Climbing down from my deerstand this weekend at dark, I heard a pack of coyotes light up maybe a 150 yards away. As I was walking back to the truck with my bow in the near-darkness, I could hear them running behind me in the brush. I shined my light where I heard them, and could see their eyes about 70 yards away. They followed me through the woods until I got to the edge of the field. It was nerve-wracking, to say the least. Question: would a pack of coyotes attack a hunter walking alone at dark? If so, I'll pack something besides my bow next time.

Pack something and do everyone a favor and cap as many of the nuisance vermin as you can! As for attacking...I cannot speak to that. I guess anything is possible!

I cant say for sure but i did have a very similiar expereince.
I was stuck in the mud during a very hard rare South Texas rain coming into the ranch at about midnight.
I had to get out of the truck and start walking about a mile to the ranch camp house.
While walking with my feeble mini mag light i could hear them in the not so far distance.
Finally they were on both sides of the muddy ranch road out of sight but close enough that i could hear them and at one point actually smell them.
How many i am not sure but i would say close to a dozen.
Very spooky for sure.
But other than that they got no closer.
I honestly think they were more curious and were being devilishly trying of my patience.

i've had a pack of them come right up to me to nip at my dogs, but not when i had a gun of coarse. we had a litte scuffle for a minute or two. i think they were so focused on the dogs that they diddn't notice me.

Well, before the wolf was reintroduced to Yellowstone they were packing up and bringing down elk. We've had a pack around here lately. The dogs usually keep them at bay, but a few weeks ago they came in close and we haven't seen our good mouser since and the deer have pretty much disappeared.

Can they? Yes. Will they? Doubtful, but you never know.

They will follow you. I've had that happen. Will they attack? I don't know, as I killed 2 of them for following me without permission.

I guess in parts of the country that sees truely bitter winters it's a real possibility.
You know pack behaviour and all that.
Hunger can have major effects to man and beast alike.

Your right.

My wife didn't fix me any supper last night and I saw the neighbors baby playing in the yard next door....

Tasty little Tike. Don't tell anybody.

I have never heard of an attack on a human by a coyote that was not rabid. They are extremely curious after dark and will approach even a campfire very closely if you don't discourage them. We have had them all around our deer camps in the Chiricahuas at night. However, they never bothered any of the carcasses that were hanging, even when the little kit foxes were climbing the trees to jump on the carcasses to try to grab a quick bite.

When I lived in Texas, Nebraska and Kansas, they were hunted so hard that you rarely saw one that was not running. There are quite a few on the ranch in Colorado where I hunt elk, and the owner discourages people from shooting them. Even there, they will not come in very close while you are dressing an elk or deer. But if you go back to the gut pile the next morning, it is almost always completely cleaned up.

You ate a baby?

Do you use any special sauce or spices.

Sorry, I'm sick.

A little Tony's and Lea & Perrin. Delicious!

I may start cruising Day Cares....

I'm joking of course. With my luck, some neighbors kid will come up missing and I'll be accused of eating it.

I've been shadowed a bunch of times, deer hunting, turkey hunting, and just out walking. I don't know of anyone whose actually been attacked. I'm sure a pack of them, if they cared to, could kill a human. My guess is that they over-estimate us.

I always warn guys who get to talking about carrying concealed in the field for this reason:

1) You aren't really gonna get et. It's scary, but bluffing will do a better job than a handgun.
2) Most coyote encounters are in bad light and dense cover. You don't want to go firing off into the dark and into the bushes at things unseen.

Me? When I meet up with yotes in the dark, I shine my light in their direction, puff up as big as I can, and tell them that they're hunting without written permission and I'm going to call the warden. That usually does it. I have a collection of tails from the ones that didn't heed my warning and try to come in later while I'm turkey hunting.

Coyotes I've trapped east of the big river (TN & WV)would lunge at me and try to bite when I walked up on them. Coyotes I've trapped west of the river(OK & WY)wouldn't. There is a distint difference in the aggression of a eastern coyote and a western coyote but, to be honest, I don't think you had anything to worry about.
Feral dogs are another thing entirely.

I dunno on bluffing, it can get you out of a situation, while a handgun can kill the problem. At least pretty easy out to 50 yards or so, and if not kill em at 100, will come dang close enough to scare em.
Now blasting away at sounds in the bush isn't good with anything, bow, firearm etc...

Dosent seem like there are a large number of reported coyote attacks but there are some and at least 1 death that I can find.

This link has some info

http://www.varmintal.com/attac.htm

I dont think I would take any unnecessary risks around them.

+1-- shoot em, shoot em all

Never worried about it, but having one or more follow me would cause me to try and get a shot at it.
TX coyotes are always quick to run when you do see them.

stumpy

Way to go, good training for them.

Mackenzie, BC....

Last summer, 12 yr old girl knocked down off her bike and bitten while she was between the Gantahaz subdivision and town by a lone coyote, until a car happened by and ran him off.

Winter before that at around noon TWO men bitten outside of the 7/11 by a coyote who threatened them.

No idea why this stuff doesn't make national news, but it has happened enough to be a regular occurence...Enough so that a call to the local CO has him in your yard prowling around with a twelve guage....

Come winter, you certainly see them a lot more. Doesn't even make people bat an eye if you are sitting in Subway and a coyote walks past the door with a housecat or small dog in its mouth.

Last Spring, I was camping in the Ocala National Forest. I woke up early, to find a pack of coy dogs right at the front of my bivy tent. I shined the light on them, and they took off.

Several years back, hunting hogs up in Georgia, I was walking back to the truck in the dark. I was followed by several coyotes. I shined my Mag-Lite on them, and managed to shoot one with the SOCOM 16. The rest went somewhere safer.

