I tried ballistic tips in my 243 and left exit holes as big as softballs or bigger. I went back to pointed soft nose bullets. Do you save the pelts when you shoot that load?

Many don't care how big the "holes" are !
Many yotes are hitting the dirt year round !
Not everyone plays the game for the same reasons .

I am paid by local bounty and or landowner. The hides were never a thought unless spectacular and I took them for future Clothing gifts. I shot for over 30 years from north of Wolf Point to Havre MT south to Eagle Pass TX. The southern fur was never great, and a lot of my work was done at all times of the year so hides weren't prime.
The 55 grain ballistic tips I would have shot either way. Performance is terrific and unless it was a perimeter hit I really did not see much destructive problem. I also have a .240 weatherly mag that is my favorite long range rifle. I used it as long as my shoulder didn't mind and while a personal friend was alive to reload for me. He was an artist and some of the shots I made with that 26" barreled death ray were farther out than any would believe. HOWEVER that rifle with his loads absolutely demolished coyotes, no hope for the fur. That's what happens when you put a .243/6mm projectile at the end of a suped up 06 casing.

Osky

I shoot the 65 gr. Ballistic tips out of my Winchester and have never had an exit. My rifle did not like the 55 or the 58 gr. bullets so I have no idea how they would react on coyote . I have read of people shooting coyotes with small fast bullets and getting a splash affect on impact.

I wish they made a 204 in an automatic without being an AR. Like in Savage for a reasonable price. Maybe they do and I just haven't found it. Nice guns so far. I would like to use my 243 in the 55 grain bullets I bought, but I don't want to change my scope. It is hitting perfect now. Using my Remington 100 gr. psp

I used a 22-250 and a 22 hornet for years. Now I am using a 204 and a 12 ga shotgun. I am killing about 60% of the yotes with the shotgun this year. Getting them close enough is the fun part for me.

I want to add a little something I didn't earlier.

I also have been using crow decoys in the open fields. Along with a crow caww now and then while I am calling. I am not sure why, but I have seen yotes really pick up their approach when I do that. I don't call alot while on a stand. IMHO the less you have to the better off you are. As long as they are heading my way I keep quiet and still. If they stop then I call again, many times just one to three short sounds.

That don't always work of course. Sometimes I have to call almost continuously to keep a yote coming. Read their body language and you can gauge what ya need.

Last, I agree 1000% with what others have already said. Being quiet while getting to the stand is essential. If I howl to start a stand and I get a bark back, Or if I just hear a bark, or make a distress call and hear a single bark. I have already been busted. All that bark was is a warning to every yote within earshot that something aint right. I pick up and move on. May not move more then few hundrend yards, but I know to get out and do it quick.

Hope this thread stays alive, I enjoy talking this stuff. LOL

I too have a crow call on my lanyard. Don't use it a ton out west. I do like when the magpies are squawking as they come in on a quiet morning.
Just my habit but when a customer or two are coming in, if they stop holding position and looking at the sound, I quiet down and let them come. If they stop quartering left or right, squeeze.
A good friend and I were shooting a ranch and the rancher wanted to come along in the afternoon. Not an overly ambitious rancher towards the endeavor. A long sloping hillside fed into a rugged badlands area below. Those two took the caller over the hill and were positioned
Well up the hillside in grass while I had gone around back of the hill to a rocky point 150 yards right of them. Terrific views.They called and I spotted a dog coming up thru the drainages below us. He stopped down below looking up over a bank at the callers above and backed down and barked. We all heard it plainly but only I could see the yote from where I was. It went back and forth in that wash bottom barking and looking every couple minutes. Great to watch. After 8-9 minutes of this he worked away in the wash again and disappeared. He appeared to me about 75 yards back farther looking up at them from another clever bit of cover and barked his last bark. The guys never saw the coyote until I went and picked it up.
I too have never had much luck pulling them in farther when they start to bark.

Osky

I'd like to mention another point...ending the hunt. I can't tell you how many times I've stood up and seen predators either sitting looking my way or incoming....My rule of thumb now is before I pack up and quit. I sit and watch for a few minutes more. And even then you'll have some spotted as you pack up.

ttt

Yep, sometimes I stand up after I figure it's time and I see a coyote and wish I had stayed put another minute or two. But overall if by limiting my stands to about 15 minutes I get another two or three stands in for the day I'm pretty certain that I will have averaged more opportunities to bag a coyote.

