I found this buck when I was out at an area where I hunt.

It always bums me out when I find a nice buck dead that would've been a real contender come fall.

Do you know what killed him?

A couple years back and about 3 days after the rifle season.

Not supposed to pick these up, but it was gone the next day.

This happens way to often here in NY and PA. The archery guys leave a few, then more are added during the gun season. Been this way for a long time.

No I don't. I have noticed, or at least it seems to me, that there's a lot more coyotes around than in years past.

coyotes take the blame for lots of stuff.....

Yes, and quite a bit of it is deserved. That said, coyotes have to eat to, and they are not very picky about what the next meal will be.

We keep shooting coyotes and more keep popping up. Its like whack a mole. If a guy has time, investing in a caller and spending time chasing coyotes can only help the deer populations.

Other than fawns, most of what they eat was dead from cars/hunters already. A yote isn't taking down a healthy mature buck without lots of help.

Each fall Cookie spends around 3 weeks chasing deer with her cameras. Over that duration one becomes familiar with several animals exhibiting distinguishing characteristics, and begins to notice injuries affecting their ability to get around. Any sort of a gimp, and that animal us usually gone in a few days.

This past fall there was an injured fawn that coyotes singled out for pursuit in three instances that we witnessed. It stayed near a small river, and would run into knee deep water when the coyotes gave chase. The dogs seemed unwilling to take it on in the water. It too eventually disappeared, and we subsequently noticed birds working a thicket on nearby ground we could not access.

The coyotes for sure hit newborns, but if they notice any sign of weakness at other times, it most certainly gets their attention.

You might run a metal detector and find a bullet nearby.

We hang treble hooks with a steel leader from trees about 4 feet off the ground. Bait with hamburger. We catch quite a few that way. Anyone ever tried that?

Yep they eat about anything. Generally they can't or won't get deer here unless they are compromised. Even then I see compromised deer that never get taken down.

In our area they get tons of blame and actually kill very few deer. Vehicles take many many more deer in our area.

YMMV.

Killed a 200 lb pig Sunday, went back yesterday. There isn't a piece of pig anywhere. I couldn't see any drag marks, no sign of ground disturbance anywhere. It like he was never there.

We have been getting some BIG coyotes around here for quite some time. Not getting into what is or isn't, but when you're seeing and killing coyotes nearly twice the size of 20yrs ago, something is up and they're more physically capable than previously.

We had a problem with Coy/Dogs where I lived and they even attacked a good sized calf once. I have seen Coyotes running full grown deer in the hill country. In some areas we have some that have a fair amount of Red Wolf genes in them and these bigger ones will take down mature deer when they can. I have seen these in both East and South Texas.

See that here with fawns and yearling deer. All meat and bones consumed or at least hauled away.

Very effective. Illegal in New Mexico

In Franklin county Texas where I live there are some big Coyotes I've seen that I wondered if they had some Red Wolf in the woodshed.
I killed a very heavy coyote in 2015 that I did a double take before I shot because I thought it was a maybe a dog. I wished now I would have weighed it. The fur is shorter than most coyotes.

This is a method used by the local Mennonites to catch coyotes. It will also catch a neighbors dog. This is a very populated area, and the reason the Mennonites are doing it is to sell the fur, even though it's not worth fooling with. I've turned several in to the game warden when I found out what they were doing, and I've warned a bunch more that if I hear of them doing it, I'll turn them in also. If I lived on a 10,000 acre ranch and was having problems with coyotes, I'd have no problem using whatever method I could to control them, including this one. But, this is not the wide open West, it's country where you can look across the field and see your nearest neighbor. There is not a problem with coyotes being so plentiful that they need to be controlled with methods such as the fish hooks. There was an instance where a hunters bird dog got caught on one of these hooks, while they were out quail hunting. The Mennonites did not have permission to even be on the farm, but did it anyway.

I agree. Who's worse, the coyotes or man?

I'm calling BS on this.





P

1Minute,

Hope all is well in the B/H neighborhood.

I know about being able to differentiate deer after observing them for a while. Where I live we have a doe I have nicknamed "Gimpy". If I see her again this year she's been around for at least 4 maybe 5 seasons. She comes down into our housing area to eat and maybe to water at the river too. Interesting thing, she heads back up toward the hill where the 'yotes have a den every year. She must still be able to giddee-up fairly well if they haven't gotten her yet (up till last fall at least).

I do know the coyotes will "test" an animal, we watched one push 4 deer off an island in the river once. I'm sure they get one every now and then, but not nearly as many as the lions around here get.

Geno

Might be part dog?

If you kept the fur you might be able to send a piece off for genetic analysis.

Geno

When I was conducting my first radio-tracking project with white-tailed deer in 1969-1970, we darted deer with an immobilizing drug and put radio collars on their necks. Most deer spent a little time (a few minutes to an hour or so) shaking their heads and getting used to the collar. However there were a few that would continue shaking their heads, and even bucking and jumping. If that behavior continued, the deer was always killed by coyotes within a day or so. Coyotes do notice abnormal behavior and will stay with a prey animal behaving abnormally that appears to be injured or sick. In my experience, they usually manage to kill them relatively quickly.

I've seen coyotes chase deer and fawns.

SIL called one day, you lost a fawn, while we were in AK. I said was it buck or doe? Don't know, coyote was chasing it when we got to the house. I laughed.

Told her that fawn was to old, she said no.

Came home 2 weeks later, took a picture of that particular doe and her single fawn and sent it to her.. she still says that couldn't be the same... LOL.

Just cause they chase doesn't mean anything.

Our big killer of fawns last year... floods...