Coyote Hunting With Guest Cody Sanchez

Coyotes don’t play by daytime rules, and that’s exactly why so many hunters are turning to night stands and thermal optics. We sit down with Cody Sanchez of Thermal Dispatch to unpack what really changes after dark—why coyotes move more, respond harder to calls, and force you to rethink setups in Western Washington’s tight timber and mixed-use ground. If you’ve only seen wide-open prairie hunts online, this conversation reframes the game for ferns, logging roads, and urban edges where coyotes thrive but rarely show themselves.

We get practical about the tech curve—spotlights to red lights to night vision to thermal—and what each step taught us about pressured coyotes. Cody breaks down thermal palettes, detection versus identification, and why removing visible light prevents educating pairs that slip away and never forget. We also get clear about the law: where thermal is allowed for predators, where it’s banned for big game, how daytime heat affects performance, and why some states are rethinking rules as adoption grows. The throughline is simple—use the tool responsibly or risk losing it, because predator management needs effective methods.

From seasonal rhythms to pelt quality, timing is everything. Late summer into fall brings dispersal and the highest dog counts of the year; late October to mid-February offers the best fur; March denning can make responses slow and quiet. Along the way, we swap stories about striking color phases and tough-luck survivors that still answer a call. It’s a grounded, field-tested view of coyote behavior, ethics, and policy that respects fair chase while recognizing the real impact coyotes have on fawn survival and working lands.

If you care about calling, conservation, and keeping opportunity open, this one belongs in your queue. Tap follow, share it with a hunting partner, and leave a quick review to help more listeners find the show.

TheHuntersGathering.com

$1495 to learn Elk, Blacktail, Bear, and Turkey from successful hunters. Price includes food and lodging and our Hunter's Essentials Kit

Nilch'i Wind Checks
Nilch’i Wind Checks - An easy to use, must have gear addition to our hunts

Dead Down Wind
Scent Elimination Products

Tinks
Tinks Scents

Blacktail Solution
Blacktail feed supplements. Use code BTCoach for 15% through March 31 2026

Bonded Outdoors
Personalized leather tags to remember your hunts

SkullCraft Collective
skull mounting systems Ghost Hook Sale until March 31, 2026

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Welcome back to the Blacktail Coach Podcast. Just me this week, but we are going to be talking coyote hunting with Cody Sanchez of Thermal Dispatch. Thanks for joining us on the show. Thanks for being here. Been looking forward to talking to someone about coyote hunting because it seems to be getting more and more popular with the people I know. Dave's son DJ has really gotten into it. This is something I think a lot of people are going to be interested in hearing.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Perfect.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Why don't you tell us about yourself, your business, your background, all of that?

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Yeah. First off, thanks for having me on here. But yeah, I run that thermal dispatch optics business you were talking about. Basically just a dealer, so we carry multiple different brands of thermal optics, the ability to sell those, and then as far as coyote hunting goes, we do a lot of the thermal night hunting, and then the daytime hunting is where I've really where I started and what I love to do. It's definitely something that that I'm a lot more passionate about. And as far as that goes, is background-wise, is spend a lot of time in the woods. I work in the woods for a reforestation company. It's a family business that we've been in business for a long time. So it's got the natural draw to where I got started to calling coyotes in that that timberland country just because I spent a lot of time doing it.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Yeah, as a lot of us involved in the outdoor industry, it's our side hassle. Yeah, yeah, to the real nine to five.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, that's where I sit. At one point I was making my own game calls as well, diaphragms and turn-in-hand calls for rabbit distress calls and that sort of thing. And but yeah, so that's kind of where we're sitting right now is the thermal optics. I'm also a dealer for Fox Pro electronic game calls, so carry those as well and obviously use those a ton.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Very cool. So what drew you actually? Are coyotes? Is that the main thing that you hunt?

