AURELIUS - Hunting coyotes is a challenge some people take very seriously.

Saturday at the Fingerlakes Mall, coyote hunters came out to Bass Pro Shops to hear expert coyote hunter Sheri Baity's tips, “Tricks and Tactics of Hunting the Full Time Hunter - the Coyote.” Baity, a pro-staffer with Lohman Call, said, “Hunting a coyote is like playing a chess game. If you make a move, he's going to up it. We are part-time hunters hunting a full-time hunter.”

Her success rate? “One out of every nine stands,” she said.

Baity, from Tioga County, Pa., has successfully hunted coyotes since 1992.

“My passion is coyotes,” she said. “I admire the toughness of Eastern coyotes, and I love a challenge.”

While her techniques worked in her environment, others may find different approaches work for them. She told listeners to find their own best solution: see as many people and watch as many DVDs as possible.

“Everyone started asking me questions about my success,” Baity said, so she wrote a book, “Coyote Hunting Farm Style,” in 1995, with three reprints. “Coyote Hunting Farm Style II” is now in the works.

She hunts mainly at night and uses a 50 mm objective scope to gather as much light from the moon as possible so she doesn't have to fumble with a light.

“The less equipment you have to carry, the better,” she said. “I have four animals around my neck,” referring to a laniard necklace of animal calls.

Hunters often choose the rabbit distress call first to attract coyotes, but one particular call doesn't always work, especially if coyotes aren't eating rabbits that day.

“I try and be the coyote,” Baity said. “What do I want to hear? What do I want to smell? They respond to the sound of the animal they're eating,”

Crow calls, however, do attract coyotes, who know where the opportunistic crow flies, there might be something else to feed on.

“I don't hunt crows,” she said, “but I use crows to hunt with. By listening to their vocalization, if I can get the crows to think I'm a crow, after two long calls there might be a feeding frenzy.” She then blew a “Caw-caw-brrrrr!” into her crow call.

“Coyotes will come to see what's happening,” she said.

She put another call to her lips and blew, “Eyow, eyow!,” the bleating of a doe.

“I try to put the same fear into the sound to portray the animal,” she said. “I try to give a long, drawn-out sound like it's losing air.”

A turkey bladder mimicking the “cluck,cluck” of a turkey also catches a coyote's ear.

Some members of the audience doubted they could finesse the calls as well as Baity.

“You can take me with you,” she said. “Have gun, will travel.”

Baity waits out a coyote for at least 45 minutes and visits the area earlier, ideally a couple of hours before sunset. She listens for the coyotes' barking to locate them and figures out how many are in a pack.

“If I stay there an extra hour, I can see where they head out,” she said. A one-time bark on her call gets each coyote there to echo a one-time bark. If it happens the next day at the same time, she's found their main area.

Coyote hunting season lasts from October through March. Between March and June coyotes are quiet and denning.

The animals hunt day and night, following worn deer paths, leaving their scat, clues to what they're feeding on. Hunters can then select the best calls.

Don Buschbacher, of Scott, N.Y., was interested in Baity's talk since he had killed a coyote three weeks ago during deer season while hunting with his son, Don Buschbacher Jr., on Shamrock Road in Skaneateles, where coyotes have been seen for the past eight years.

“The deer would stop, then the coyote would stop. When they were right in front of me, I shot the coyote,” Buschbacher said. The deer got away.

“I had one run under me during archery season,” Brubacher Jr. said. “They've got a couple of dens that I know of.”

Baity told a cautionary tale of the coyote's wiliness.

“Coyotes are different animals,” she said. “If you don't feel like you can make that shot, don't, because once you miss, you have educated that coyote.”

Staff writer Kathleen Barran can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 238 or kathleen.barran@lee.org