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House interior is getting painted so I decided to head to the woods to see what was going on.

All the forest service access trails are chest high in grass, blackberries and every other imaginable thing. Even though I waded through this stuff for the better part of a mile tearing up my legs, I got not a single tick. Got no ticks at all in 2022 save one during spring squirrel season.


If turkeys eat Japanese Beetles, then they have plenty of food, whatever this weed is had beetles all over them.


Lots of deer, turkey and coyote tracks. It rained last night and the ground was a little sticky. I think these tracks are from this morning.

Coyote track and a Glock 17 for scale. We don't have a dedicated coyote season here. But you can take them whenever something else is in season.








Three hens flushed out of this stuff. Two flew one way, one the other. They weren't more than 10 feet off the trail.


Didn't see any evidence of polts.

Nice pics !!!

Looks like you're in the right place.

I've never hunted coyote before. But I am tempted to get an electronic caller and give it a whirl.

Our coyote law:

Continuous open season except on National Forest lands and Department lands. Coyote hunting on National Forest lands and Department lands is permitted from September 1 through March 10 and during the spring turkey season. Coyotes may also be hunted on Department lands during the spring squirrel season unless otherwise posted (see list of open areas).

Deer and turkey are why I started coyote hunting decades ago. Although I doubt the amount of coyotes I've taken out has really helped the deer and turkey populations, but it made me feel better. And it can be pretty challenging. Hunt predators long enough and you begin to wonder how prey animals stay alive. One quick tip, try to set up so you can watch your downwind side too...

If you have coyotes you probably call some during turkey season.

I used to see them at a place I hunted a few counties south of here, back in the 80s and 90s, when people swore there were no coyotes in Virginia. Now I see them quite a bit on the Yorktown Battlefield, around Walmart and Sam's Club, and other places. Richmond Virginia media has reported that the city is crawling with them at night. But I've never seen one here at the location in the pictures above. But I know they're there. I see their foot prints, and come across their feather/fur infused turds. So there is an opportunity to actually hunt them here. I'm pretty sure few do, other than landowners shooting them.

While hunting anything else with a rifle larger than .22 in this county is prohibited, rifles larger than .22 are legal for groundhogs and coyotes. Night hunting with lights or night vision is also legal as long as it's not general deer season.

I've never hunted them before. I may give it a try come September. With the rolling terrain and large clear cuts, there would be opportunities for some long shots.

The FoxPro Patriot is a great caller for a decent price. Make sure to get the electronic decoy, too. I think it's called a Fox Jack or something similar.

Long shots and rimfires for coyotes is a bad idea. Since you are centerfire restricted, use your 12 gauge turkey shotgun and get set up in cover and call them within forty yards and shoot them in the face. It is far more effective and more exciting to boot.

In this county, we can hunt coyotes and groundhogs with rifles larger than .22. But I was thinking a 12gauge as well. A 3.5" load of #4 buck would do the trick.

I was reading a Virginia DWR article. Virginia is one of the last US states to be colonized by coyotes migrating in from the north and south. The writer essentially said that it is unclear if coyotes in Virginia are causing a decline in deer populations. (We've got more deer in Virginia now then ever before, with some northern Virginia counties allowing unlimited yearly harvests.) But he did say, at this point, controlling coyotoes on an agency and hunting level is now impossible. Apparently they are here to stay, they can't be eliminated, and even if the population is reduced significantly, they can rebound in a single year. I know in Powhatan County, coyotoes are thick and there was a semi-recent news broadcast about cattle farms loosing calfs to them. Apparently, hunters can't shoot enough of them. And some of them are large, having a significant amount of Eastern Wolf DNA in them.

I've never tried to substantiate this, so take it with a grain of salt. If you call in multiple yotes and can tell the alpha, don't shoot it! The alpha's control the breeding and if you take it out, they'll breed like crazy until a new alpha is established. It kinda makes sense to me, but as I said, I've never tried to substantiate the claim. In northern central Wisconsin, more than once, I've had many yotes respond and come in on the run to my late winter calling. Which I'm sure has more to do with their hunger than my calling, lol! But in those instances, it was pretty easy to see which one was calling the shots for the pack.

In order to control the population it is required to kill at least 70% of a large area coyote population for at least 5 consecutive years. Recreational hunting and trapping/snaring isn't going to do that. Coyote hunting is challenging and fun and that is why you do it.

They ARE basically an unwinnable war. I just look at every one I can eliminate as being SOMETHING. Like my small contribution. IMO........a guy who wants to help his turkeys should invest his predator control time mostly in trapping coons, possums and skunks. Shooting crows won't hurt either. This fall, my plan is an all-out war on the coons, possums and skunks on our property.

P.S. Where legal, this time of year, coons can be called in like any other critter.

Coons can be called year round and are a hoot to call in. I am just as happy to kill a coon as a coyote.

From what I've read, the coyotes found in Virginia are 64% coyote, 15% gray wolf, 11% eastern wolf, and 10% domestic dog. That accounts for their increased size over western coyotes. I've seen lots of coyotes in the deserts of southern California and Nevada, and my son hunted them there when he was at Twenty Nine Palms, CA, and they are smaller than the ones we have here. The ones I've seen in and around my city were shockingly large. I have no dount they are capable deer killers.

They are.

We've killed at least two........maybe three, here that have been over 50 lbs. A pack of those doesn't have to just prey on the weak or sick.

What do most people do with them if they shoot one? The ones I've seen in Virginia have been tall, long legged, but not especially lush in the fur department.

Yotes have always been a "target of opportunity" for me. I would be hunting something else (usually deer) and one would come by and never leave.

This area is public land, a state forest, but it is not in use right now. It's not being logged and there was no evidence anyopne had been there that morning. With all that chit growing on the trails, I doubt anyone has been there in weeks or months. So I think in the next couple of week, I will wade though all that stuff again down to where the trail becomes sandy where I saw all those tracks and set up a game camera and leave it overnight. I'd like to see what's going on.