I have hunted coyotes in competitions and most if not all the guys have the strategy of limiting stands to short intervals and increasing the amount of stands in a day. I would guess that over my 35 years plus of coyote calling that 80 -90% of my coyotes came in in the first 10 minutes on the stand.

But...your results could be different. I hunt in the wide open sagebrush country. Don't know nuthin' about calling in the deep pucker brush or woods that some of you guys have.

Here’s a cool tip for ya ...

For those that live in brushy country, consider buying a six foot aluminum ladder and covering it with a silencing material and neutral paint . Sit on top of that sucker and call , mine has shoulder straps . Set it up next to a scrub oak or mesquite and call . Amazing how well this works.

Incidentally, a four foot ladder works just as well. Maybe better far as mobility is concerned.

Adam sort of touched on this earlier when he mentioned using a bottle as a megaphone for sounds on a smartphone. Allow me to go one step further. I’ve got a compact Bluetooth speaker that has pretty good volume and a couple apps from the AppStore ( iHunt by Ruger is fantastic) . Just remember to put your phone on ‘ Do not disturb ‘ mode while calling. Hate to get text alerts while on stand.

The Johnny Stewart Estrus Whimper mouth call has really improved my success. It makes 3 or 4 different sounds, and really does work great despite looking strange.

I’m no expert on coyote hunting but I’ve done it quite a bit. It’s different here in the east than the west, for one thing we can’t see a mile or so away. We have rolling hills and mountains, wood lots and farmland. With that being said I’ve called in a dozen or so coyotes in my time. But I never shot any. Something always went wrong, like me whispering to my buddy, heck they can hear that at quite a distance. The calls that worked for me on my foxpro is I would start off with the coyote locator, then wait a few minutes and play a rabbit in distress call. This always worked for me especially this time of year when the breeding season would start. I’ve had coyotes as close as 50 yards and under. Just a few weeks ago I called one in but I was Hunting fox instead. I heard one howling and yipping, it was at night btw, I managed to call it in with a mouth call I had with me. But that night the wind was swirling and it shifted on me only to have it take off. But I hunt mainly fox now but if a coyote would come I’ll take it.

I went this morning at daylight, COLD! Only called in one hawk. It came to the woodpecker distress. I could see where the yotes had been last night in the snow. I just got on a main ridge and set up for 15-20 minutes. Moved on up to the next couple of big hollows where I could see 50-100 yards. These dogs have no pressure other than me the last couple of Saturday's. I would play the woodpecker or cottontail distress for 4-5 minutes varying the volume. I mainly want to kill some yotes to maybe help the fawns or grouse nest!?!? If it wasn't an hour drive to this place I'd trap it some.

IMO here in the mountainous east.............

High power lights are over-rated. I've had better luck with low powered lights.
Shotgun kills way outnumber rifle kills. Not as much open ground as western states.
Learn to use both mouth blown and digital calls. Both work and you need to use both.
Sometimes calling from a different direction to the same area will produce when thought a dead area.
Dark, windless nights are by far the best, as are certain fields like cornfields.

Time spent afield are better than nights spent inside!

I used to use only the frangibles, ballistic tips, hollow points and such. I got tired of sewing even when I picked my shots.

I went back to solids and or jacketed soft points, even with them hitting shoulders and neck areas, I still have to sew but not as bad as the other ones. I'd use the match bullets but for the reality of shooting the dogs dead, they don't mind the cost difference in my old 22-250 I used to shoot.

I only shoot my 204 now at dogs, it's by far the most enjoyable gun for shooting dogs I've ever owned and I will use solid's in it when I start to reload for it, now I use the standard varmint round, and continue to sew when I don't get the front or boiler room shot.

I always here this about calling different parts of the country, open country, yada, yada , yada...etc.

Doesn’t matter as much as you think . I’ve called predators from the Missouri Ozarks, SD Blackhills, Eastern Wyoming, Southwest US , etc.. Just because something appears wide open doesn’t mean it is. What I mean is , walk into a Johnson grass pasture and it looks wide open . Now sit down and lean against a fence post. Your visibility just went to 50 yards max. Sometimes cow trails wear down into the ground, those are predator highways , and a coyote can be on you quick even though the pasture is made up predominantly of just native grasses.

Incidentally, anyone here has as open invite to come out anytime during the fur season. Feel free to call or text... 405-246-6624 . Just tell me who you are.