Four inches of snow had fallen overnight, blanketing the six-inch base already accumulated in Clifton Springs, New York. The veteran coyote hunter slowly walked the jumble of tracks in the deep powder. The loose snow made the prints impossible to ID to my untrained eye but after studying them for 100 yards Scott Cummings was able to isolate a coyote track from the whitetails that had traveled that same route at some point during the evening. Scott returned to the truck and put the leash on Dillon, his cold-nosed English Walker coyote dog and attached the GPS tracking collar to the excited hound. Scott then led Dillon back to the deciphered coyote print and unleashed the dog. The experienced canine lined out on the track without making a sound, telling us that the trail was hours old.
A few years back I had talked Cummings into letting me tag along on a coyote hunt; an honor rarely bestowed a non-houndsman. This coyote posse was serious about killing coyotes and was not wild about a greenhorn slowing them down. I was literally running with the big dogs.
Soon the coyote dog let out a lone howl; the track was heating up. The dog’s brawl came quicker as the predator’s track led the aged hound deeper into the frozen swamp. Suddenly the dog’s voice changed into an excited chop and we knew he had jumped the coyote from its bed. Scott whispered, “Here we go,” and keyed the radio mic clapped to his collar and spoke. “He’s heading north toward Route 96.” The dozen hunters listening in their trucks from various vantage points circling the three-mile square woodblock knew this meant game on! If this hardcore gang of coyote busters was to harvest this eastern coyote, it would be their 40th ‘yote this season, with still a month left to hunt.
As any deer hunter in this part of the country will tell you, coyote populations in Western New York are exploding. Coyotes are the top of the food chain in this area and the number of deer impacted, especially fawns, is staggering. The best way to manage their growing numbers is to hunt them with hounds. They can be called to the gun and some hunters sit over bait on moonlit nights with limited success, but hounds are the ticket to keeping their numbers in check. There are several different groups that run coyote with hounds in our region.
This group I had hunted with a few years back run primarily in Ontario County. They are serious about killing coyotes and chase them like they owe them money, averaging over sixty per year hunting the farm country southeast of Rochester.
As a group they own over twenty hounds among them and killing less than two coyotes per hunt is considered a bad day. These hunters pursue the varmints with military-like precision. Armed with the latest GPS technology for tracking dogs, they can watch the chase unfold on the miniature screens of handheld units, positioning shooters over the radio. The high-tech trackers will display up to ten dogs and indicate which of his hounds are pushing the chase and which are not contributing to the run. Another huge bonus the trackers provide is the safety factor of knowing when your dogs are approaching a busy highway or partially frozen river or pond. The too-common hassle of looking for a lost hound is now a thing of the past as the units will tell you within feet how far your dog is and in what direction.
With the cold-trailing hound on his trail, the coyote finally broke out of the swamp and crossed Route 96. A truck pulled up where they had seen the coyote cross the busy road and added four more hounds directly to the coyote’s tracks. After a short distance the tiring coyote doubled back over Route 96 and back to what he thought was the safety of the swamp. Suddenly the pack of dogs was on the pavement, frantically searching for the lost scent on the busy highway. As a car approached, the houndsman stood right in the middle of the road giving the approaching car plenty of time to stop and let the dogs safely cross. If push came to shove I think these boys would rather take the hit than have one of their dogs get it. They would be the first to say, “Good coyote hounds are hard to find, but rednecks are a dime a dozen.”
Two more English Walkers were added to the chase from the back of another truck and before I knew it, there were seven dogs brawling their enjoyment of the hot scent. There are few sounds in the outdoors that can match the exhilaration of hound music as they run a fresh track and we now had a choir singing. The snow was deep and the coyote was pushing it as he ran. Dogs were running in the predator’s plowed snow trail, giving them a huge advantage. Walkers are bred for endurance, while a coyote is built for short bursts of speed vs. hours of running. It wasn’t long before the hounds had the coyote at bay in a large brush pile. Quickly the coyote wranglers moved in and harvested this deer killer.
With the availability of new GPS dog tracking technology, the average hunter can now consider owning a coyote hound, but finding a good one is another matter. Buying a started dog is the way to go for most beginners. It may not be as rewarding as training a pup yourself, but training a hound to run coyotes is an extremely specialized skill. If you do decide on a pup, look for a breeding that has been successful before; this will up your odds greatly in obtaining a good pup. New York has the New York Houndsmen Conservation Association http://www.nyhoundsmen.org/index.php that has tons of information that will get you started towards finding a reliable breeder.
So, if you are bored here in our neck of the woods during the winter and want to help the deer population, go get yourself a coyote hound. One thing for sure is that you won’t be bored no mo.
