Wile E paid me a visit this morning.

[VaRedneck]

Help.

I need some info on these critters. Do they patrol a regular area/path....where there's one there's more...ect.

Any insight will be deeply appreciated.

[buckhunter]

To me they just seem to wonder around except when a steady food source is located. Not sure if they can be patterned.

[VaRedneck]

...they just seem to wonder around except when a steady food source is located. Not sure if they can be patterned.

That's what I always figured too. I've since been told that trappers will use snares to target holes in fences that have seen regular use. Which leads me to believe that they might have a home range that they patrol.....and maybe regular route of use.

In the past a neighbor has mentioned hearing them...another has used mechanical calls, late one night....to no effect. I figure at least one has been around for a while and I had just never seen it. Now that I have....I think back to how the turkey being seen has lessened...not the deer though..the rabbit are being kept in check....I figured that was foxes.

Maybe I'm worrying for nothing.

[dovehunter]

VaRedneck, where do you live? I too am a Virginian and live on the western outskirts of Richmond. I travel fairly widely within the state during the course of hunting and (before I retired) on my job with VDOT. I have only seen coyotes so far in one place: the State Prison Farm that's on both sides of the James River in eastern Powhatan and Goochland Counties. However, and surprisingly, I see them here on relatively frequent basis. In talking with the guards who ride the farm on patrol, they see them fairly often too. They say that the animals don't seem to follow regular routines or paths but can be seen anywhere at almost any time. A couple of years ago I joined a deer drive there on which the kid on the next stand down from me shot a big female coyote. I thought they were dogs since, when they ran by me, one (presumably the male) was nearly black in color so I didn't shoot. At my shooting club the other day the guy at the next bench over said he was fine-tuning the sight-in on his .243 so he could shoot coyotes on his farm in Alleghany County. Fortunately it appears that coyotes have not yet become plentiful here in Virginia but they are defnitely here and probably to stay.

[VaRedneck]

I live in Bedford...a little north of Smith Mountain Lake.

I don't know if I can do the trapping thing. I thought I'd check out a coupla cd's on the subject but on second thought...they're gonna have to become more of a problem before I'll do that.

I don't have a problem exterminating vermin, but they deserve a quick kill.