Nightmare!

Same lease for 10 years. Waited for this lease forever. 1 mile of smz like 100 yards wide full of oaks and creek. Oak drains everywhere all surrounded by thick nasty pines. We have river bottoms and mixed mature timber areas. I used to kill a wall hanger muzzle weekend and 2 does on rifle opener. That would be all I would shoot unless I saw a monster later. Deer have declined steady as yotes have multiplied. My 7 year old hunted all weekend with me and I hunted muzzle loader last weekend by myself. Have not seen 1 deer! My son has hunted hard with me. Great attitude my son has. Food plots, acorns,and persimmons. Hardly any deer sign. Neighbors shot 3 and plenty of shooting around us. Seems my 375 acres have been deserted by deer. Trapping or hunting my best option?

Lack of response must mean poison is the best option.

Trapping is always the best option when done RIGHT. I trap for a living, and am thus a little biased, but there's no legal method as effective as trapping.
If funds are available, pay someone who knows what they're doing to trap the property. The last thing you want to do is make the coyotes trap shy. It would take God himself to catch them if you were to let a inexperienced trapper wise up your coyotes. They're smart enough already...

I recommend getting someone to do a full predator removal over about a 10 day period. This includes coyotes, foxes, bobcats, coons, opossums, etc. Ideal time is right around Christmas after your hunting season is over, until the end February. Some people like to wait as late as possible, that way fewer numbers of predators move in during the downtime before fawns are born.

How much does a 10 day program cost? I would consider it for sure. We are going to put a land owner meeting together to put a plan together. If I had results and a trapper there we could talk theses other owners into it as well. They won't ever be gone. I need them to get a home territory somewhere else though.

Bob2010 said:

How much does a 10 day program cost? I would consider it for sure. We are going to put a land owner meeting together to put a plan together. If I had results and a trapper there we could talk theses other owners into it as well. They won't ever be gone. I need them to get a home territory somewhere else though.

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You're right, they will never be gone. Even if a trapper caught them all, it's only temporary.
Regarding cost, there's too many variables to say. Costs vary by location, trapper, layout of the land, numbers of traps set, etc... Feel free to pm me any specific questions and I'll gladly offer advice; as I don't want this to sound like a sales pitch over an open forum!

So why do you think coyotes are the reason your not seeing any deer?

Killed 3 while deer hunting last year. Scat and tracks everywhere. 2 large packs sound off every night. Fawn skeletons being found. Pup tracks with all big tracks. Awesome hunting for 10 years straight started declining 2 years when my freind across the hwy started coyote control. There hunting is great now. The yotes Moved home to me. I get they cover several miles when hunting but they come back to me to live. The few does left run in groups of 3 or 4 and will barley leave the thicket. When they do they are scared out of their minds. They are not hiding from hunters. They are hiding from yotes! We had a 4 point in a plot last year at dusk calmly feeding. Yote yipped a mile away and the deer went into a dead run to get out of dodge. The DNR won't fix it and people are stuck watching deer population decline on their property. We have 375 acres split between 3 members. After road maintenance, food plots, camp improvement, and lease we all put up at least $1600 each. Now we have to pay thousands to trapper? We could hunt a plantation somewhere and not do any work for that kind of money. So we have people thinking maybe the oaks didn't produce this year or hunters are shooting too many deer. Meanwhile coyotes are killing every Fawn on the property and running does. We better wake up and come together. I sat back and figured the slow decline was something temporary. Every plot we had 5 years ago would have 5 plus deer in every plot opening weekend. We just got skunked muzzle and gun. Neighbors are still hammering them. Just our track that desserted. Why? Plots are lush, creek is full, persimmons are loaded, oaks are dropping acorns. Hardly any deer sign and we didn't even have a deer blow at us. Not 1 deer in 4 days. We hunted oak draws, plots, persimmons, pines, and no deer. Just yote sign. No wonder people resort to crazy measures to try to control coyotes. Because people want to say it's not coyotes! It's hunters!. Or DNR says I don't know what to do? It's like everyone wants to put there hands over their ears and say LA LA LA LA la! Let's be in denial. Yotes will end deer hunting one day if something doesn't change. That is unless people are ok with hunting every weekend to kill or see 1 or 2 deer a season. Just want the yotes to make home on someone else's property. Not mine.

Sorry I asked. lol sounds like you need to take up trapping and hunting. don't get discouraged they can be controlled its not that hard.

