It's that time of year here in Canada when the weather has gotten bitterly cold & the coyote fur is in its prime. That's the time of year I get fired up about coyote hunting. When I grew up (in the early 80's) my dear old dad took me out with him & showed me how to trap. Besides being the best bonding experience ever we both made a lot of cash over the winter. We were fetching as high as $200 for prime coyote pelts. A lot of guys were hunting & trapping and never once did coyotes become an endangered species. I also recall that at that time the country was loaded with upland game, rabbits and all sorts of little critters. My last year of trapping was 1986. That year the fur protestors ran a smear campaign against the fur industry & the general public bought into it. I couldn't sell a pelt for 2 years & when they did it was for only a few cents. It was shortly after that I noticed that there were far fewer rabbits around; pretty soon none. Upland game hunting was awful. There were too many coyotes, not enough food to go around. Ranchers began to lose livestock and people reported coyotes coming into their yards to eat from their dog's dish. The men that made a good living on the trap-line were now unemployed. The fur market crashed for the first time in over 300 years.
I wonder now if those protesters that felt they had done such a great thing have ever realized the ripple effect that they had on the rest of the ecosystem? It was so important to them to save the predators but what about the grouse, the pheasants, the rabbits etc? It's been 25 years and I still wonder if the people that lobbied to stop the harvesting of furs realize that their actions had such a negative impact on so many species and so many people.
Why are there no big bucks around? I get asked that question all the time. Then I ask, what did you shoot this year & the response is almost always, "Oh, I just shot a little buck, he'll be good eating." And with that I begin my answer to the initial question: Why are there no big bucks around? I guess people don't seem to understand that big bucks must first go through the process of being little bucks. (The kind that are being shot for good eating). I have always been partial to hunting for big horns. But, if I don't find somerthing for my trophy wall I begin to look for something with poor genetics. ( a 3x3 buck will only be a bigger 3x3 buck next year and still not score well) or I take an antlerless animal. A small 4x4 or 5x5 might be a very impressive animal in coming years so why shoot it to make sausage with? The buck to doe ratio is usually out of whack in most areas, doe populations being high. Why not make sausage out of a doe or a fawn? They are every bit as tasty & might give those little spiker bucks a chance to turn into something noteworthy in years to come.
Those are my thought on the matter. Does it make sense to everyone else?
