does

I’ve had to put down several cows and heifers that had a calf get hung up and yotes got on them or yotes pulled or got to the calf and ate it. I have no love for yotes, but only a fool thinks you and go shoot a few yotes from the truck and call it yote management.

Pretty much the theme. Ranch south of mine on TX side of Panhandle that flies every year in spring. Pretty consistent y2y yote numbers. Ranch is too big to run snares ethically or economically. We can’t file around my place due to state law.

Pretty much have in hand, stop deer dispersal better stop your predator dispersal in

I think of coyotes like I do raccoons...it is not a one day or one week or one month and done deal. Year round. It is 24/7/365 for all predators and when you are catching them or seeing sign then you are down close to where they need to b. Then you continue to work on them forever. What you have to hope for is all of your neighbors and all of their neighbors are on the same page. Think back to the old days of sheep and goats in the Hill Country, SW and Trans Pecos regions and what where coyote numbers like then compared to today? Everyone one was on the same page since they had a large stake in the kitty. Starting in March is to late. Yesterday was the time to start, because IME if you wait till March you will come up with some other reason why you should wait till April....then in April you will just wait till next year..... The way I view coyotes is do I want them to make a decision on how many deer to shoot this year or do I want coyotes to work them over then leave me the leftovers to manage in the years to come? I want to make as many decisions as I can not a coyote.

They were also no regulations on means of take. We are over protective of bycatch to go back to those methods. Same issue in Idaho. Unrestrict means and wolf is gone again.

If mason/Gillespie county has same yote population as Webb what do you think deer weights would be?


No body want yotes to make the decision but that’s because you are 100x more hands on the 99% of ranches

So now let me understand this..... coyotes improve habitat?

Can if taking mouths off. Why is it every time we culled 80 -100 does off 3k acres weights grew steady for three or 4 years

So what you are saying is coyotes crap browse and forb seeds? Cause that is what they would have to do in my part of Gillespie County if we let coyotes walk. Why did you quit culling does then if it worked so well? What was the habitat like? Why not let coyotes take over in Concho since you are over run with deer......wait they will crap browse/forb seeds to replenish the habitat. Let me know how that works.

Ranch was broken up by heirs. Went from no browse line to back to browse line with in 4 years.

We produce a few 190-200lb bucks on the hoof almost every year, and don’t supplement. We have sparse density compared to habitat caring capacity. We don’t snare, trap or aerial coyotes on 10k acres , and I’m guessing it’s about the same for about 30k around us. Might be 5 yotes taken each year.

Deer numbers are just that deer numbers. anytime you take excessive mouths off the habitat, there is more food left for other. Wether we do that via gun or predation it’s still removing mouths.

No paint rocks has ton of yotes but not to any degree of webb. Sheep all around us

Mason the ranch was broken up by heirs or they would still do heavy doe culling

BoBo, sometimes you need to put your brain in gear before you put your mouth in motion.

Oh by all means please explain what I have wrong? Correct my ignorance

I feel like I am Bobo - seem to have lost something here.

Paint rock, mason and webb are conversation examples unique and direct to Steve and I’s past/current conversations and history. They are places steve and I have bounced thoughts/theories back and forth on for over a decade.. they arent relative to anything Don would have input on.

All I was saying above is PR and Webb have very high yote populations respectively, with webb leading. Webb also has better habitat and carrying capacity then PR thus higher densities of deer and yotes. Mason has less yote density then both and has higher deer numbers but much lower health, thus why heavy culling years have had such a direct influence on weights on the Mason deer.

Don is just interjecting domestic goat/ag management into a wild life conversations, with no real idea what he is talking about, other then yote predation costs him thousands of dollars in Ibex sales. its understandable why his thoughts are what they are. He has a closed ibex herd with no free range dispersal into or from. Thus why he HAS to supplement feed, no needs to has too.

Most people don't or wont compensate for those extra mouths being added if magically their hunting ground stopped having predation tomorrow. Lets be honest unless a ranch is MLD, majority are not currently in any scientific perceptive probably managing a herd. Thats my whole premise on yotes and deer. Would Webb be more similar to Hill country deer size if predation was removed? probably

True yote removal/management is same as hogs. its a 365 day a year war. Or enclosure that highly limits incoming dispersal such as HF w/snares etc.

I love calling yotes, and I hate yotes on the land scape, but I have no illusions to what part they play and what management of them truly means.

Solid take Bobo !

STX wants to bring up about coyotes not being selective. They relish opportunity which typically will lead them to weaker ones in the herd. Tired, worn out bucks may well end up getting taken out and so will fawns with the best genes (both collateral damage), but coyotes may do a better job than many of the hunters out there. One thing is certain, if you do not take out numbers and keep deer densities in check, coyotes could well to be to the overall benefit of increasing available forage which should result in a higher deer quality for those which do survive.

Eat 'em or feed 'em I will always say.

yelp. STX is also the guy that finds the exception in a 2.5 year old age class and uses him as the culling bar. How many people can say they are truly managing for the exception and culling in that low of an age class. STX is the true wolf thus why he doesnt need or tolerate a yote. He is at a pinnacle level of management plans

You and BoBo both remind me of a few supposedly really smart folks I know. At least according to themselves. They talk a good story but don't have the sense to poor piss out of a boot.

I get to hunt a decent sized place with lots of space per hunter. It is a wonderful ranch, but we have some constraints to deal with. It has gotten better over the years with MLD and the owner's increased trust. 8 hunters and with each having to take on whatever is required to hopefully "manage" a little over 650 acres (per man). Multiply that out and you come up with quite a lot. Each pasture has had an allotment of deer to shoot and unfortunately, it doesn't always get done. Klappenbach is good, Cuz is good, and until this year, I have been good at taking appropriate numbers off the place. That leaves quite a few others. Some of them would prefer to shoot a coyote over a mgt deer. What they do in their pasture has an effect on me. If they don't take their numbers, it pushes deer into my area. That's the way it works.

For years, Klappenbach and myself have been culling from a bottom up mentality. The theory is to take out the ugliest and you end up seeing a lot of pretty. It has worked well. We our allowed to take 7 points or less at 3 1/2, eights at 4 1/2 and anything goes if under 150 B&C at 5 1/2. I believe we have intentionally shot only a handful of 3 1/2 year old deer over the past decade. No spikes (not allowed). This year was exceptionally harsh. Numbers were down. Range conditions were good and mature deer were hard to find. Even so, we were allotted 8 deer apiece or 64 in total. This ended up being too high a number as does were not around either. Even so, I believe 25 deer have come off the pasture. Plain & simple, that's not enough.

I hunt with some wonderful folks. We do spend a lot of time down there, but in reality, we are weekend warriors - not ol' salts living on their place and whose job it is to do everything necessary for the continued success of their operation. Coyotes can be of help to "no sense can't poor piss out of a boot" folks in my position and who think about their positioning.

Hunting Cass county in 1987 while sitting in my tripod thought I saw a big German Shepherd about 100 yards out, when I realized it was a huge coyote I could not get my gun on it quick enough.

So you cant actually counter anything I said. Got it, might check your own boots first…

Forget the deer. Kill all the yotes and what is going to keep the mice, rats and rabbits in check?

Hawks, falcons, owls.....snakes....skunks.....should I continue?

well tie me down to an ant hill and butter my ears with jam.

plus you will never kill all the yotes ...

I suspect it's the mice and rats that help keep the coyotes going outside of fawning season. Plenty of smaller predators to keep the rodents in check.

I kill every coyote I can. The only time they might get a pass is if I am mulie or elk hunting AND I think a buck or bull may be close.