Well my wife and I took a drive up the grade yesterday and around the loop looking to see a yote or two. I've got on place on the breaks of Little Canyon that is pretty consistant for seeing one or two on the drive.

When we topped the canyon sure enough mr. yote was standing at the ridge on one of the grain fields. They will stand and watch you til you stop then it's heck bent to put as much distance between you and them.

I didn't get a shot at this one as he topped the ridge before I even got out of the rig.

We continued on arund our loop and came down one of the grades into the Clearwater river drainage. We did see several deer and about 30 turkeys in one flock.

Usually they are merriums, but this flock was Easterns. They seem to be moving out of the Dwarshak dam area and down the river.

One thing unusuall was the hunting club signs on the grade going down to the river. I've lived here all my life and this is the first time I've seen this in this area.

Here are some pix of my morning hunt/drive.

Bob, I have seen a few of them signs over hear on this side of the State to. It is changeing fast isn't it.
Ron

That is purdy country to this "flatlanders" eyes. I don't think that sign looks "right" there though.
Turkeys ehh? It might be a good idea for you to keep a box of stovetop stuffing and a gravey mix in your glove box!
Cheezywan

We continued on arund our loop and came down one of the grades into the Clearwater river drainage. We did see several deer and about 30 turkeys in one flock.

Usually they are merriums, but this flock was Easterns. They seem to be moving out of the Dwarshak dam area and down the river.

You must have an eye for turkeys Bob. I don't think I could tell a Merriams from a Rio from an Eastern.

Friends up your way say the high country is in good shape for snowpack, but in general, the "snow sports" suffered in the lower areas. We have about a foot of rapidly settling snow left here on the valley floor, and there was a lone ground squirrel sitting on top of it in a wide open field a few days ago. Rockchucks are out in force around Shoshone. But, forecast is for 5"-8" of snow tonight, so spring hasn't quite sprung here.

You guys must get spring earlier than us. We're still recovering from th 6-8 inches we got 2 weeks ago. It's all gone and the gumbo is drying up again. I might be able to get out to the pasture and set up the bench. This is a shot to the east across the creek from the house this am.

Our high country snow pack is pretty good too. There's 12-13 feet of snow (packed) on the road up Black Mountain where I go snow mobiling.. The snowmobile club probed it a couple of weeks ago. My well should hold out this year I hope and I won't have to haul water for the horses.

Shawn

The Merriams are smaller and black with red & white heads. The Easterns up here are large and bright brown on the back, locally they call them bronzbacks. It's easy to tell the difference. I've even seen them with white along with the bright brown on their backs.

Recoil

We've still got a lot of snow in the high country, in fact they say that we've got a normal snowpack plus this year. We've had a bunch of below normal winters so this should get us out of the drout we have been in.

I live down in the "banana belt". The elevation at my house is only 1300 feet above sea level and Lewiston the nearest large town is around 870 feet and Idaho's only seaport with the locks on the Snake and Columbia rivers letting the grain and lumber barges go all the way to Portland OR.

Once you start climbing up out of the valley it doesn't take long to get into the snow country. It really gives us an early spring though we do have some hot summers with temps going above a hundred often in July and August. It makes for wonderful early gardens and a long gardening season.

The first pix is the head of ****'s canyon where the Snake River and Clearwater join at Lewiston ID. It's about 850-900 feet.

The second is looking across the canyon from my place and sums up pretty good how I feel about this part of Idaho.

The third pix is merriams at Kooski Idaho.

The fourth is deer across from my driveway.

The fifth si the top of French Mountian just out of Pierce Idaho where I do some elk hunting, it's around 3800 feet and your looking toward Montana.

recoil,
I like the looks of your setup there. Have you popped any coyotes from your deck?

Bob,
I guess I better study up on turkeys. I'm planning to come up that way and hunt them out on Lawyers Canyon on some friends' ground, and possibly up the Middle Fk of the Clearwater where my parents have a cabin bordering some State ground. Are both the Merriams and Easterns fair game? By the way, how did you do on the yote count this year?

recoil,
I like the looks of your setup there. Have you popped any coyotes from your deck?

Bob,
I guess I better study up on turkeys. I'm planning to come up that way and hunt them out on Lawyers Canyon on some friends' ground, and possibly up the Middle Fk of the Clearwater where my parents have a cabin bordering some State ground. Are both the Merriams and Easterns fair game? By the way, how did you do on the yote count this year?

Been a terrible year for yotes for me. Bunch of medical problems tied with mostly rainy above freezing weather keeping the yotes hunting in the brush.

You can't believe the turkeys up here. Two years ago they live trapped a couple of hundred off the hill behind my place. Populations up the middle fork and around Dwarshak are up enough that our fall season lets you shoot two and hens are ok then. You can't hardly drive around here without seeing turkeys.

The ones up the middle fork are merriams and around the dam and orofino are the big bronzbacks (Easterns). I guess down on the Snake river we are starting to get good populations of the Rio Grands (bigger than the Easterns), but I havn't seen any of those.

Day before yesterday was sunny part of the day and the gobblers were gobbling all day around my place. You couldn't hardly talk over the sound.

Lots of folks are just drive hunting the back roads now for them. four years ago you had to set up the decoys and call and such, now their just more of a nusence than a game animal. I'm looking for the Fish and game to up the limit to four a year.

Shawn, I haven't been so lucky with yotes but the score is RJ 8, foxes 0 and RJ 12, feral cats 0, from the deck. Can't wait for the little ones to come when I call :D

Bob you can be considered a flatlander ;) . At my house it's 6400 ft and downtown Craig is 6180. Out at the mine the shop sets at 7020ft. There's turkeys south of here by Rifle. It's about 90 miles south of here.I don't know what kind.

