So, one morning you wake up, roll out the bed, tiptoe quietly through the house so you don't wake up the wife (if you are unfortunate enough to have a wife), and in a little while you are running your truck through the pre-dawn darkness and trying to figure out where to go to call.

Don't panic. It, like a lot of the rest of this stuff, is not Rocket Science, which is probably a good thing, or Vic and I would have to find another hobby.

The first thing that I do when I step outside is fool around a little and get right with the air movement. As we discussed above, a wind will dictate one set of possible stands, a breeze another. Factor in the direction of the wind or breeze, the sunrise (calling into the morning sun is generally not a very good idea, unless you have pupils like a reptile), and anything else that might make a difference, such as recently harvested fields that draw rabbits and mice that draw coyotes, concentrations of jackrabbits that occur for no good reason, calving activity, etc.

In this part of the world it really doesn't make a great deal of difference. You can casually shamble out into practically any piece of brush and whistle up a coyote on the make for a free meal. Vic and I have customary stands scattered out over 500 square miles that we've isolated over the years, stands that produce again and again because of their proximity to cover, travelways, feeding areas, water, or whatever, and when we call strange country we just look for stands that look like the ones that we left at home, and we usually end up killing coyotes.

A good stand has a few characteristics that are recognizable, no matter where you find it. They include:

Cover: You have to have something that you can back up to and break your outline. Your camo will not do you any good if you are parked out in the bare open. Cover goes in conjunction with the next item, which is...

Visibility: This is something that beginning callers often have a tendency to screw up, and even Vic and I have a difference in bias when it comes down to it. Vic likes to see, the farther the better, and that is fine within reason. Coyotes, though, often are hesitant to leave cover and cross open ground, which is the reason that you never call a coyote across the freshly harvested soybean field that stretches for 1000 yards in front of you. I, on the other hand, like to get them up close and personal, where they are a little harder to miss.

Another favorite of beginning callers is elevation. They run up ridges and mountainsides, climb trees and windmills, sulk around on top of haystacks, and generally get disgusted and give up the sport because they never see a damned thing, and it never occurs to them that wounded rabbits generally do not climb windmills.

For whatever reason, coyotes are reluctant to climb slopes to a call, although it happens once in a while.

From time to time when the mood takes us we hunt some modest elevation and set the call 100-200 yards away and play jungle sniper; and with an electronic call you can get away with that sometimes, but by and large a stand that offers decent visibility for 50 yards and patchy sightlines for double that will produce more coyotes then any big open you ever call.

The upshot of all of this is simple; pick some cover where you can see at least intermittently, and set up so that you have a couple of shooting lanes when the coyote gets close. I shot a coyote last week at 15 feet, and I've killed them closer then that on occasion. Usually you can catch the movement coming in, and when a coyote steps clear inside of 25 yards he's harder to miss then he is hung up at 300. The thicker the stand, the more comfortable a coyote is approaching the sound of the call, and the easier he is to kill.

Proximity: This means just what it says; you have to be proximate to a coyote to kill one. That call will ride a long way, but unless there happens to be a coyote within earshot, or one that ambles into hearing range during your stand, you are digging a dry hole, and that's all there is to that. I've read some pretty elaborate methods of locating coyotes, involving locator sirens or howlers and topographic maps and arial photographs (I swear, I'm not making it up) and for all I know satellites in geo-synchronous orbit, but if you put down the gun mags and their fantasy articles and pick up a rifle and get out the door you'll start to tune in to coyotes and where you find them in a hurry (Remember, I said that Vic had some kind of Zen thing going on).

So, in summation, find a stand where you can smell a coyote, or where one damn sure ought to be even if'n he ain't, set up so that you can see him and he can't see (or smell) you, call away, and collect your fur. It's just about that simple. (And leave the arial photos to the C.I.A. guys. Scuds are lots bigger than coyotes, and they couldn't find shit out in Saddam's desert.)