Bob2010 said:

Same lease for 10 years. Waited for this lease forever. 1 mile of smz like 100 yards wide full of oaks and creek. Oak drains everywhere all surrounded by thick nasty pines. We have river bottoms and mixed mature timber areas. I used to kill a wall hanger muzzle weekend and 2 does on rifle opener. That would be all I would shoot unless I saw a monster later. Deer have declined steady as yotes have multiplied. My 7 year old hunted all weekend with me and I hunted muzzle loader last weekend by myself. Have not seen 1 deer! My son has hunted hard with me. Great attitude my son has. Food plots, acorns,and persimmons. Hardly any deer sign. Neighbors shot 3 and plenty of shooting around us. Seems my 375 acres have been deserted by deer. Trapping or hunting my best option?

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What county your land in.

Why would you pay a trapper? Is there no market for the fur down here? As hard as it is to get access to land here you would think you would not have a problem getting someone to trap for the fur. Just asking.

If everyone else is shooting and seeing and you aren't it's not coyotes.


T

riverrat345 said:

What county your land in.

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McDuffie

Throwback said:

If everyone else is shooting and seeing and you aren't it's not coyotes.


T

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on our land they are not seeing deer. It's surrounding properties that are seeing deer.

Bob2010 said:

on our land they are not seeing deer. It's surrounding properties that are seeing deer.

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i understood that.


T

Coyote doesn't know whose land is whose. If he is hunting deer and you don't have any he will move next door in a heartbeat. I think the things may move several miles in one night. I know sometimes the roads are full of scat and then months before you see any fresh stuff. Honestly, we have too many coyotes and plenty of deer as well. Your neighbors may have a corn buffet going on.

Yotes not the problem. You think they're only staying on your 300 acres? Yotes have gigantic home ranges.

And why would the trapper above recommend a complete predator removal? Can you explain to me how killing fox, raccoons, and opossums is going to help the deer?

Hammer Spank said:

Yotes not the problem. You think they're only staying on your 300 acres? Yotes have gigantic home ranges.

And why would the trapper above recommend a complete predator removal? Can you explain to me how killing fox, raccoons, and opossums is going to help the deer?

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I nearly always recommend a full predator removal for several reasons...

Most of the lands I trap are for QDMA clubs that put a lot of money into feeding deer. Raccoons and opossums raid feeders, as well as eat persimmons, some of the mast crop, etc. During a year with a healthy mast, this may mean nothing. In other years with nearly no acorns, I'd much rather the deer have all of the food available.

Another reason lies in Turkeys and quail. All of these predators can and do raid turkey and quail nests. Foxes and coons may catch quail and turkey chicks. Most of these predators can catch full grown quail as well, a species that is under major major stress in many of the areas I trap.

The final reason lies both in peace of mind of the property owner, and due to the fact that it doesn't cost THAT much more money to do a full predator removal. Plus, it gives me a bunch of traps out that I can catch coons and opossums in, instead of them plugging my coyote and bobcat traps.

Have you read the recent study that suggests that the presence of Eastern Coyotes actually benefits turkey populations by reducing nest predators like snakes, raccoons, fox, opossums, and armadillos?

Coyotes are pretty harmless to any critter that can fly so they are only a viable turkey predator for about a day and they have not been noted as a significant raider of nests.

I have not read about that study. That is a cool study! However, I would like to see the research that suggests that armadillos do anything whatsoever to turkey eggs. I cannot get a resident Georgia armadillo to eat an egg. Nor can I catch one with an egg used as bait. And I have caught many MANY armadillos AND have kept them in captivity (legally) just to see what they will eat. I have also held coyotes and given them a dead armadillo for food. While they will eat a fox in seconds, an armadillo will sit in the pen and rot. They will not eat it. Period. I'd like to see the research where the Eastern coyote is even somewhat a predator to armadillos. The biggest predators to Armadillos around here is GoodYear.

But regardless of all of that, such research would only serve to solidify the reasons to do a full predator removal. If there's "less" per-say coyotes, would there be more Foxes, coons, and opossums? If I do a full predator removal, the turkeys still win. Less predators is less predators.

I find it hard to believe that a coyote is only a predator on turkeys for a "day or two?" Really? That's odd considering I have had more than a few run in and grab a turkey decoy right off its stake and be almost ten feet away before spitting it out or getting shot!!!