Why Calling Coyotes Became An Obsession

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Yeah, absolutely. I would say that's 100% the main thing that I do year-round. A lot of people ask me if I had to give up deer and elk hunting. Elk hunting would be a tough one because I same thing. The reason I got drawn to coyotes in the first place was calling. It's simply just the ability to talk with these animals and try to call them in. That's something that I've been obsessed with since I was really young. Got my first coyote call, hand call when I was, I think, 11 or 12, and watched the DVD, the instructional DVD from Randy Anderson on how to use it, and and just went from there and I was obsessed with it. I mean, I'd go out on the porch at night and I'd rip howls at my parents' house, and they're all the coyotes would answer, and I'd get my parents out there and they'd shake their heads. For me, it was just such a draw. And the same thing with elks or with elk hunting, you just call an elk in. So that's where it all kind of revolves around. Is for me it all goes back to the calling aspect of uh being able to call the animals in, which is what really gets me going.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

So I had a fun, I picked up a fawn in distress, I don't know, a couple years ago, and I finally last year before season, I I was back on the back deck, and I just I wonder what I could do with this. And so I started doing Fawn in Distress, and I actually, yeah, I called in a doe. Like, hey, that's cool. So I get that. That the whole idea of being able to manipulate or alter an animal's behavior by what you're doing, that they're you're doing something that they're responding to. That's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

Yeah, it's really cool. It's fun to watch when it comes to coyotes. I can really only speak on behalf of Western Washington. I mean, we obviously go to Eastern Washington too, but mostly the Western Washington stuff, watching a coyote come through the timber, through the ferns, and or watching one run down a login road at full speed. I mean, it's just really, really fun to watch. And so you could see real fast how it could really consume you and be something you really get into. Yeah.

Night Hunting Basics And Advantages

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Yeah. So you were talking about because you have the thermals, and actually before we we got on, we were having a really long discussion about night hunting with thermals and stuff. And I at first I wasn't I don't know if I was uh go going to go down this, but there's a lot of information there. Some there's some ethics about night hunting that people have brought up with you because you're selling the thermal optics, and but there's also a lot of rules and laws and regs around that as well. And I think for a lot of people that when you think thermal or night hunting, I think the first thing that comes to mind is like those Texas pig hunts, hog hunts. That's what's coming to people's minds, and that's not accurate necessarily to what you're doing, because it's uh these guys are with out there with ARs and just popping everything that moves and whatnot. But what's it like with hunting coyotes in here? And first, what's it like, and then we'll get into the ethics and the rules and a lot of those type of questions. I think those might be important to talk about.

