Coyotegods: A Word From Your Host

It seems that there's some misunderstanding concerning this House, so I thought that I would try to write something to clarify some issues with regard to posts and Moderation and whatnot, so that hopefully we can proceed in a more orderly fashion through the calling season, and spend our time shooting and skinning instead of feuding with one another.

The first thing that I want to point out is that this Discussion Board is only a part of a larger Website; the root directory is CoyoteGods.com. Because of the way that search engines work, the Discussion Board appears in many engines to be a stand-alone Site, and lots of folks access it directly without realizing that there's anything more related to it.

My strong recommendation is that everyone go to the root directory and read "Where It All Began" before posting here, in order to better understand the philosophy that the Owner (namely, me) holds with regard to predator calling, and thereby avoid writing a post that is going to draw negative comment from this direction.

Some folks seem to think that this Discussion Board is just some sort of organic extension of the 'Net itself; a place to come and say anything that they care to, but such is in fact not the case. This Board was created by the blood, sweat, and tears of Bruce Kennedy as a favor to me, and the only reason that it's here is because I wanted a place for callers of all stripes and experience levels to congregate and benefit from first-class information provided by both their peers and their superiors in terms of experience and knowledge.

My hope in building this thing was that I could attract a group of people who held the "keys to the Kingdom;" people who had spent a goodly part of their lives learning and thinking and experimenting with techniques and firearms and load development and gunsmithing and predator behavior and dogs and whatever else relates to predator calling, and moreover people that would share their knowledge of their own free will and good nature with the thousands of folks that are coming to predator calling for the first time.

Because I'm the sole owner of this Board, and because I pay all the bills each and every month, I'm not constrained, as the Gun Rags are, by advertising concerns; I don't have to advocate any particular product, or endorse any Holy Cows, which frees this place to practice a sort of Darwinism when it comes to recommendations on gear or guns or what have you.

I have a few core beliefs that I advocate personally with regard to predator calling, and those beliefs are reflected here in the House, as well as in my original Web page.

I believe that we as predator callers ought to utilize such parts and pieces of the animals that we kill as we may; the glory days are gone forever as far as the fur market is concerned, but there's still a dollar (and maybe no more) to be made from a coyote or a fox or a bobcat, and I believe that we ought to make every effort to make that dollar.

I have no use for the "red mist" crowd; I find it personally repugnant that anyone would write a gleeful post describing how they blew up this or that, or killed it and let it lay, and as a result I take a dim view of posts that take that direction.

Because I believe in utilizing fur, I believe that less damage is better; I personally shoot .17's because I've never seen anything else that will minimize damage in the way that they do, but if you can't afford to own one I believe that you ought to make every effort to tailor a load toward the same end; I believe that deer rifles are just that.

I believe that the coyote (and the bobcat, and the fox) are game animals, and worthy of the respect that we show toward any other game animal; you never hear discussion concerning whether or not we ought to hunt deer in the summertime, or blow them up and leave them lay, and even though the coyote in particular has been historically and traditionally demonized as a stock killer and a "varmint," particularly in the West, I believe that it's high time that we begin to display a paradigm shift and treat them with the respect that they deserve as a tremendous quarry.

I believe that there is a radical dividing line between alleviating predation (or Animal Damage Control) and recreational calling, and I believe that most people that attempt to justify casually killing coyotes by saying that they are in fact engaged in ADC work don't have a clue what it's really about.

Having been on both sides of the fence, I believe that the overwhelming majority of people who can successfully accomplish the targeted removal of a predator or predators and stop predation in it's tracks are professional Animal Damage Control personnel drawing a paycheck at the Federal, State, or County level, and bringing with them an entire set of tools and techniques that are either not known or not available to the recreational predator caller.

Because I believe all these things, I Moderate this Board in a fashion calculated to accentuate these values; I don't BELIEVE that countervailing viewpoints on these particular issues are correct or legitimate, and I therefore won't let them stand in my House; I don't see any compelling reason to offer equal time to viewpoints that I believe to be wrong.

As for the rest, it's pretty much open; I happen to own and run Airedales, but the Cur folks are welcome; I like 3-D camo and a headnet, but 2-D and charcoal are popular in some parts; I'm fairly certain that "cover scents" are bogus, but you're welcome to bathe in skunk piss if that trips your trigger; you may leave yourself open to debate on some topics here, but you can certainly feel free to post them.

The 'Net is a big place, and there's plenty of room for everyone; there are Boards with Predator Calling forums that draw no distinctions such as I do here, and they're as freely available as this House is to posters.

This Board has somewhere around 2,000 people registered to post, and I consider each one of those people my Guests. Like any party with that kind of attendance, sometimes my guests become obstreperous, and sometimes it becomes necessary for me to take them aside and ask them to moderate their own behavior. Sometimes that doesn't work either, and it becomes necessary for me to throw them out the door; I don't believe that one (or two, or three) people ought to be allowed to ruin a good party for all the rest of us.

The latest dust-up has pretty much been settled (or such is my hope, anyhow) so it's back to business as usual. Hopefully this will clarify some issues that may have been a little unclear; the Clock says that it's not long now, and I for one will be spending more time in the mesquite, and less time here on the keyboard; it's been a long, hot summer.

John-Henry

[This message has been edited by John-Henry (edited 02-17-2003).]