"If you'd like to build your predator hunting prowess on a hunt that provides multiple shot opportunities, consider spending a weekend with Gary Madison on the high desert, east of Burns, Oregon. Seventy-one-year-old Gary Madison has hunted coyotes for 58 years. Over the last five seasons, he has won five calling contests and owns the belt buckles to prove it. A retired teacher, he decided to use his skill in instruction to turn coyote hunters into efficient predator hunters, and so, he created the Gary Madison Predator Calling School.
"Madison starts each class with a session at the range to assess the hunters' skills and fine-tune rifles and optics. Then he brings the student on a simulated hunt. Under field conditions, he explains calling, cover, camouflage, strategy, decoy placement, cover scents, how to read body language and how to engage targets at various distances.
"People tend to focus on calling, and they underestimate the craftiness and intelligence of the coyote, Madison says. According to him, the actual calling is only 10 percent of making a successful hunt, and that frustrates many would-be coyote hunters. In fact, Madison says he decided to offer this course after getting many requests for help from other hunters. `I wanted to offer a school to make these people more successful than they've been able to be on their own,' he says.
"Madison's school is focused on fundamentals, long on hands-on experience and short on lecture. Through it all, the student picks up Madison's essential attention to details - details that bring in more dogs. Madison employs a variety of decoys, sometimes multiple decoys on one set, to draw and hold a dog's attention. He lets the student suggest access points, analyze wind direction........(continued)