Thermal Vs Night Vision Explained

SPEAKER_01 5:04

Yeah. Night hunting in general, coyotes are a lot more active at night, they're on their feet, then you can get away with a lot more, so it's just like a whole different ball game. And we figured that out early on. Trying to call coyotes into the daytime run here is really difficult. And all the information that was out there content-wise, and when you're trying to get into something, you everyone goes to the content and and trying to learn and figure out what you're doing, and then you try to apply it to your area and where you're hunting. Well, most of the content was based around that big open country and what you see in like the western states, like Wyoming, Nebraska, stuff like that. So it wasn't really relatable to what we're doing out here. And we found out really fast that you're not going to go out there all the time at 10 o'clock in the morning and get coyotes to howl like these guys were on these videos, because in our area where there's houses laid out all over the place and it's more populated areas, coyotes aren't just doing that. And the thing getting into it was a lot more difficult as far as that goes. Well, when we started night hunting, we found out that oh man, like now these coyotes are responding. Now they howl back. Now, so night hunting automatically had that alert in the beginning because I found out how much more active they were and how much more callable they were. And so we started out with spotlights originally, had some success doing that, and then we moved into a red light, just a little bit dimmer light, was what that was the idea behind that. You're gonna spook off less game. And then we got into night vision and then thermal. And the beauty of thermal is now you remove all light sources, you don't need a light because we found out fast that even with lights, that if you called in, say, a pair of coyotes and you shot one and the other coyote got away, and he seen that light and recognized that light the next time that you went to try to call, and you hit a yeah, you hit that light, and that coyote's gone. So the thermal removes that. Um so you learn a lot really fast thermal hunting too, because I know coyotes can see in the dark, but they can't see as good as people think, and you actually see a lot better with a thermal than the coyote does. So you now start stacking more things in your favor because you can see better than them, you're not emitting any kind of light. You can get away with a lot night hunting, and so your setups are a lot easier. I mean, it's not uncommon for us to be standing in the middle of a wide open field on tripods calling and shooting a coyote at 50 yards in the middle of a field because they can't see you and you can see them, and so all those things make it a lot more available for people to get into it, your success rate's gonna be higher. And so, as far as a great management tool, yeah, thermal hunting is a great way to do it, it's a great way to get into it. You learn a lot about the coyotes, you can see their reactions and how they're reacting to a call, all those types of things. The thermal kind of gives you that advantage and the ability to do those things.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Now, is there a difference? And I think of the I don't know if it's the stereotypical thermal where it's different colors, the warmer it is, the brighter it is, or something, and versus the is it called FLIR? Yeah, FLIR it was a brand. Okay. That was a brand of firm, yeah. Thermal. Okay, but that it didn't like the different colors. Yeah. But it was that pretty much though the same technology?

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Yeah. Oh, okay. It's all thermal imaging, it's all basically just giving you different heat signatures. So it's detecting the differences in heat of things out there. Uh-huh. And so, yeah, if there's an animal standing there next to a fence post, that fence post, a wooden fence post, might be emitting some heat, but that coyote is going to be a heck of a lot brighter because he's going to be a live animal. Oh, he's putting off a lot more heat. So, yeah, they there's thermal imaging, it's just detecting differences in heat. And the color thing that you're referring to, most of the optics nowadays, you have several different color palettes you can choose from, whether that makes you know what you're looking at that's hot be white or black, or you can make it fusion where it's all different colors, and like that predator movie back in the day. Yeah, like that kind of look. You can, yeah, there's a lot of things.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

And that's what I'm thinking of is and that's literally what I was thinking of is the different colored image from the predator movies, versus yeah, that bright, almost an icy blue or something like that. Whereas, and now that I'm thinking of it, like the night vision is that green. It can be that with because that's just picking up on light to see stuff. Whereas this is picking up heat signatures. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Yeah. The night visions usually run off of an ambient light. Like we would use uh digital night vision back in the day too, like I said, and that's running off an ambient infrared light, basically the same technology as like a trail camera.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Trail cam shape.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Yeah, so you get like a black and white image, but you can see definition, like you could see if it was a coyote, you could see if he had a color line on his back, you would see all that in the hair and the ears and everything. Where it's thermal, it's gonna look a little bit different. Just the shape. Yeah, yeah.

Laws, Ethics, And State Differences

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Okay. So I didn't realize that there was as much the r m morals, ethics, all of that as what you were kind of sharing with me before we got on here about night hunting. So let's talk about that because mostly because I think you said a lot of really good things about helping guys understand what you're doing and what you're not doing. And it's also beyond coyotes, you can actually hunt Bobcat, is that true? And like raccoons at night.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

Yeah, in the state of Washington, you can raccoons, bobcats, coyotes, that type of thing. And yeah, there's a set season for it too. You cannot hunt at night during the months of modern firearm big game seasons. Okay. So once basically once modern firearm season starts for a deer, you cannot night hunt up until the last day of late buck, and then after that, you can go back to night hunting for obvious reasons, so that you can't be out there night hunting and saying you're a coyote. They'll just assume you're Yeah, exactly. The state's done good about that. And fortunately, they they allow us to night hunt. Some states don't allow you to actively pursue coyotes at night with thermal imaging. And I think it's really important that they do and that they don't take that away just for a lot of reasons. I mean, livestock predation is a big one. And then, you know, it's not easy managing predators. There's a lot of them out there, not a lot of guys do it. It's not super popular in our area, and so you know, having that ability to go out there and do it, I think, is something that we should encourage instead of look down on because there is the ongoing controversy about thermal optics, especially growing really fast in the West here. Obviously, that that big debate of big game stuff, you gotta go down that rabbit hole, like Idaho, where people were using them for big game identifying, and now it's being talked about being removed. And in the state of Washington, it is not legal to use to spot big game animals. State of Oregon, it's not legal.

