Hunt foothills, badlands habitat for coyotes
Rocky Mountain hunting map feature
RIVERTON, Wyo. — If you want to find coyotes this month, you need to find their food. That sounds obvious, but it's the one factor that many hunters fail to consider when they try to cure their January cabin fever by hunting coyotes where they saw them during deer season.
You'll find a few coyotes in the broad, lonely swaths of sagebrush and shortgrass prairie that characterize so much of the Rockies. But you'll find even more if you hunt private land, especially pockets of habitat near livestock and big-game winter range. Add a few rabbits, roadkill, rodents and the odd grouse or pheasant and a coyote can make a good living in this human interface.
Foothills lands tend to have more and better habitat, hiding cover and forage.
Hunt parcels of public land, or spend a few hours one day knocking on doors and visiting with foothills ranchers and you're likely to be rewarded with more numerous and naïve coyotes.
And don't neglect the draw of highways and railroads. Both are murderous corridors for deer, elk and antelope this season and coyotes are nearby to clean up the carcasses.
Here are 10 of the top spots in the Rocky Mountain West to find January coyotes. They can be even better spots next month, when coyotes are more visible as they leave their home ranges in search of mates.
Bighorn Mountain Front, Wyo.
The expansive country from the Montana border north of Sheridan all the way south to central Wyoming's Rattlesnake Hills is great winter coyote range.
Most ranches are wintering cattle, and the Bighorn's elk and mule deer are grazing on lower-elevation slopes.
Access is quite tight in the Sheridan and Buffalo areas, but the BLM land south toward Kaycee and Moneta offer great access and good coyote habitat.
Contact: Sports Lure (307-684-7682) in Buffalo, Wyo.
Garfield County, Mont.
The northern portion of the county is the Missouri River Breaks, managed by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service as the C.M. Russell Wildlife Management Area.
Coyote numbers are good there, but electronic calls are illegal and there's no coyote hunting past March.
Contact: Hell Creek Bar (406-557-2302) in Jordan, Mont.
Bruneau River, Idaho
In severe winter weather, scores of coyotes will roam out of the remote upper Bruneau and find food closer to the Snake River and C.J. Strike Reservoir. If the weather is open you'll find better hunting on the public land to the south.
Look to the Bruneau River Breaks for coyotes targeting wintering mule deer and jackrabbits.
Contact: The Fishin' Hole Bait & Tackle (208-845-2001) in Bruneau, Idaho.
Uinta Basin, Utah
With lots of small agricultural operations along the Strawberry and Duchesne rivers and expansive public land in the rest of this northeastern Utah valley, coyote numbers tend to be consistently high here.
The best approach for the basin's coyotes is to call in the more broken, brushy real estate above the irrigation project.
A jackrabbit or fawn bleat are both good distress calls.
Contact: Basin Sports (435-789-2199) in Vernal, Utah
Big Hole Valley, Mont.
Montana's largest livestock producing county is Beaverhead in the southwestern corner of the state.
Many of those calves are shadowed by coyotes, good spots to find both ranchers willing to grant access and productive public land is in the Beaverhead River drainage, toward Lemhi Pass, up Trail and Bloody Dick creeks and in the Red Rock area.
Set up in an area above the dense sagebrush so you can see coyotes as they move in to your call.
Contact: Fran Johnson's Sports Shop (406-782-3322) in Butte, Mont.
Sierra Madre foothills, Wyo.
Hunt either the lowest elevations of the Medicine Bow National Forest or the surrounding BLM land north to Interstate 90 for great coyote action.
Best numbers are in the benches above the larger drainages — Cow Creek, Muddy Creek and the North Platte River — on both sides of the Continental Divide.
Contact: Bi-Rite Sporting Goods (307-328-0372) in Rawlins, Wyo.
West Desert, Utah
Perhaps the loneliest spot on this list, the sprawling desert that extends south from the Bonneville Salt Flats to the Pine Valley provides great access though coyote numbers are not uniformly dense.
Better populations are near human habitation, along the Beaver and Sevier rivers and Fish Springs. Still, this can be a great spot to drive, spot and then call.
Contact: Hurst's Ace Hardware and Sport Center (435-865-9335) in Cedar City, Utah
| At a glance | |
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Fishing and Hunting News What: Top 10 coyote hunting spots in the Rocky Mountains. Where: Three areas in both Montana and Wyoming, and two regions in both Idaho and Utah as well. Keys: For best odds, get permission from cattle ranchers or hunt public land near livestock operations. |
Challis, Idaho
There's plenty of agitation about wolves in the wilderness above Challis and the Yankee Fork, but there's a ton of legal varmint shooting along the benches above the Salmon River. This is classic coyote country — sheltered draws adjacent to big game winter range and livestock operations.
Good spots are the sage faces that ascend to the Lost River Range and the open slopes up Morgan Creek.
Contact: Outdoor Outlet in Challis, Idaho (208-879-4814).
West Hi-Line, Mont.
This spot breaks all the rules. There are very few active livestock operations on the high plains between Havre and Browning.
There's not much security cover for varmints and their prey. But there are gobs of coyotes along U.S. Highway 2 from the Sweetgrass Hills south to the Marias River and there's very little hunting pressure.
You can drive section-line roads and intercept coyotes or you can call from high points.
Just keep in mind that most of this ground is private, so be sure you have permission.
Contact: Bing & Bob's (406-265-6124) in Havre, Mont.
Shirley Basin, Wyo.
A huge, largely vacant swath of rangeland that extends from the Laramie Peaks south toward southeast Wyoming's Medicine Bow River, you can hunt both public and private land and have consistent action on both.
Find foothills coyotes along the southern flank of the timbered mountains, or call calving-ground coyotes along brushy draws near livestock operations.
Contact: Dean's Sporting Goods (307-234-2788) in Casper, Wyo.
Material from Fishing & Hunting News
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