jackal hunting

[lt dan]

i am so impressed with this site that i might irritade the older members. i do not know what you hunters use in the usa to hunt jackal/fox/coyote, or how you go by hunting it. over here we do anything to kill it. even our strict legislation allows anything to kill it from poison to dogs and night hunting and even horseback . the thing is that jackal have no more natural predators left. therefore it kills lifestock with a kind of pleasure. it is a very cruel predator, and will eat young sheep without killing it. as soon as it ate the best meat (like the stomack) it will start eating the next young. as soon as it is full it will kill all the young sheep without feeding on them. it is as cunning as a kudu, and as soon as you killed a couple with a new hunting method it will adapt. it is well known for setting of poison traps and then eating the meat(bait) without eating the poison. at night we call them with cd's with maiting calls on or with sounds of trapped prey .you then shoot them with red lights. however they quickly adapt to this and the older males will often send the younger males to inspect. one can also put out a dead sheep or cow and wait 3 days and then hit them at night with a big 4x4 and shotguns/dogs. this is a scary hunt as the farmer behind the wheel gets angry when he sees these jackal and will not be stopped by wire fencing. the idea is to hit the fence on one of the iron rods the fence then collapse with the force of the pick-up. jackal also loves eating cows at their backsides when they are giving birth. they are lured by the smell of plasenta and blood. i have seen 19 killed sheep(mostly lambs), only one was preyed on the rest was killed just for the sake of killing. some people are angry when they hear of jackal hunts. but as soon as you show them the manner in which a jackal kills they feel that jackals should be killed by any means. so i want to know how you kill the jackal family in the usa and what kind of vehicles are used. also what calibres. the farmers here will pay you for every kill, this also goes for rooikatte(linx cats) and in some regions this includes vlakvarke(warthogs). it used to be common practice to be paid by the local magistrate for every kill. this was stopped because it made no difference to numbers of jackal or linx. we use silencers but as soon as the first shot is fired the rest is gone. any workable tactic/sugestion or even hunters will be appreciated. thank you

[musher]

Poison's right out most places (if not everywhere) in the US.

Baiting is also not legal in the places I'm familiar with, although you can shoot foxes/coyotes/wolves over natural kill sites.

Lots of folks do call both with the mouth calls and the tape/cd machines.

[Gbro]

Be very careful,
You might end up with a far bigger problem than the jackal.
That is the mush headed environmentalists.
For over 200 years we tried to rid our land of the wolf. all we did was make it the smartest, cunningest predator of all time.
Good luck, and if you are in a position to, take the 1st

[Art Eatman]

From my own coyote hunting and reading about how others do it, I don't see where you have much to learn.

I guess about all I could add would be to take the time to just sit somewhere where you can command a fairly large area, and have a good long-range rifle. Maybe spot some moving at first light or last light. Dunno...

Vehicle? I really like the bullet-proof reliability of my old '85 Toyota 4WD PU. The solid front axle is tougher than the newer double-wishbone. But, I don't go chasing across country in my territory. Probably could wreck an Abrams tank, here, or fall off a cliff.

[iudoug]

the first time the hunter I was with let me shoot all we saw. In certain situations like this one I had shot 6 or 7 and told him to have some fun and shoot a couple which he did. We drove by one laying there alive with its guts hanging out. I said well aren't you going to finish it off? He said no way in hell and when he saw my expression he said "Doug,you just haven't seen the mean cruel things these SOB's are capable of" we just left it to die. A few years later I went back for my second time with a different hunter and we saw one that we could kill easily. The landowner was with us and he and my hunter had a quick conversation in native tongue. My hunter said they would let me shoot it for 50 bucks.....I winked at him and said I would kill it for the guy for 10 !! After the landowner left my hunter laughed about my comment and said he was glad I said it. Doug

[model70fan]

Whatever gets 'em kilt I use a variety of tactics. Bait with horses and cows that die and sneak up on them in the early mornings and just before sundown(get them from the neighbors, sometime my own), calling, tracking, my favorite is just setting up a little ways away from a well used trail with a large range of fire (at least 700 yds) before sun up and watch them on their way to their dens. The last one, you are set up hopefully before any are around so you aren't making any noise and you can bushwhack them while they're winding through draws and such without them knowing anything is around, unless of course they wind you.