SPEAKER_00 12:09

So if you're going out deer hunting, elk hunting, anything bear, you can't go scouting. You can't include like night.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Yeah, because the problem is like thermal imaging is it works during the daytime too. Oh, does it? Yeah, so the only thing that would affect it is like a bright sunny day. They're not gonna work as good because of that heat was gonna make everything pretty hot, so it's really hard to use. We've actually taken them like when we're in eastern Washington, some of that bigger country, we try taking them out every once in a while as a scanner when we're calling, just because we think, oh, maybe we could pick up a coyote coming through the sage a little bit faster because you're looking into some big country there. You find out really quick that it doesn't work that great if the sun's up and it's bright, like you're not gonna be able to spit you spot a coyote coming through the sage. That sagebrush heats up really fast.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Well, yeah, I gotta think if it's a 90-degree day, yeah.

Daytime Use, Scouting, And Controversy

SPEAKER_01 12:58

Ultimately, it's best you just play on movement and hope that coyote's on the move when he's coming to the call and you're gonna pick them up faster that way. There's been a few occasions where coyote be held up out there sitting, and one of us has got regular binoculars out, and you spot one. So in that case, maybe a thermal would have helped. But yeah, for the most part, that it's it's not super good in the daytime either in those bright sunny days. But yeah, back to what I was saying that they can be used in the daytime, and so there is that big factor there. That's where a lot of this has comes from, and like the negative view on thermal imaging is being used in the daytime to spot game big game animals, and it's not legal, it's already not legal, so that's something that that gets brought up, it's talked about, it's an ongoing debate, it's hard to police, that sort of thing. It's it's a big, it's a big touchy subject. As far as that goes, you know, scouting-wise, like I was telling you before the podcast, is scouting-wise in the state of Washington, it's totally fine. We're legal, where you can be, like say you were going out at night to go scouting in the offseason, you'd have to first be able to be on that land at night. So you're most of the that eliminates all timberland, pretty much all timberland, besides like a DNR state land where you get out there at night. But other than that, yeah, pretty much all that. So it still gets you back to that private property type of deal. But yeah, like I said, there's such a controversy there, but it's really hard because where I struggle with that is trying to get people to understand that taking that away is a huge impact in in how we manage predators because of how resourceful they are, you know, how yeah, much easier, better it gives you an advantage in managing predators. And so if you take that away, you're gonna take another tool away, just like taking hound hunting away was detrimental to how we manage bears and lions and stuff like that. So taking that thermal thing away is the same type of a deal where you're gonna be handcuffing hunters as how we manage predators.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

Yeah, and that's a big deal because we were talking about the studies, and the just every article and study I've seen, it's coyotes are fifty to seventy percent of deer fawn. They're the ones that, yeah, they're killing off 50 to 70 percent of the mortality is because of the coyotes. So I would think if you're hunting deer, you'd want coyote managed above anything else.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Yeah, a lot of people don't think of that, but yeah, it's very important.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

Because I know the blame gets put on bear and cougar, and not even I would say, from what I've seen, Bobcat. I don't hear Bobcat brought up as much. I hear cougar and I hear bear.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

