EDGAR — The 16-year-old boy, out deer hunting near his family’s farm, stops in his tracks when he hears a dogfight.

Les Johnson wonders if it’s coyotes down in the trees along the Little Blue River near Edgar. So he stands next to a fence post, pushes his hand against his lips and tries to imitate what he thinks is the sound of a distressed rabbit.

As soon as he stops making the squeaks, he hears another sound down in the trees.

“Those leaves started crunching,” said Johnson, now 38, his eyes alive as he relives the memory. “They were coming my way.”

Before long, four coyotes emerge from the river bottom. They are alert, their ears perked, trying to find the source of the sound.

Then, a few moments later, a bigger coyote appears to Johnson’s left. The boy holds perfectly still as the coyote circles in front of him, just 20 yards away.

“As soon as he caught my wind, he just bolted, and I never seen him quit running,” Johnson said.

That was it.

From that day on, Johnson has been first and foremost a coyote caller.

After that first encounter, Johnson never even imagined calling coyotes would make good TV. But he found it does three years ago.

Johnson is the host of “Predator Quest” and he recently signed a contract for the show’s third season on the Sportsman’s Channel (Channel 228). The half-hour show is the only one devoted entirely to predator calling, he said.

And while Johnson makes coyote calling look easy on his show, he traveled a long, hard road to get to where he is now.

He got a degree in animal science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and traveled the Great Plains for years as a contract harvester. But whether he was driving a truck or a combine, he was looking at the country, trying to figure out where they might be.

Over time, he refined his calling techniques, adding an open-reed call as his instrument of choice. And he spent hours in the field, learning how to scout good coyote habitat, where to set up and how to make the shot.

In 1994, he and his brother, Jeff, placed in their first contest, finishing sixth in the Wyoming State Coyote Calling Championship. Three years later, they won the National Coyote Calling Championship.

Since then, Les Johnson has been on teams that won four other national championships. In 1999, he accomplished a feat that hasn’t been done before or since: winning all three major calling championships — national, the world and the Midwest — in a single year.

He moved to Saratoga, Wyo., where he perfected his skills hunting on huge expanses of public land. And for about 10 years starting in the mid-1990s, he hit the contest circuit hard.

He made a lot of contacts in the calling circuit, including other hunters and equipment manufacturers. And after he racked up the wins, some of those contacts started saying he ought to try making a predator hunting show.

But when he looked into the logistics of a show, some in the industry told him it would never work. They argued there wouldn’t be enough interest from sponsors or viewers to sustain a 26-episode season.

The naysayers actually punched  the buttons of the goal-oriented Johnson.

“That was another reason I did it,” he said, “when people said I couldn’t.”

He called the show “Predator Quest” and developed the distinctive logo of red penetrating eyes on a black background.

Not only was Johnson able to obtain enough original video footage to fill 26 episodes, he was also able to sell enough advertising time to keep the show on the air. Most people think he’s paid to be on TV, but in fact, he has to buy his air time, which he does by selling ads and developing sponsorships.

In its first season, the show won Sportsman Channel Awards for the best show open and best small game episode.

“There’s nothing else out there like it,” said Steve Borland, who co-owns Minaska Outdoors, a Lincoln-based company the make electronic predator calls. “I think it’s great, it’s extremely entertaining.”

What sets Johnson apart from many other hunters, Borland said, is how close he calls in the coyotes. In fact, Johnson shoots many of them with a shotgun firing a load of buck shot.

More gratifying than the industry awards has been the viewer reaction. He said he gets about 35 fan e-mails per day and does his best to answer every one.

He drives a Toyota pickup plastered with logos from his show and sponsors. And he often gets stopped by fans of the show.

But he knows not everyone is a fan. Like trapping, predator hunting is a lightning rod for animal rights activists who oppose the killing of animals for fur.

For his part, Johnson said coyotes are “beautiful animals,” wary, adaptable and absolutely challenging to hunt. But he has also seen the ravages of mange, parvo and other diseases when coyote populations grow unchecked.

“I probably have more respect for coyotes than a lot of people,” he said. “But when their populations explode, Mother Nature pounds them hard.”

The coyote hunters play a role in keeping the overall population healthy, even as they end the lives of individual animals, he said.

Johnson’s second season is currently on the air, and he’ll soon start gathering video for his third.

He has since moved back from Wyoming to Edgar, where he keeps a downtown office for the rare occasions he’s not on the road.

With his brother operating the camera, he has hunted in Alaska, Canada and most western states. He loves hunting in the open public lands of Wyoming and Montana, but he also enjoys hunting in the Sandhills, which he says produces the most beautiful coyotes in North America.

The show is edited and produced at Master Tracks Productions in Lincoln.

Recently, Johnson developed his own line of reed calls. It’s another step in his quest, as a businessman and a hunter.

“This is my life and my passion,” he said. “I want to do it for the rest of my life.”

Reach Joe Duggan at 473-7239 or jduggan@journalstar.com.