There couldn't be a better time to go predator hunting with all the snow we have on the ground. The snow covering allows hunters to more easily see a coyote, fox or bobcat approaching from a far distance compared to snowless surroundings where these critters blend in.

If you'd like to try predator hunting and missed Cabela's recent standing-room-only predator hunting seminar featuring Kirk McKendree of FoxPro's pro hunting staff, his two-hour presentation was full of helpful tips and techniques for taking the aforementioned trio of predators.

Even if you've tried predator hunting, McKendree's first suggestion to make you a better hunter is to learn your quarry. Know their habitat, food sources and breeding seasons. Ask land owners if they've seen predators on their land. Be in tune with their personalities, he advises.

McKendree says you should know that coyotes hate red foxes but can coexist with gray foxes. And that gray foxes can climb trees whereas reds can't. Knowing their breeding seasons makes them more vulnerable to calling as whitetail bucks are during the rut.

Foremost in calling, McKendree says, is being at the right time and place. By using a rabbit call, he can call in any of these predators as they all respond to a possible meal of rabbit.

"Calling trends differ, though, between a gray fox and a red," he said. "You can get real aggressive with a gray fox and run the volume up high using hand calls, rabbit, bird or gray pup in distress calls. Gray's are good for shot gunners as the come in fast. Sometimes they'll run you down."

McKendree went on to say red foxes by nature are meeker than grays, so you need a more subtle approach in calling. He'll often uses a lip squeak, a squeaky dog toy, even a kids Happy Meal squeaky toy to call foxes in.

"A little calling," he says, "goes a long way. Keep in mind too that coyotes hate reds. And coyotes will outrun a red fox (40 mph vs. 30 mph) so they'll kill and often wipe out a red fox population in a specific area. Reds will then abandon the hardwoods and seek shelter in suburbia and around homes."

As for coyotes, they come in brown, black and a rare chocolate coloration with most having an average weight of about 36 pounds. And they are found in all 67 counties of the state with 19 different species and 16 subspecies.

In March or April, Coyote females normally have 4-5 pups per year. And even if hunters take out 70 percent of them, they'll never be wiped out.

A lot of McKendree's coyote opportunities come when family dogs, cats or farmers' chickens and calves are killed. Then he gets calls to take them out.

When hunting coyotes he urges hunters to keep in mind they like to circle downwind. His quickest calling time so far was three minutes and the longest was one hour and 5 minutes. But most of the time coyotes come in late.

If hunted too hard, coyotes will become overly stressed and will quickly become conditioned to calling. And the five reasons they come into calling are: hunger, curiosity, territorial, breeding and competition from other coyotes or predators.

The alpha male, he points out, is the resident and main howler. Up to 70 percent of the coyote population are the young of the year and as omega's, they don't want confrontations.

As a footnote of sorts, Jevon Ahnert of Northampton, used a .454 Casull caliber handgun to shoot a 40-pound Slatedale area coyote while deer hunting this past season. Ahnert shot it at a Hail Mary 300 yards using a Leupold red dot scope atop the handgun. Ahnert said he put the dot a little below the coyote's body but the first shot broke one of its legs. The second shot tumbled it.

Incidentally, pelt prices have rebounded, or, you can have your predator(s) mounted.