timekiller13
Old Mossy Horns
All of this talk about low deer numbers and overpopulation of coyotes got me thinking. Are there really as many coyotes out as we think? I have been hunting for 20 years. I have hunted in alleghany, Ashe, Alexander, buncombe, Catawba, Chatham, McDowell Granville Stokes Vance and Wilkes counties. I have been running trail cameras since 2003. On average I hunt 35 days a year, small game hunt another 10 days and spend another 30-40 scouting and working my leases. Not to mention all the time I spend camping and hiking. I keep extensive journals of my hunting experiences. In 20 years I have never seen a coyote while deer hunting. In fact, I have only seen 2 coyotes while engaged in a hunting activity. I did not get a coyote on trail camera until 2010. In total, I have less than 50 pictures of coyotes on camera. A lot of them showed up in Wilkes when we had our die off. They scavenged on the dead deer. I got 3 pictures of coyotes this year and the last one was in September. I have 12 trail cameras in the woods right now in 3 different counties. If coyotes are so abundant, then why are we not seeing more of them?