Audio was taken over the winter off my back deck, which faces a bowl and the back of a hill a couple hundred feet in elevation on a chunk of conservation land. I've seen them in the back a few times in late afternoon, but not often. I do hear them at night fairly regularly and catch them on trail cams when I put them out. Are these ones on a kill, perhaps, or not necessarily? They sure were carrying on that night.

That's awesome. I have them all around me in the country but never thought to record them. If I go out to take a piss at 2 am there's a good chance I'll hear them.

When I normally hear coyotes, one does the plaintive howl at the moon type thing and one or two others often sound off from nearby places. This time they were definitely together in a pack and sounded to me to be much more excited than what I assume is a normal, 'hey, any of you fellers out there tonight?'

That night they were quite close. Maybe 75 yards.

I'm surrounded by coyotes. I think they do that near whatever den they are currently using as kind of a territorial proclamation. Right now they are very territorial in staking an area against other canines. Whelping will begin soon and they will go silent for a few months.

Western or Southern, coyote, (somewhat like LA coyote, but heavier on the first syllable. )

When I was we working with the PD. I got a call from a homeowner about a injured dog near his residence. It was on the outskirts of town in a rural area. Got to the house. Homeowner came running to the car wearing flip flops and shorts and flashlight . "It's behind the house".

I got out of the car. Heard a coyote howling. He said "you hear it,that's it,it sounds like it's in pain". I told him that's a coyote and that's his mating call, you better get in the house, or he is going to have his way with you. He was from the big city and had no idea about these things. He kind of looked like the postal worker on the Seinfeld show. He ran back to the house.

Hmm. OK, that makes sense. What is 'near' in your usage, please? I'm pretty certain that if there was a den on our side of the hill, I'd know about it, as our pair of labs would for sure be investigating any coyote den smells up close, as they run around back there.

There are a couple of bold red foxes running the neighborhood lately, ones who will literally follow along behind or to the side, in people's yards, some 50 yards from the wife as she walks the dogs. Of course, the dogs go positively bananas when they see the foxes.

I think the video was taken in December. Maybe November. Anyway, thank you for your input.

Hearing them just like that around here on random occasions when I’m wizzing off the deck.

I cannot even get my labs to woof out a ‘tentative dog bark’ lazy slugs. Guess their used to noise


I have to belt out the Sasquatch howl to get my 2 cents in. Most times they cannot be more than 600-900 yards up the bluff.

they do that when they get together before heading out, usually at dawn or dusk.

Yipping coyotes.

Probably not as many as you think. Maybe a pair and a couple of half grown pups thrown in... (Preview sound C39 on link)

https://www.gofoxpro.com/products/sounds/sound-pack

Scroll down to C32, and run the preview on the right.

It could be a yipping pair as well.

In lots of cases, it sounds like more coyotes than it actually is.

When they make that sound like yipping, others at a distance can join in. Kind of a way of saying "This is my yard. Where are you?"

Yes. ALTO

Always worked if you had a gun on the poaching bastids.

lol

Rog', that audio was taken @ 2 or 3 in the AM. Right when I'm wide awake every night, as you know. They were going on for a good five minutes like that before I slid out onto the deck as quietly as I could to listen. Less than 30 seconds of my being out there they clammed up. I'm certain they got my wind and headed out.

If i ever heard them doing that as i pulled up near a spot i was going to walk a ways to and call, it usually meant the jig was up and they were telling others there was a stupid sucker messing around in their neighborhood and if they heard a call to not go to it.

Only a couple of times have i succeeded in calling a young one in.

Whats your experience with that Barry?

I said usually, not always, I've heard it a hundred times over the yrs.

I hear them yipping and squealing like that all the time. No particular time of year. And they're moving.

When I'm hiking and camping, I try to camp up on the hillside, as far up as I can get. Besides just liking to be high up, I figure that the coyotes are more likely to be traveling around down in the bottoms more so than up on the side of the hill. And they do. A few times I have heard them making racket as they pass along the creek bed way down below me.

That's a gather up/locating call, if they have something on the chase the intensity and frenzy is double or triple that.

Kent

When you hear them like that, it tells you coyotes are in the area, and probably worth spending time calling.

I'd go a bit further away and look for a good place to call, and get ready.