[model70fan]

P.S. I feel for ya, I run cattle and during calving time i'm out constantly just checking on the herds, coyotes get in and try to get the new born calves and if not the calves then the afterbirth, I have seen 8-10 coyotes circling a herd at a time just waiting for a cow to give birth.

[lt dan]

mod70fan, it sounds like we have the same problem.

how big is a coyote? (length, height and weight) do they usually hunt in packs? whos the boss? male or female? how many young and how many times a year?

it is true that they are very cruel, even so i will never let one die. i will give it another shot. but more importantly i will take it with me. if not there will be 3 in its place attrackted by the smell of the first one.

however today is a day of soulsearching as we went calling for jackal last night. we saw 7 and killed 0!!!!! everything that went wrong did and we end up with nothing but empty shells. whats more, these 7 will never be fooled again by our calls.

the day started wrong when we missed a wart-hog on 90 yards presenting us with a perfect broadside shot. the upside of this missed shot is that we where able to follow it to their nest(borough?). so we now know where they live.

naturaly we are going back tonight for the jackal, but their will be a shoot in first!! the night did end on a positive note when we came across a family of bat eared foxes(not sure of the english name) and soon after on a hedge- hog. after a couple of photos we let them be. the fox is on the semi endangoured list(we saw 9!) and it hase been years sins i saw a h-hog.

tonight however it will be jackal time. i will post photos.

[lt dan]

p.s iudoug i am glad that you didnt pay. if you shoot a jackal the landowner is supposed to pay you. it sounds as if you got it right and you have "bush humor"

[Bottom Gun]

We always take a varmint rifle along on our big game hunts.
We have taken lots of coyotes by returning to where we field dressed elk or deer. The gut piles are almost guaranteed to provide you with some good shooting.
Sometimes we'll carry some of the innards to other areas in 5 gallon buckets.

[Art Eatman]

Typical coyote weighs 30 to 40 pounds. They generally hunt in family groups; papa, mama and two or three younguns. When singing, two can sound like twenty...

They bark and yodel, trying to scare a rabbit into moving. Cottontail rabbits have little scent. So, see movement, chase rabbit. Same for field mice.

[model70fan]

The 'yotes up here in Montana are a little smaller (25-30 lbs generally) than the ones in Texas, but they hunt in mainly the same fashion. The males leave the family pretty early and join packs of other males, the females raise the young and teach them how to hunt. I once found a female sunning on the side of a hill, after I shot her I was walking up to check her coat and I saw a small coyote poke its head up from a den I hadn't even seen, he came out to investigate, so I popped him, then another came out, same thing, over all 6 pups came out of that den (I know it sounds cruel but the pups grow to be big dogs pretty quick, and they would have starved without their ma anyway) About the best time for calling up here is during the worst part of winter where food is scarce and they are hungry (I don't immagine you have that opportunity in S. Africa), tracking is the same thing, fresh snow helps, but the pack sizes around here range from 2-3 to 10, the largest pack I've ever seen at one time is 14, they were just in front of a herd of cows, big pregnant pissed off cows, I watched as one would try to get in and get stomped on for a while before getting another rancher and we cleaned out 6 of them before they were shielded by cattle, running away

[Art Eatman]

Interesting, model70fan. I'd have thought northern coyotes would be a bit bigger than what you've seen. Most animals, as you go from south to north in the US, are generally larger. Deer, cougars, etc.

I grant that down here, it would be a full-grown male to be 40 pounds...

[tplumeri]

Ive baited cyotes in the past, and will usually take em on sight, but ive also gotten a laugh out of watching a couple playing with two of my black labs.

[model70fan]

Art- the 'yote population here is largely infested with the mange, plus winters are a little tougher than most (I guess not all) parts of texas, but that doesn't seem to upset our 400# muleys so I don't know, granted I've weighed them at upwards of 40 lbs (my biggest was a 53 pounder, stock killer on the ranch down the road so he was fat on porkchops), but those are big ones, the average, at least in the pretty good chunk of SE Montana and into Wyoming that I've hunted, is around 30ish lbs. I've heard of areas around with some bigger ones, but in about a 150 mile radius I have a tough time seeing 'em without their ribs sticking out and no hair most of the year.