But when I looked at the numbers, it's really it's coyote are the are the number one and I think another thing to look at there is there's a lot more coyotes on the landscape than people think because we spent a lot of time calling in in, like I said earlier, in that timbered company type land where a lot of people deer hunt, and we of the thousands of stands that we've made, coyote stands that we've made in that ground, we've called in a handful of bobcats, and they do come in pretty regularly, but they're just not as many. You're calling in more coyotes, which I think can kind of speak to the amount of them that are out there. You're just gonna run into a lot more coyotes because there's a lot more coyotes out there. And so yeah, I'm sure bobcats they play a big factor into that fawn predation as well, but it there's just the amount of coyotes that's out there, it definitely is where that big 50 and 60 percent comes from because there's just more of them out there on the landscape.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

Yeah, huh. And I it just occurred to me earlier when you were talking that I didn't realize people were buying like the thermal optics to go out and scout big game during the day, even then. And but that's illegal to go out during the day. Any using any thermal for scouting big game is illegal.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Yeah, during the season, yeah. If there's a big game season active, you cannot use a thermal optic. Can you use it outside of season or do you not know? Yes, outside of season, the confirmation that I got was yes, you can. Where like I said, we're legal.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

Oh, that's interesting because that's something that didn't really even occur to me that someone would use thermal thermals to go in and scout. And scout. Yeah. I guess it makes sense, but you can't during season.

Predator Management And Fawn Survival

SPEAKER_01 17:41

Yeah. You cannot use it. And that's and that kind of goes back to the wording in use of harvesting a big game animal. So that that kind of puts it in those parameters if it's not seasoned and you're not actively trying to harvest an animal or in the act of hunting, I believe is how they have it. Yeah. And that's something I'm sure subject to change in the future. It's such new technology, and like you said earlier, it generated in Texas, because that's kind of like where it all comes from. Most of these thermal companies, like where they're based out of is Texas. Uh-huh. That's kind of like you would call basically the thermal capital of the country. So everything stemmed out there, and it just branched out from there, and that's moved obviously in popularity to the western states for the coyote hunting, and that is just moved farther west and further west. You get over here on the coast, like where we're from, and that's where basically all I can speak of, because that's really all I really hunt. But you start talking about like the coast. Well, there's just not a lot of coyote hunters around here. Yeah. So it as that grows, now thermal optics grow, and it is part of it because it is legal to use for coyotes. And so now we're starting to get into these discussions of what we can and can't do with these things and what should be done and those types of things. And I think it's so new they're gonna have to look at the impact, you know what I mean, and and success rates and things like that, like they were doing in Idaho for the last few years now, because people were using them in Idaho for deer hunting, and so that they had to look at that, see, and then I think that's kind of based on their decisions going forward.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

Yeah, and it's it's like any new technology, yeah. They have to figure out if it how yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

How do we police it? Who gets to decide? Those types of things. It's this is like any piece of inform technology out there. Like we have rangefinders too, that we have guns that can shoot 1200 yards and all these things, and it's like at some point we have to step back and look at all these things and say what's affecting success rates and at what point do we have to do something about it, especially with how cut off we are around here with the our ability to manage predators. Yeah, yeah. These big game animals are getting it from both ends, and something's gotta give.

SPEAKER_00 19:55

What's interesting, and I don't know if it was like a reel on Facebook or like an somebody wrote something out on Facebook, or who was that? I can't remember the source. And I have a feeling it feels like it was somebody who like we talked to at the show, maybe, but they said that the gist of it was that no matter how much extra technology we get, the harvest rates are still staying the same. Yeah. So we always think about these new and latest gadgets that come out, and oh yeah, this'll yeah, the harvest rates are all staying the same. So I don't know. The big scheme of things, it's not really changing. As far as I think deer and elk and things like that, it's I I could see an argument for thermals, though.