Would they attack? Doubt it, but then you just never know.

Yes they will attack a human.

Go to varmintal.com [varmint al] and look at all the attacks he has compiled.
A teenage boy [15yrs] was attacked in resaca georgia about four years ago and said had he not had his 22 rifle he would have been killed.3-4 coyotes came out of the blue and started shredding him -many stitches and wounds.
My nephew Jason was chased and bitten by 2 coyotes -my brother killed them with a shotgun.

There have been countless children attacked by coyotes -many were trying to drag the children off while adults beat them.
Arizona has the highest attack rate.

Don't show any fear or you might get bitten.

Animals are smarter than many people give them cridit for.
I use to own a couple of jet-ski rental businesses and have seen crows sit and watch people spead their stuff out on a picnic blanket.Often times the adults would leave their small children sitting on the blanket then wade out into the water a short distance although still looking back at the children -when they were far enough away the crows would mob the food and pay no attention to the fact that a small child was sceaming bloody murder -scared by the crows.
The crows would stand face to face with the sceaming babies and flip the food containers everywhere -basically wreck the place until the adults got close enough to run them off.
I use to trap the crows with snares made out of fishing line or small treble hooks and line then break their wings and let them go.
After my girlfriend saw them do the mob the food thing she thought it was funny seeing them flip and flop trying to fly.
FACT - i kill every coyote i see period -newborn pup =bang -i'm a true varmint hunter to the full extent of the word!

I guess its like the black bears. They have become so habituated to humans --and eating their garbage-- that they look at a human as a food source.
"breaking a crow's wings and watching it flop around....." pretty sick. I don't have a problem with killing them but it's not their fault they're smarter than the kids parents.

Also put firecrackers up their ass and glued their beaks shut..

[quote=ol_mike]Also put firecrackers up their ass and glued their beaks shut.. [/quote
I hear that's how serial killers start out.

as a kid we used to do dumb sick things... alka seltzer to seagulls and so on... I never did but I saw it done.

But for an adult to do things like that is ridiculous IMHO.

Not sure if they would attack or not. That is one reason I like to carry my Surefire G2 LED with me when I'm going into or out of the woods in the dark. It's bright as hell, and if nothing else strobing it should at least confuse the hell out of them.

My grandpa had one for a pet and the SOB turned on him and damn near bit his finger off.

Will coyotes attack being the question I'd say not normally.
I think there are about four reasons that a normally non-agressive toward humans animal will attack.

Now I will be the first to say I know very little to none about bears and mountain lions so some that does can take that up. I am talking about coyotes, deer, coons, bob cats, hogs stuff like that.

*1 Rabies- or distemper in coons often mistaken for rabies. Enough said.

2 The animal thinks it is trapped and can not get away.

3 The animal is human habituated and has no natural fear of humans left. IMO the most dangerous animal in the world is a pet buck deer. Does are not quite as bad but they still "play" pretty damn rough. I would imagine elk would be about the same.

4 You have hurt or surprised it at close range and it really doesn't know what you are.

BCR

Most of the mountain lion attacks I have herd of or read about were a result of the animal being in poor health (starving) and seeing a person as an "easy target". I would think a coyote being a hunter/scavanger would certenly take advantage of you if it saw you as an "easy target" and hadent eaten in a while. For instance if you had broken your leg/arm or were bleading you might be preceived as a wounded food source. However I do think that humans are way too big of a target for a single coyote.

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The second part was sarcasm and the wing breaking was in the late 80's.
I have seen crows peck newborn lambs eyes out -wreck songbird nest etc. do i give a crap about a crow -hell no.

My hunting places are full of coyotes. I have never felt they were any kind of a threat to me. I have had them stalk me when I was calling spring turkey. I also had two chase my pointer during a quail hunt. She ran back to me with both coyotes on her tail and almost knocked me down when she ran between my legs. The coyotes never noticed me until I gave them both barrels of bird shot full in the face.

After that experience, I would never consider taking a dog into bear country.

I dunno, kind of makes me think having a dog might be a very good thing in bear country.

Glad I didn't read this before having one slither by me within 30 yards two mornings ago.

another thing that could help promote an attack would be if you were useing any one of the deer scent products and you smelled more like a hot doe than a human. don't know for sure but i would think it might make them more interested in you for a while anyway. just a guess on my part.

I'll never get over the first time I tried calling a deer. I was in some vine maples that had dropped their leaves and these were like dry corn flakes. Well, I blew the call and immediately I hear this pitter pat of something coming towards me...gotta be a big buck because I'm calling deer, right? By the time it got to where I could see it, it was about 30 feet away and it was a coyote. Scared the chit out of me so bad I missed it twice before it left.
Fast forward about 20 years and 200 miles and I'm about to dispatch a wounded coyote with a jack handle---got to save the hide. It leaped for my throat but was in too bad of shape to make it, so I backed off and shot it again. Scared the chit out of me. I'll never do that again.
In all fairness to the coyote, I didn't actually "back off" in the truest sense...more like I fell backwards while I thought I was being murdered by a bloody coyote and I may not have been on my most distinguished behavior for a few seconds there...

The Lake Tahoe area near my home has had several threats and out right attacks by them. Most of the locals up there are dead set against anyone shooting anything, even to defend themselves, or so it seems.
People have been threatned for shooting things like bears and coyotes, even in self defense.
They lost their commerical airport's operations license because they would not control the coyotes running around on the runway.
Even better, try Sonoma County. They have decreed that coyotes are endangered and forbid shooting them any where, for any reason, in the county.
Welcome to Kalifornia. E

Apparently (though not a hunter, and not dark). http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33509516/ns/world_news-americas/