Every coyote response to a call is driven by one of four independent motivators: hunger, territory, breeding, or curiosity. Understanding these as four distinct triggers — not a single dial — is the mental model that explains why certain sounds work in certain months and fail in others, and why layering multiple motivators in one sequence consistently outperforms single-trigger calling. Al Morris articulates it as "four cylinders": hunger and territory fire year-round, breeding fires for roughly six weeks in winter, and curiosity is always present but the weakest activator.
Before each stand, the hunter identifies which motivators are currently active given the month, and designs a sequence to hit multiple cylinders. From August through November, sequences lead with prey distress (hunger) layered with territorial coyote vocalizations. In December through mid-January, territorial sounds become dominant. In February through early March (peak rut), breeding sounds (female invitation howl, female estrus whimper, male challenge) become the primary trigger while territorial remains secondary. Year-round, curiosity sounds — unusual bird calls, coyote conversations, odd vocalizations — can break a stand open when hunger and territory have both failed to move a coyote that is physically present.
The highest-activation state occurs when two or more cylinders fire simultaneously — territorial plus hunger is the dominant compound ("strange coyote eating my food"). Single-cylinder stands work; dual-cylinder stands produce faster approaches, more committed responses, and animals from further away.
Curiosity is a real motivator but it produces sporadic, uncommitted, mostly-young-animal responses. Treating it as equivalent to hunger or territory leads to over-relying on novelty sounds when the real fix is a better sequence on the dominant cylinders.