Tech, Success Rates, And Enforcement

SPEAKER_01 20:43

I mean, uh that I could see that being where people would come off as well, this is an unfair advantage and things like that. And I see the backlash, just being a part of it. You hear about it all the time, and so it's definitely something, but it's not legal in the state of Washington. That is 100% fact. So it's not legal already. So whether or not people are still doing it, that's obviously the concern. And to be honest, you know, the only remedy would be to intensify the penalties legislatively, you know what I mean. If that's exactly what they want to do, then that would be how to be done. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

And understand, like you said, this all starting in Texas. Well, dealing with a non an invasive species, the hogs, to Texas and just being completely overrun. So wiping out as many as those it could you I think with as much hog hunting that happens down there that it's almost sounds like it's been a losing battle. Yeah. Because they have so many litters, they have so many offspring that yeah, you you need every advantage possible. Yeah. Well, it's not necessarily true for a lot of other hunting where we need those type of advantages. You know, regulation's good.

SPEAKER_01 21:59

In a lot of states, I believe, uh, don't quote me on this, obviously I'm not you know any legal stance here, but I'm pretty positive that in Texas you can use thermal optics for big game hunting as long as it's non-weapons mounted. Uh-huh. Just from listening to some of the guys that that are from there that uh other podcasts or whatever, I've heard them talk about using them for when they're climbing up in their ladder stand or whatever for be in the dark before daylight, scanning the area before they go and climb up in their stand and stuff like that. So yeah, pretty in a lot of states actually are that way. I mean, a lot of states you can use them. So I Again, it's good that those states are doing that. I mean that they're gonna get data and information and see how it impacts and changes things and moving forward they can each state will be able to make that decision for themselves what they need to do going forward. Yeah.

Coyote Color Phases And Oddities

SPEAKER_00 22:48

Okay. So let's talk about pivoting to a different in a different direction here about the different because I know it's that the idea of manipulating the behavior, getting them to come into a call and stuff, but as far as and I so I'm asking this because one day I was looking out the back window and I saw a dog sitting in the corner in the shade of the backyard. And I mean it was so white, the head and everything, and I could tell it had a little bit of color on its back, but it was almost glowing, even though it was sitting in the shade, and I thought it was the neighbor's dog or something that came over into the yard, and it stood up and I realized it was a coyote. The legs were all white, the head was all white, and you could see that typical kind of golden color along the back and the tail. But I hadn't ever seen one that coloring before, and I've seen it one time since, but I think that made me want to hunt coyote more than anything else because I thought that would be a really cool mount to do a mount with that one, and so tell us about the different like some unusual dogs that you've seen out there and the coyotes that you've seen, different either coloring. What have you done with them after also that you've hunted?

SPEAKER_01 24:14

Yeah, as far as color-wise, we've definitely killed some brighter ones like that. A lot more of the brighter coloring. I feel like we kill a lot more of those over in eastern Washington, but we kill a lot of dark coyotes around here too. I've got some that have a distinct line right down their belly line, basically, and the whole top half of them is almost black. It's really they're really cool looking. And then a lot of reds, a lot of reddish color in there for our coyotes. And but we have, like you said, like that really bright one. We have killed some that are almost a blonde look to them. It's really cool. Interesting coyotes, man. We've killed a lot of tripods where they got three legs. We've killed some with no tails. Killed one coyote one time that had no completely no lower jaw. He just had the top jaw and it was completely healed over. He was surviving like that. About a quarter of a of his tongue and his old top, and that's how he was, and he was a healthy coyote. I mean, came into the call and we walked up on him and couldn't believe it. It was completely healed over. I don't know if it had been shot off by the farmer that owned the place or what had happened, but yeah. I don't understand how it would eat. I we we couldn't really figure that out either. I mean, like I said, it was about a quarter of his tongue, and and I don't know, a very small portion of his bottom area down his jaw was still intact, but Coyote snouts pretty long, and I'd say like the a good portion of the bottom part of it was yeah, completely missing, and the only thing he could really do was he could still swallow, obviously, the way he was the way it would looked, but man, it looked like he had a hard time.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

