@shax2lex I have hunted all over the state, but mainly in the NW corner. I am in Oconee Co. This time of year I pretty much just howl. I find trails or roads they run near daily to patrol as breeding season comes on and in a spot I want to call I well scent mark several spots on that trail and put up a trail cam or 2 to see when they are coming through. I use coyote gland trapping scents like Yodel Dog. They will come several times a day usually to sniff it, roll in it and pee near it. Dirt road intersections are great spots. Especially if you find one where they poop in the road all the time.
I will usually kill the breeding pair doing this combined with howling at night. If you are hunting during the day time here in SC, forget anything you see online filmed past Mississippi. You’ll be hunting cover or right near cover. Watch some MFK videos to get a good idea. Here is the kicker. If you notice with MKF they almost always are hunting pups in the summer to late summer before they learn anything. When they are that age they will come blasting in like a grey fox and not work the wind as much. An adult this time of year in the day time will go a mile out of his way to work around you in cover to wind you. That means you either need to start hunting at night or be very careful picking a spot.
So long as it is hitting ~ 45 degs or below at night here, bait can also be productive. I have never had good luck baiting here during the warm months. When I say good luck all my bait piles will have a cam on them to record activity. I have found road kill deer to work best. I also use whole hogs I kill, as well as butcher scraps and fish scraps from a local fish market. If you are only going to hunt at night set your cam for night only. Otherwise you’ll have 40-11 pics of buzzards every card pull. Don’t put it out in the open. Put it just inside cover. Somewhere you can see into but enough cover to make them at ease. Tie the head, and limbs down. Otherwise they’ll pull it into thick cover and eat it there. A small sapling will not do. I had one tug on a deer long and hard enough til it bent over and broke a pine sapling about 3 fingers in width. He then pulled the deer into a ditch out of sight.
Order the book Understanding Coyotes by Michael Huff. Probably one of the most informative books on their biology I have read. I highly recommend it.
If you are just starting, be patient. I deer hunted from ~ 88-2004 and for the most part gave it up in 04 til present for hunting coyotes and feral pigs. I will not lie, it took me a couple years to put 2 and 2 together to the point where I had confidence that I would be successful when I went out. You HAVE to hunt the wind here. You have to take it into account on your site selection and stand approach. That took the longest to accept. I’d have a couple great spots I would want to call on a given day but the wind would be wrong and I would do it anyhow only to get a warning bark/howl from a pine thicket once he winded me.
If I were you I would go to some WMA land and just practice calling. Take a rimfire if you get lucky, but if you educate a coyote..so what. It is on public land, not farm. Nobody here hunts public land for coyotes anyway. Hell I have had the run of GZ1 WMA land for a few years now during deer season. Never once have I saw another coyote hunter out.
Feel free to hit me up about anything. Just don’t get discouraged. It’ll happen and you’ll be hooked. Then it’ll start happening on a consistent basis, then you’ll really be hooked.