[lt dan]

we went back last night and shot 3, their size is about 30lbs. we again saw the bat ear foxes. we didnt have any luck with the calls and managed only to attract a ware-wolf. we let it be as there is still a dispute if this animal is a predator of livestock. i have got same photos of a jackal and also of the hedge hog i will practise this weekend to post it.

when i read all the members coments on this thread as well as the rest of this site i cant help but think if the members of this site lived over here jackals might have been under control.

anyone is welcome to come and help with the jackals, lynx, baboon and wart hog pests.(i am serious)

[davlandrum]

My buddy went back out hunting last year right after we got my deer back to camp and skinned. It couldn't have been 2 hours at most. When he got back to where I had gutted it, the gut pile was gone.

Then he sees this coyote so stuffed it could barely walk. He was laughing so hard he couldn't hit it.

Said it looked like a cartoon it was so full - belly almost draggin the ground.

[ELMOUSMC]

The Coyotes here in N.E.Iowa run around 30 lbs some of the males will go to 40lbs.1 of the old boys I hunt with was Africa a few years ago and brought home a coulpe of Jackal Hides they are really something to see with that black patch on their backs I have been trying to talk him out of 1 of them for quite a while to hang in my gun room.To hear him tell it Jackals will swarm an animal(sheep,cattle,what ever) and eat it alive or at least tear pieces out of it and then move to the next 1 he said that they cost the farmers and ranchers down there lots of money every year.I don't know if this is true of Jackals or not but we have found up here the more pressure we put on the Songdogs the larger the litters are to make up for the losses.When I was a boy we used to see Fox all the time but since the "Yotes" moved in they are few and far between.Pests are pests no matter where you live good luck and hang in there ELMOUSMC Mgunnerysgt USMC 1965-1992

[lt dan]

elmousmc, you make acurate statement. a few years ago we had a flood and we knew a lot of jackal ,old and young, died in their boroughs. we all thought
that this was a turning point. more than 55% of their numbers were dead. however there numbers were back to normal in 8 months.and the next year it was twice as much as normal. it took 3 years for their numbers to stabalize. so you are right they outbreed any problem.

[model70fan]

That's why they both ('yotes and jackals) as a species have made it through all of our attempts to get rid of them. I don't know about Africa, but in the U.S. people have had a shoot on sight mentality for 150 years about coyotes, as well as government hunting/trapping, poisoning, etc... and yet they still remain. The only thing we can do is TRY to control their numbers, and still shoot on sight

[Nnobby45]

I live in Nevada, and here we tend to hunt coyotes with some of the hotter .22 center fires. Like the .22-250 Rem, or even the .223.

Deer rifles with lighter bullet weights also work well. All rifles are, of course, scope sighted. Any long range rifle will do.

We attract them by using a call that imitates a critter, like a jackrabbit or cottontail, in distress. Such a call can be heard over long distances in flat country. There are even electronic devices that play a recording that accomplishes the same thing. I prefer the hand held call.

Hunting at night, where legal, is probably more effective than by day. Hide, keep still. Loud at first. Call then pause for a minute or so. Keep repeating. When they approach, call much softer. They may come right up to you, especially if they haven't been called before.

Jackels may be different, but I'd suspect their predatory nature toward an easy meal would make them vulnerable to the same tactics.

[lt dan]

just a couple of photos of a recent jackal hunt. one of a jackal one of a hedgehog and one were we are grilling wart-hog while waiting for the wart-hogs. i made a feeding place for the hogs and the jackals. i will be visiting the place 3 hours before nightfall and wait it out. if succesfull- more photos.

[lt dan]

here are more photos.this time the size is good. i am still learning. let me know if i should post more images of what we shoot here in africa

[Art Eatman]

Pictures are always welcome. During daylight, try to frame the shot so you can pick up the background, to show terrain and vegetation as well as critters.

, Art

[lt dan]

art, wil try to. meanwhile have a look at this photo. one of the reasons why hunting in the summer is not advisable in africa.there are milions of these hanging between the bushes. it is also turning to autum which means the snakes are all over the place getting ready for their winter sleep. shot another jackal today, no opportunity for a photo.