Huh. Sneaking up on like the back porch and eating some dog food or something. Yeah, yeah. Something to survive. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

Yeah, that hanging around the compost pile of the dairy. But yeah, so and then as far as coyotes, what we do with them after. Unfortunately, a lot of our coyotes are either tattered up looking, you know, kind of ratty looking. So we don't do anything with those coyotes. So there is a handful that we pack out, and I got a buddy that has a little tannery, and so he's got a bunch in the freezer, and I've gotten some tubed out, and he's supposed to be we're lined up to where he's supposed to do quite a few mounts. I'm gonna get some shoulder mounts and a couple full body mounts, but the rest of them he's got, and he was gonna tan up and do whatever he wants with them, basically, so he could trade them or sell them or whatever he does with them.

What Hunters Do With Pelts

SPEAKER_00 26:30

So yeah, I would think so. Heather Aldrich, when she was on, she brought she loaned us one of her color phase bears to put in our booth. And now, and it's because she doesn't have any, she told me she doesn't have room to do any more bear mounts because she gets so many bears, but she just has them done up, not even a rug, but just where they hang from their nose. And I thought that would be cool to have different color phase or different colored coyotes, yeah. Just a whole kind of a line of them would be cool, like that, just hanging from their nose. So what actually we'll wrap up with this part. So this is gonna be a multi-episode, and I knew it going in and stuff just to talk about everything. And we haven't even really talked about hunting yet. But seasons, bag limits, laws, and regs. Now, as I say with everything else, know the regs, know the laws of your specific area. Don't depend on what Cody's saying here today or anything I say. You are the one who's gonna be out in the out there talking to the game warden. So you need to know what your regs are for that particular game unit that you're in. But overall, like what is the general season for coyote? Is it just a year-round thing?

SPEAKER_01 27:46

Yeah, right now in Washington, it is year-round. There's no bag limit. Like I said, the only regulation I guess they put on coyotes was that you can't night hunt them during the modern fire on big game seasons. But other than that, day hunting wise, you could day hunt coyotes year-round.

SPEAKER_00 28:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

And uh there was some talk about that. I listened to one of the commission meetings where they were talking about that, and they had brought up how there's no season or bag limit on coyotes, and one of the commissioners wanted to that to be looked at and basically changed going forward, and the guy that was moderating the deal, he said right now there's really no data that supports needing that. Yeah. Because right now that's a big thing. I know that's kind of slipped in there where they're talking about trying to classify coyotes as a game species in Washington. Because right now they're not classified as a game animal. So they wanted to put that on there and I'm assuming going forward, try to induce some c introduce some kind of season or bag limit or something to that nature. But like I said, that the guy that was moderating the deal, he he mentioned that there was really no data that supported that. Like there's really no need for it as in there's no struggling of numbers or anything like that. How long ago was that? It wasn't that long ago. I want to say it was last year or last summer, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

I wonder if it was before we got the new three members of the game commission on there. Because I've heard that there were people who weren't into hunting or fishing who were on the game commission that all were replaced because their terms were up. Yeah. So I kind of wonder if hopefully they were the one asking for those. Yeah.

Seasons, Bag Limits, And Policy Talk

SPEAKER_01 29:20

And I'd be the first one to say if it needed it, if there was if the science was there that it needed it, that they were struggling or something, and we needed to back off and put a bag limit on it, I would I'd be all for it. I'm not here to say wipe out the coyotes, because this is what I love to do, obviously. And I'm all about the conservation side of things, but at the same time, like it'd be pretty crazy to think that we've they've reached a level of where we where there's something like that needed.

SPEAKER_00 29:45

Where they're looking at the endangered species list.

SPEAKER_01 29:47

Yeah, where they're facing that. Like the amount of coyote hunters, like you did you mentioned earlier, it's growing. But the amount of coyote hunters on the landscape, especially in western Washington, it's uh it's gonna be a while before something like that would be talked about.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

We'd all have to be out there hauling in multiple dogs per day before they what do they have an idea of what the population is in Washington?