Young coyotes are dumb. Once they get out on their own, they are easy to call in. They are not educated yet.

When a coyote sits off in the distance and barks at you, THAT means the gig is up, and he's onto you. (Preview sound # 180...)

https://www.gofoxpro.com/products/sounds/sound-pack

Something like within a couple of hundred yards. My dogs are constantly at war with the coyotes once the first cold snap hits until around late March or early April. They actually took off after them when I played your recording.

One May several years ago I took an iron skillet outside and it clanged while I was cleaning it out. To my surprise, a coyote pup started barking at me from a den about 70 yards away. He was irritated. lol They can be sneaky ghosts while raising pups.

I hear 'yotes making this sound fairly often, and like you said, they're moving. Usually it's the middle of the night and they sometimes sound like a siren in the distance.

I think it's simply chatter between them and helps them stay amped up and to a lesser degree, since they're roughly already together, is a locating sound, (the real locating call for coyotes is much different). Also, as Barry mentioned, that's probably only 2-4 coyotes. They have a strange ability to make a thimbleful sound like a rushing river.

BTW, KG, it's nice to see you posting here and there again.

Thanks, Barry. I was sure I heard at least three and maybe as many as five but I'm short on coyote fluency. Obviously.

We have lots here, and there was a HUGE one out back I did see that I wanted badly to shoot and thought about it, but I'm not trying to have to face a judge over a violation of discharge laws (500' or better from dwelling in use). A few places I fish on the coast there are coyotes that have become seasonal specialists, and learned that when the surf fishermen are working the beach for bass and blues, every night's Friday fish night! They'll lay low in the dunes at night, and when Pablo walks his surf rig and his 8 and bait to cast at the waterline, Mr. Coyote shoots out, snatches the bait, bag and all, and hauls ass.

Most I hear and see are in places we can't hunt them (read residential neighborhoods), and the state in its seemingly infinite lack of good sense did away with all traps other than live cage/box Havahart types a number of years ago. No leg holds, no snares, no compression kill sets of any type allowed. Live, 'humane' traps only. One of these days I have to get a caller, use of which is legal here, and have at it. Decoys and bait legal as well, though while hunting at night we are limited to .22LR for rifles and .38 for handguns . 'Can't allow them to suffer! Maximum caliber for coyote night hunting? .22LR!' Unreal.

That's a different set of vocalizations from that community yip/howl posted above. When coyote's bust you on a calling stand they sound much more aggressive and irritated.

Leighton, that funny about how they steal the bait like that!

Smart, aren't they?

Seen coyotes prowl the beaches down here for food that washes up.

hotdog on a hook cast into the dunes.

Barry, yes they're damned smart critters. And they remember their hustle and improve on it where possible. I know of a couple guys who were catching bluefish in a beach blitz and didn't have a cooler, so just kept tossing the smallish 4-6 lb fish in the wet sand. Guys had like 6 in the wet sand, but when one went to toss his latest blue on the pile, there were only two left, and little paw prints leading to and away from the pile...

Coyotes will steal some old smelly bait all day long but they'll go far out of their way for a still flopping fish right out of the ocean. Blueshimi, anyone?

Thanks to all who chimed in. And to you as well for the sentiment, Skot. I appreciate it.

‘Totes are common in and around San Antonio, I’ve even seen em on my urban street in the early hours of the morning.

Walking dogs at night I’ve had what I presume were coyote pups bark at me from not far off, sounded like raspy smallish dogs.

Cop and fire engine sirens will commonly set them off and I have read that they always try to sound like more coyotes than what they are, each one pitching in on a slightly different pitch.

It’s not unusual to encounter them and me and my dogs have been shadowed on occasion. Blondie, the little 15lb chihuahua/pug mutt I have at present will readily run after them, so much so I quit walking them in the dark, it was like trolling for ‘yotes.

I do like the sound of a coyote, especially right before dawn when it’s still.

Just recently Missouri started allowing night vision or thermal for night hunting coyotes. Up until then, it was no artificial light/imaging allowed. Guys would wait til it snowed a bunch and a full moon. Take out the 12 gauge and 00 buck to shoot em close.

For sure. Thats when a 6.5 creek more comes in handy.

When they do that out at 600 -800 yds youre screwed.

