germain

Doug,don't you think the populations increased a good bit the last 10 years?Using the tracks,scat,sightings,and hearing them it's safe to say we saw a good increase up to about two years ago.
On a sidenote,going back about six years ago at the spot where I'd kill a turkey every year,I saw a blond coyote chasing a deer over by parker dam.That thing was beautiful.

livbucks

The one thing that would make it more beautiful is a bullet hole in it's carcass.

germain

I agree with liv about the predation.

Man liv I just couldn't shoot such a beautiful animal.




Ok,I lied.If I would have been packin a rifle I would have been packin him right to the taxadermy.

livbucks

We shoot at all yotes we see in my family. Too bad we miss most yotes we shoot at.

They never quit running. If you see one, make a squeal/squeek sound with your lips while centering the crosshairs on it. As soon as it hears the sound it will stop dead for a moment. That's when you go "bang, your dead"

germain

.Right off the top of my head I never saw one with a rifle in my hand.Most were during spring gobbler and a few in archery where they were too far off.But if anybody in our camp gets a shot at one he's gone down.

DougE

Show me where anyone ever one that contest with a 20lb coyote.Most of the time,they're in the 40lb range.I've seen a bunch of dead coyotes and none of them ever weighed over 40 lbs.They get a little bigger on occasion but that isn't very common.

Predation is a factor a factor in the Sproul because the habitat is poor.The fawns are not as healthy and there's less cover for them to hide.Go read the fawn study journal.Eight four percent of the predation occured in the Quehanna wild area where the habitat was much worse.It all comes back to habitat.

If you think deer didn't die in those areas during the winters of 2003 and 2004 your sadly mistaken.I found several dead deer that died from malnutrician in the spring of 2004.I wasn't alone either.There were biologists and foresters from PSU with me.It isn't even thse dead deer that make the differance.It's the reduced recruitment rate.Malnurished does don't give birth to healthy fawns,if they give birth at all.On top of that,only 10 %of female fawns in 2G are being bred.That's directly related to their health,which is directly tied to the habitat.You'll simply have more and healthier deer in better habitat,regardless of the predators

germain

Doug,one year the predator kill was up in Quehanna and the other year the fawn kill was close to that of the farmland.That area does have cover with alot of laurel in places.Up on the wild area there's alot of what I call elephant grass.
If what you're saying is true why were the deer numbers so high for so many years in wide open woods?

DougE

Because we've had mostly mild winters throughout the 80's and 90's.Even though there were alot more deer than we see now,the population still wasn't increasing.Ask Sproul,the population has been downfor over 20 years and still didn't increase,even after clearcutting.When you have a mild winter,the deer can find acorns and even eat certain types of fallen leaves without expending too much energy.We had two back to back brutalwinters in 2003 and 2004 with very poor mast crops.The deer had nothing to eat and recruitment suffered greatly.That on top of having a smaller herd due to herd reductions caused us to have alot less deer.A couple mild winters with decent mast crops has been bringing the herd right back.That's good in a way but we can't afford to let it grow too fast until the habitat starts to recover.We need to get together one of these weekends.

germain

I had your number on my old cell but when I put the chip in the new one I lost it.Can you give it to me on the other site via PM?
We were planning on coming up this weekend to hunt grouse but that's doubtful now because my son's baby is sick.
I'll give you a call when we find out what weekend for sure and we'll see if we can get together and miss some grouse.

sproulman

douge, when we started our coyote hunt here,about 10 years ago,we had very few turned in..i believe 1,000 hunters signed up but only 3 were brought in..we stopped hunt because canada hunters were winning all the prizes and were using as high as 6 dogs..

i cant get figures, if you like, its real low..

as for big size, would you like to talk to greatest coyote trapper, not me, i am good but nothing like him..

he lives in cross forks and is BEST around..he got one 67 pds..a MALE..i am going out to see him soon and i will ask him how long have yotes been around and when he saw them ALL OF SUDDEN in that 1 year or 2..

my other friends got one this year, it was 47 at camp weighted on 2 scales..