SPEAKER_01 30:11

I don't know. I Googled it like everyone does. I can't remember how long ago, but I think they estimated it at 50,000 coyotes, and I just I I struggle with that number, I feel like. And I don't even know how they would go about doing a study on the population of coyotes. I mean, I can tell you right now, if you were to go out locating coyotes where you're just driving around howling and looking for responses, you could you could roughly gauge some numbers, but as far as like doing a flyover or something, like I don't know. It'd be pretty tough. I don't know how you'd go about it. I'd be really curious to know myself how they would go about getting a population number for coyotes.

SPEAKER_00 30:49

Yeah, especially, and we'll get more talking about habitat and things like that, but I would think it it would be a tough because you can figure out in an area, but that's not necessarily and coyotes are everywhere. I remember working 25, 30 years ago. I worked at a convenience store, and in the middle of the more than once, in the middle of Vancouver, downtown Vancouver, in the middle of the night, I'd see a coyote running down the middle of the street. Yeah. We're in downtown Vancouver. Yeah. It's not like you yeah, they're concentrated, they're everywhere. 50,000 to me sounds low. Yeah, 100%. That's exactly what I thought. Because that's estimated how many bears we have, I think. So I can tell you right now, there's probably a lot more coyotes than bears. Yeah. Or at least maybe that was Oregon, they had 50,000. But that just seems low. Yeah. Yeah. Huh. When do you, and this will be the last question for this one, but when do you hunt coyotes? Is there is are you just out there year-round whenever you get time to do it? Yeah, 100%.

Population Estimates And Urban Sightings

SPEAKER_01 31:56

I'm out there whenever I can get out there. There's better times, obviously, and times where it can be a little tough. I'd say, generally speaking, going into this month right now, March, towards the end of March, and towards the end of March and through the beginning to mid-April, once those coyotes have made a den and those pups are in the ground for those first couple weeks, and I'd say the first couple weeks, things can get pretty tough. That female's not leaving those pups very much. The males out there gathering food, bringing it back, like they're pretty quiet, they're not very vocal. All the coyotes are in their little area doing their own thing. Pretty solitary. So as far as like getting a vocal response or landing on a coyote that's going to come in, it was a lot more difficult and they're in that time frame. But yeah, other than that, honestly, like the best time would be August into fall, like October. I know a lot of guys are deer hunting, but that's a great time because you have the most amount of coyotes on the landscape that you will possibly have that year. Okay. Because now the pups are at full age to be out on their own. This is a time frame that's often referred to by a lot of guys as like family bust up or disput dispersal time frame, where those pups are now leaving the day, leaving their parents, yeah, and they're out on their own. And so you got a lot of coyotes on the landscape at that time. A lot of guys you see it every year, guys shoot a coyote when they're out deer hunting, just walking down a clear cut or whatever. So uh there's just a lot of coyotes on the landscape that time of year. So it's a great time to be out calling too.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

Yeah. I would think winter months, if you were really going for I don't know about the trophy if trophy aspect of it is the right word, but the if you wanted that really full, because they're when they're when they've got those winter coats and they're really full, they are uh they can be an attractive dog. During the summer, they're pretty spindly because like most animals, just they don't have the fur and stuff. But yeah, during those winter months, I imagine that might be pretty popular too.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

I would say chasing the fur deal that late October on to about about mid-February, where things start to change for them. Obviously, February they start breeding, they can get pretty chewed up around that time frame just from the way they breed and everything. So you see a lot, you can see a lot of tattered up hair at that time. And then plus, our winters are pretty mild usually, and usually about this time is where things start to change, where they start to look a little bit more like what you're saying, a little speedily.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

Okay. So thank you for listening. If you could go on, like, subscribe, follow, share, all those things that your platform asks. We really appreciate that. Leave a comment, and we will talk to you next week.