Hunters Can Ring Dinner Bells

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Hmm, sounds like a good way to bait wolves if I ever decide I want to shoot one - fire a shot in the air, sit and wait for a wolf to come in looking for a easy meal.:D
Seriously though, it just might work. I've heard coyotes calling as they make their way towards a gut pile from a deer one of us shot late in the evening, just before dark. We have even had coyotes follow us, staying just far enough away so that we couldn't see them, as we dragged a deer out after dark. It's kinda creepy!
Wouldn't know about gators. They haven't been "(re)introduced" in Idaho yet.:D
 
I've never heard that about wolves or gators. But I'm not surprised either.
 
Everywhere I have hunted, if you don't find a deer before you leave the field, there is no point in "coming back in the morning to look again", unless you are hoping to recover antlers. In Maine, the bear guides would slap the bottom of the plastic 5 gallon bait bucket several times cause they claimed if a bear could hear it, it was the dinner bell. I stayed at a lodge in Kenya out in the boonies, on a river and at night the kitchen staff would toss scraps in the river to the crocs. Those things would be climbing the bank every night at dusk waiting for dinner. Nothing but a 4" chain link fence and a sign that said no swimming between a bunch of rich euro-tourists, some shady American military types (us) and a mess of dinosaurs.
 
Ivan Pavlov did a number of studies on the conditioned response. It’s an accepted behavioral pattern with many animals.
 
Predators learn to associate bang-whop with the sweet smell of blood and think, "Chow time!"

Quail learn about hen scratch and soon respond like domestic hens to, "Chick, chick, chick..."

A point of hilarity to me at our deer lease was to sit on a hillside and watch my father drive along the ranch road: Banging on the car door, hollering, "Biddy, biddy, biddy," while trickling corn. About a hundred yards behind him would be some 20 or 30 turkey hens running along and eating the corn.

Good ol' Pavlov. :)
 
alsaqr said:
A few times coyotes beat me to my downed deer. One coyote had started eating on the deer. After removing the deer i sometimes set up on the gut pile and shoot coyotes.
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I think that the coyotes follow me. I shot a doe and drove by the gut pile 2 hours later. It was GONE! Not a trace except for a little blood soaked dirt.
 
I don't know about gunshots, gators are just THICK during teal season down at the WMA. I shot a teal one year when my SIL had tagged along with me. He says "I'll get it", goes out after it and yells back to me, "something big and green ate it!" I'm like, "If you don't wanna get ate, GET BACK HERE!" LOL! It's why I never took my dog during teal season. By the regular duck season, they've all holed up.

Anyway, those gators down there certainly COULD have been trained that gun shots mean food. Ain't like they have to swim far, though. Before dawn, you shine a light out over the water and you'll see lots of eyes staring back at you. Knowing you just waded over to your hunting spot is kinda creepy. I have a canoe to make the trip from the other side on Buffalo Lake, now. LOL!
 
Coyotes have helped themselves to my deer a few times. A couple that I remember were bow kills. The coyotes either smelled blood or heard the deer grunt. I suppose they could have been watching me too, I suspect that happens often.
In one instance I hit a young buck with a broadside quartering shot and wasn't confident that both lungs were hit. The deer went about 80 yards and laid down under a cedar tree. Surprisingly, I had a good view with field glasses through a hole in the brush. Perhaps a minute later I heard something coughing. It was a coyote that sounded like a dog with heart worms (that's what all coughing dogs got diagnosed with on the farm). There were three coyotes and they started attacking the buck which would get up and try to defend itself with it's antlers then immediately lay down. Then it got dark. Long story short, I found the deer another 50 yard away missing most of one loin.
On another bow hunt I shot a buck, it went 20 yards and down. I field dressed it and walked a couple hundred yards to get my ATV. I loaded the deer, my bow, etc. but the heart was nowhere to be seen. Then I remembered I set it on a big leaf right under where I hung my bow, only a bloody spot was left.
 
Made me think back when we were kids shooting turtles in ponds. Everything is clam and you don’t see anything. Throw a few rocks in and they start popping up, after that bullet impacts did the job.
 
jmorris said:
Made me think back when we were kids shooting turtles in ponds. Everything is clam and you don’t see anything. Throw a few rocks in and they start popping up, after that bullet impacts did the job.
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I never really thought to notice such a thing with turtles. My buddy's parents had a tank behind their house that is to this day ate up with big turtles. After we'd gotten out of college, we ordered a pair of German 88 commission rifles in 8x57S which were advertised in gun digest. We ordered 400 rounds of surplus ammo. This stuff came out of Israeli arsenals and the ammo was old WW2 surplus and maypop, but we had fun on those turtles one morning after dove hunting. I guess I fired close to 50 rounds of that stuff on 'em. That afternoon my shoulder was so sore I could barely stand to shoot at a dove with my 12 gauge. LOL! Took me a week before my shoulder felt normal again. I don't know how those old farts in the Volksturm handled those things in combat. OUCH!

We did have constant action after shooting the first one. I never really wondered WHY. Now, I have an idea. :D Those turtles are still in that tank. A while back a dove fell in the tank and turtles ate the breast off it before the wind could blow it to the edge of the water. Maybe they DO equate gunfire with food. Now I have a dog to retrieve birds out of the tanks on our annual dove hunts. We haven't lost a bird to the turtles since. :D
 
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