Shawn, I haven't been so lucky with yotes but the score is RJ 8, foxes 0 and RJ 12, feral cats 0, from the deck. Can't wait for the little ones to come when I call :D

Bob you can be considered a flatlander ;) . At my house it's 6400 ft and downtown Craig is 6180. Out at the mine the shop sets at 7020ft. There's turkeys south of here by Rifle. It's about 90 miles south of here.I don't know what kind.

OK Recoil this is the flat land I live in. I've got to admit that there is some flat land a thousand feet above me on the praire, but then the mountians go up from there.

I actually live in canyon country and steep canyon country to boot. There's lots of game in this country and it's darn hard to hunt. Not but a few miles from my house are some big deer and Elk and almost impossible to get to and get out. You can watch them with a good spotting scope, but getting to them, wow.

I used to drive thru your country a lot when I was driving truck. It sure is pretty, pretty high, pretty steep, pretty nasty weather and seems to be getting pretty populated. Saw some nice deer out there and lots of folks rafting on the rivers. I used to deliver to Denver a lot. I wouldn't mind living there, but not in any of the cities. Guess I'm a country boy by heart.

Sounds like you guys are having a wolf battle going on with the feds right now. Were in kinda a tough situation here also. Feds say we only have 600 in the state, our folks say closer to a thousand and growing.

rj,
I can vouch for Bob's terrain, it ain't flat! It's lower in elevation, and Bob's lucky to live in an area that within relatively painless driving distance, he can be within very rugged country of the Snake, Salmon, and Clearwater river drainages. And he lives right in some very steep and rugged canyon country on the main Clearwater. It can be tough hunting, not only because of the steepness, but also because of the brush. After I moved from that area to S. ID, I thought I'd gone to heaven in being able to see things much greater distances away, without some of the impenetrable brush. It's thinner air, like you have, but definitely a much different mode of hunting. But I sure like both types of areas.

You're doing well on the fox and cat count! Are you making blankets out of those fox pelts? I have some fox living on the hill behind my house about 150 yards away, with a passle of little ones every spring. But I don't have any chickens, so I like watching them!

I was just giving old Bob a hard time. I've been through that country a few years ago and no it's not flat by any means. I've lived in or near the mountains all my life except when we did live it the real flatlands of north central Nebraska. Hot humid summers with the threat of tornados and cold miserable winters.

We have scub oak that is all but impossible to get thru. Elk and deer have little trouble getting through it tho. There's "layers" of different cover here.Starts out with sagebrush then it blends into oakbrusk, then aspens and finally dark spruce, fir and lodgepole timber.

My bullet selection at the time of fox shooting was not the best. I just grabbed a gun, usually the .223 and let fly. Those 55 grain winchesters open up pretty fast and leave a big hole. I'm working on a new load with 40 grain V max's that will hopefully do less admage and not even exit. I used to be pretty fair at patching hides back when a big yote brought over $100 and a good fox was $50-75. I have faith that there will be plenty of foxes again next winter. They've already started to clean out the dens. There's 2 on my place and one is right across the road where I can sit on the deck and watch thru the binocs at the little blighters antics.

I was just giving old Bob a hard time. I've been through that country a few years ago and no it's not flat by any means. I've lived in or near the mountains all my life except when we did live it the real flatlands of north central Nebraska. Hot humid summers with the threat of tornados and cold miserable winters.

We have scub oak that is all but impossible to get thru. Elk and deer have little trouble getting through it tho. There's "layers" of different cover here.Starts out with sagebrush then it blends into oakbrusk, then aspens and finally dark spruce, fir and lodgepole timber.

My bullet selection at the time of fox shooting was not the best. I just grabbed a gun, usually the .223 and let fly. Those 55 grain winchesters open up pretty fast and leave a big hole. I'm working on a new load with 40 grain V max's that will hopefully do less admage and not even exit. I used to be pretty fair at patching hides back when a big yote brought over $100 and a good fox was $50-75. I have faith that there will be plenty of foxes again next winter. They've already started to clean out the dens. There's 2 on my place and one is right across the road where I can sit on the deck and watch thru the binocs at the little blighters antics.

I figured you were pulling my leg. Like lots of Colorado we only have two directions in this country, straight up and straight down. Our rivers are either a mile wide and an inch deep or an inch wide and a mile deep.

I haven't checked on fir prices actually for a couple of years, they pretty well bottomed out here. Lots of the folks that used to trap quit and sold out.

The folks that are not trapping and just shooting to harvest like the 17 Remington, 222, 223 and the new 204 Ruger. They want bullets that won't exit. The exit wound is the one that really tears up the pelts. It sounds like your on the right track with that light bullet.

I don't harvest any and with the 243 and the 55 grain Noslers at just under 4000 fps I've cut small yotes completly in half on occasion.

That heavy brush should make for great places for yotes to multiply. Good luck on your quest for them, it's sure darn fun.

Ah, the good old days! Back in the upper '70's, early 80's, a bunch of us could go out and drive the back roads and collect a few coyotes and one fine man would give us $20 per unskinned coyote, and that was with a big hole blown in it. He would peel them and his wife would sew up the holes. A good pelt was going for $80-$100 at that time. Paid for the gas money and a whole lot more. I think those days are gone forever, and now it's only worth it to keep them yourself and tan them or get them tanned, and make a nice blanket out of them.

The little 17 Rem is a good one for deadly kills but without the big holes on the other side. Seems the 204 would do just as well. The centerfire 22's seem to punch through though, at least from what I've seen. Pick the right bullet though and the damage shouldn't be too bad. But even if you leave them where they fall, you've saved a few deer fawns.