DESERT MONKEY!

[coueschaser3]

Went for a bit of a hike into the superstitions monday and ended up runnin into a bunch of these nifty lookin buggers. First one ever, shot with a .357 python.

[25-06]

They sure are curius little critters aint they. Sounds like a fun hike.

[coueschaser3]

That it was, got to check out some good country. but was amazed that a bunch of them was all i saw. pretty thick stuff though.

[skyhawkbowhunter]

My dad shot one a few years ago. He said they stink worse than a javelina

[billrquimby]

My dad shot one a few years ago. He said they stink worse than a javelina

 

I shot several coatis many years ago and can't remember any of them having an objectionable odor. I found they were easy to bring in with a varmint call, or at least the way I called, and stopped shooting them. I usually found them in oak grasslands near areas with shale slopes, such as Brown Canyon in the Baboquivaris, Madera Canyon in the Santa Ritas, Keystone Peak in the Sierritas, around Parker Canyon Lake, etc.

 

Bill Quimby

[coueschaser3]

thats the first one i shot, and farther north than i figured on seeing one. Definately had a smell to em but nothing bad at all, no where near a piggy. never heard of em comin to a call though, thats interesting.

[elmergoo]

Well you killed him,what are you gonna do now, eat him?

[billrquimby]

never heard of em comin to a call though, thats interesting.

 

They apparently can't believe there isn't something to eat when they come in, and they'll keep milling around, looking for it. A pack of coatis might hang around four or five minutes, if you don't shoot or spook them.

 

Bill Quimby

[coueschaser3]

What type of call? a buddy of mine has been makin trips down from montana to get one, it was his goal before moving that he didnt accomplish. Since i got mine we been hittin a few spots just moving through creek bottoms finding nothing but sign.

[billrquimby]

What type of call? a buddy of mine has been makin trips down from montana to get one, it was his goal before moving that he didnt accomplish. Since i got mine we been hittin a few spots just moving through creek bottoms finding nothing but sign.

 

I used calls you'd find now only in museums. One was a Burnham Brothers plastic squeaker with a rubber band for a reed.

 

The other had a wood body and a plastic reed and was made by a guy who owned a typewriter (also in museums) repair shop in Tucson.

 

I bought the Burnham Brothers call via mail order after seeing an article in Outdoor Life in 1955 or so, and killed a coyote the first time I used it.

 

Still have the wood call, and in addition to a lot of Arizona critters, it has brought in close to a dozen jackals and an African wildcat in South Africa.

 

To answer your question, though, any type of mouth-blown call should work if you know where a pack is hanging out.

 

Good luck.

 

Bill Quimby

[Outdoor Writer]

Bill,

 

The last time I had a Coues deer permit, my oldest son and I hunted along the Warsaw Canyon road in 36B. One morning as we made our way from camp up to higher ground through a small wash, we looked up at a well-vegetated hillside and spotted a coati in a tree. When he spotted us he jumped down and took off. A few minutes later the hillside came alive with at least 30-40 of them proceeding along a cow path in single file. They weren't more than 100 yards away. It was quite a sight.

 

I opted not to kill one since I didn't want to disrupt our opening morning deer hunt to tend to it. One of these days, I wouldn't mind heading back there to chase one up, however. I think one would make an interesting mount. -TONY

[billrquimby]

Tony:

 

You were fortunate. I've never seen a pack in Arizona as large as yours. The most I've seen in a group here was a dozen or so. They are nifty animals.

 

When my granddaughter and i were in South America a few years ago, we visited Igausu Falls on the border of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. The parking lot on the Brazil side had maybe 100 of them running around and there were signs everywhere in Spanish, Portuguese, and English warning people not to feed them.

 

When they swarmed around us and begged I remembered that Bil Gilbert had written that they were like skunks and bats in that rabies was always present in coati populations and served to control their numbers.

 

All were a lot smaller than our coatis, so I did some reading when I got home and found the subspecies in the U.S. and northern Mexico is the largest.

 

Incidentally, while we were at the falls, they were moving the families of employees of Brazil's park to a town a few miles away because a jaguar killed a toddler there that week.

 

Bill Quimby