As KRP said, after they have been spread out in a line 50-150 yds apart and making a sweep for deer, if one gets a hot trail it will do that to call its buds in to start the death relay, and the deer of their object knows it by fleeing in absolute terror.

Iv been blood trailing bow shot deer, and have had them do that as they hit the blood trail! We have run them off deer as we found them. Last fall we found my buddys doe only 30 mins after he shot it, a bear had started racking the hair off it.. the woods are so thick here it's hard to call them in.

Only on private property.

YIP. YIP. OWWWOOOOOOOOOOO......

How's dat?

As a general rule the first howl (family group very territorial) will be the breeding male (pairs breed for life but will take another mate if one is lost) the answering call will be the breeding female and the commotion afterwards is the pups or rest of the group in a yip fest. We will call this group the "Smiths". In the distance you may hear another group vocalizing the same way, these will be the "Jones's" letting the Smiths know they are in their own territory. If the "Smiths" ain't home the Jones's may hunt over in their direction. This is only one common vocalization that just about everyone has heard. A short howl followed by a shrp bark is a challenge and as Barry stated just a common bark at you deal means "you've been made". Interesting stuff yodel dogs....

A one-note bark is all you need:

My cattle dogs yip and howl back and forth with them at night.
The best article I have read on them said that the yipping is a sort of a ventriloquist call. It will sound like many of coyotes but is often only one. If the coyote is skilled it will be able to create an echo off a rock ledge or canyon wall. The goal is to get a rabbit to panic and break cover.

Yeah, with stout rod and 200 lb Spider Wire.

They've been seen catching spawning suckers in the shallows of the Colorado River in AZ.

They're pretty savvy for sure.

k_g, I've seen them doing the yipping thing near a den site, 1/2 mile away through a spotting scope. Hear them like that most nights around here. As others have mentioned, can be a gathering call at home or out "on the road".

Beware your pups getting up that hill after them. Had a friend's very large German shepherd dog get torn up bad by a pack once. Odds are he was after a female. No doubt in my mind there was a dead 'yote or three by the time he got out of there with his ass handed to him too. Worst looking case of "dog bites" I'd ever seen.

You can hear them in every direction in Northern Missouri, I used to go outside at night and you could hear them, literally, all around the compass. I like listening to them, but I like shooting them better.

Leighton;
Good afternoon to you sir, I hope the day's been a good one for you and all who matter in your life are well.

Here in south central BC we'll hear that pretty regularly starting in late January and going on into early April.

Since it's coinciding with the rut more or less, I've always felt it was locator calls more than anything else. I'd say a sort of dating app for them, you know?

While we've called them in hunting a few times in February, I can't recall hunting them into March, but there's no reason not to, just life got in the way for other spring stuff by that time.

When they're being territorial, they'll bark more along with the howling or at least our western ones do. If I want to bring in one earlier in the year, I'll start with a few aggressive barks followed by some long howls - this after about 3 minutes of dying rabbit screams.

Anyways, that's my guess and it is only that sir. I can't really say I know what I'm saying when I call them in, I more or less attempt to mimic what I hear at that time of year.

All the best to you all my friend.

Dwayne

Yep. I went back and listened to Kamos recording. Youre right and tbanks for the male call and the female reply info.

The yipping i initially referred to is different. I may have called in and killed several already but when i hear them as i was referring to you may as well move out to another area.

Kamo, if you sight that 22 in a few inches high at 50 and know the drop at 100 and a bit farther, you can certainly take out some coyotes if they havent been educated. Most hit will not survive under the conditions they live in but many of those hit through the shoulder or just behind it through the lungs or liver can be trailed up.

I don't speak the language, but that sounds a lot like what I frequently hear when I am in the woods just before daylight during archery season, I sometimes get a glimpse of one moving through the woods.

Leighton, nice recording there - and experience says to me that was not a kill scene. Once they get something hurt or down they are all business and normally silent. I'm no expert on why they call and how, but have heard them unceasingly for over 20 years. The normal times for that sort of sounding are at or near dusk when they are gathering somewhere (probably dens) or communicating at some distance with others. Females in heat will make a distinct type of barking sound when alone

At 3am out of the blue - unless some other something was unexpectedly into their "territory" and they were dealing with that, I have no guess regarding the prompt.

Thanks to all for the interesting and experience-based insight. I do believe I learned a thing or three, and I do appreciate that.