This is the time of year when coyotes get paired up. It's breeding season. For callers, this means 'yotes are more likely to show up at your stand in twos. You'd better have a strategy in place to deal with pairs, because I'll guarantee they have a strategy to deal with you. It's not easy turning the tables on a hunting pair, but it can be done.

A number of years ago I came home from hunting to find a message from local law enforcement on my home answering machine. An officer wanted me to give him a call because my truck had been reported as being parked on a farmer's property without permission. And because that farmer had recently been the victim of some vandalism, he was suspicious.

It’s worth remembering that most of the current crop of wolves in the lower 48 came from Canada via a relocation program—and that Canadians were overjoyed to get rid of them. Alberta in particular has so many wolves that, for residents, wolf season is almost identical to coyote season. No license is required, there's no bag limit and the season is open all year long on private land. It’s not quite as generous for non-residents or when hunting on public land, but it’s close. And that's all the excuse I need to go wolf hunting.

A well-rounded predator hunter should have more than one tool in his toolbox. The old adage that says, "If your only tool is a hammer, soon every problem looks like a nail," applies to predator hunting, too. Besides calling—which we sometimes get stuck on—a good hunter knows how to stalk and how to work baits. Another valuable skill is the ability to go long.

This is it for dedicated SHOT Show reports from the Predator Professor. Not because I'm out of material, but because I'm back home and it's time to go hunting again. Here's a quick rundown on some more intriguing gear from SHOT.

Other than an errant evening I spent with a mechanical bull, I’ve spent most of my time at SHOT Show searching for new predator and varmint hunting products. Hopefully you read my blog post featuring some gear highlights from the first few days of this chaotic event. Here are a five more items that caught my eye.

It’s January and I’m not predator hunting, so that means I’m at the SHOT Show. The unofficial start of SHOT is Media Day at the Range. It turned out to be the coldest day I’ve ever experienced in Vegas, so we had to keep warm by heating up gun barrels. I think we succeeded because my hands never got cold.

Now the doors are open at the Sands Expo Center and the show floor is booming with activity. My mission this year is to find exciting new predator hunting products and share my discoveries with you. Let's get to it.

Anyone new to predator calling has many things to learn. Of these, I think the toughest is learning how to choose and set up a calling location. Running second is the question of when to shoot an incoming predator.

Any area that contains a potential food source for predators is worthy of a calling setup. If there are terrain features—such as open spaces—that give you a view of incoming targets ... even better. And if you can put another terrain feature at your back to funnel those targets to your front, you have an official "hotspot." Want one? Just have your local beavers build it.

Whenever I set up to do some calling, I always try to predict where the predators are lurking and thus where they'll appear. Nailing that aspect of a stand correctly gives me one of the biggest kicks I get from hunting. Too often I get it wrong, however, and end up learning another lesson about part-time hunter vs. full-time predator. Recently, a couple of coyotes taught that lesson so well I almost swallowed my call.