Snipe Hunting

I've been involved in taking some people on snipe hunts and I'd like to see who's got the best "Snipe" hunting story out there. If you have never been snipe hunting or ever even heard of it ask a buddy to take you.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, about 544,000 are killed annually.They are also known as woodcock.

Always busted people's Bubble when I tell people that snipe are real. Mostly guys from the big northern Cities that have never been in the woods.

Snipe and woodcock are two different birds.

Snipe are good eating and fun to hunt. Just wish they were bigger, more meat and maybe I wouldn't miss as much.






And snipe and woodcock are not the same.

Snipe

Same family different genus. My apologies.

Cajun Quail - Really fun to hunt actually.

In West Virginia, moonlit nights were the best for snipe hunting. You sent folks into the woods to sit beside a rotten stump with a swatting stick and a baggy.

Haha yep this is the kind of snipe hunting i'm talking about

Here's a pic of a real snipe hunt...

My dads brother took me when I was no more than 5-6 up in the mountains of Colorado. I had no idea where I was except next to a very old cemetery in the middle of now where. It was a long couple hours that they left me their.

I did get one of my friends last year, we where out at my land and he had the flash light and trash bag, I dropped him off a mile or so from my place next to a hole in the fence off a big field. Left him there for about 45 mins before everyone started feeling bad for him. He actually had some hogs walk really close to him, some alcohol was involved and he wasn't too happy about the joke but everyone else got a good laugh.

Walter

That is a classic picture

We had a kid piss himself in highschool on a night snipe hunt, he came to a party with a friend of ours he was from the city. There was no moon so it was pitch black and my buddies dad had a bad arse warewolf costume. We were in a gully behind him and yelled choot it fired a few shots into the ground then yelled chit its still coming get in a tree there was some screaming,then we let everything go quiet then circled around him making some growling noises he took off screaming when the big wolf appered right next to him we found him under a big tree in the fetal position piss all over himself

Those things are delicious.

I too think that is a great picture. Went through a little trial and error to set that one up. Unfortunately I had taken some ebay auction pictures the day before and did not have my camera set on the best resolution, but it still cropped out well.





I have taken quite a few people on Snipe hunts, both with a flashlight, stick, and bag bag in the day in boy scouts, and taken a few THF members on their first real snipe hunt. Knowing the history of how the military term Sniper came about, I really got a kick out of hunting with one of our real Snipers on his first Snipe hunt down in Louisiana near Ft Polk.



In boy scouts we took the scoutmaster's son on a snipe hunt. He was as green as they come and it was his first campout. We turned off our flashlights, quietly slipped away leaving him in the woods and back to camp we went. We left him out there in the dark lost without a flashlight. He almost walked off a cliff that night which would not have ended well. As the Senior Patrol Leader I decided it was best not to do that again.

I prefer a net over a potato sack. It took a lot of work to train Blaze to run the birds into my net.

During my coonhunting years, I have walked up on quite a few woodcock birds in the dark with my headlight that I easily could have swatted with a stick, or kicked into a bag. Makes me wonder if there might have been an original real nighttime snipe hunt dozens of years ago that turned into the legendary prank.

Great pictures, John.

Sometimes you get lucky. I so miss hunting with Blaze.





And my all time favorite from the Red River Valley that was published in Outdoor Oklahoma a few years ago.

Bottom picture is still my all time favorite Blaze photo!

They are all great pictures, but the top out of the last 3 is our favorite, my wife loves that one.

I'm reading a book set in 1875 in South Texas about the Texas Rangers and there is a reference in it about taking a new guy on a snipe hunt....been around a long time!

So I was interested in real snipe hunting and when I ran across the photos of them I thought to myself I have seen them come near a spot I hunt at and wade in the shallows.

I always though that they were Sandpipers or something. Had long beaks and all. I dont remember about the size or color. Tried to find some sounds of them but couldnt cause I remember they made a distinct sound.

Funny thing is when I looked up sandpiper in wikipedia:

Sandpipers are a large family, Scolopacidae, of waders or shorebirds. They include many species called sandpipers, as well as those called by names such as curlew and snipe. The majority of these species eat small invertebrates picked out of the mud or soil. Different lengths of bills enable different species to feed in the same habitat, particularly on the coast, without direct competition for food.

Are sandpipers a type of snipe?
Whats the most identifiable clue on them if they fly into your decoy spread?

If I see them on occasion I want to make sure I take em if they are truly snipe. I'll have to carry some photos of them on my phone for next time.

got snipe that been nesting beside the house for years

best one was epasode on cheers,

My BIL and I decided to have a squirrel hunting contest when I lived in NC and so he and his BIL went one way and my nephew and I went another. Long story short, he jumps this bird, thought it was some kind of a quail, and shoots it. Well he had grown up only hunting fur bearers and so he brings it back to the house and I prove to him it is a snipe. My nephew and I had shot 5 squirrels in the 2 hour hunt and they had shot 7. He says "I will clean your squirrels if you show me how to clean this bird. I don't know, maybe 2 minutes later I am done with my instruction and go in while they sit and clean all the squirrels. Never have seen another snipe but, that one made my day.

I was a scout master for years. One troop in OK had a kid (I can't remember his name so l'll use Paul) that they had been taking snipe hunting before I moved into the area. Paul had been shown pictures of real snipes and was instructed to whistle for them and they run into the pillow case. At that point he was to pound the pillowcase on the ground with the snipe inside to kill the bird.
One of my first times out with this troop was a large camporee in Missouri with several councils. Paul brought up snipe hunting and wanted to go. It was a small group, and had a couple new kids so we went as a troop. The new guys were very skeptical, but that Paul was gung-ho about going.
So we're out in the dark in a clearing. The "hunters" out front whistling. An older boy (Rhett) and I grabbed a couple rocks and threw them into the brush and told them it was the snipe dropping out of the trees. Paul keeps whistling while the older boy egged him on. He kept whispering thing like, "I see it moving" and "any minute." After a little while I grabbed a rock about the size of an apple, said "There it is!" and stepped in front of Paul while I tossed the rock back into his pillow case. He felt the tug, jumped up, did a Charlie Brown dance while yelling " I finally got one." He then started swinging the pillowcase over his head pounding it on the ground. When we got him to stop. He marveled at the weight and wanted to look at his snipe. We told him it was better to wait until we were back at camp so his dad could see it too. On the walk back I threw another rock into the brush and Rhett said, "It's another snipe." Paul set up again. We went through the whole thing and this time another boy tossed a second rock into his pillowcase. Paul jumps up and pounds his pillowcase on the ground several times. He is now beside himself with joy at having caught not one, but two of the elusive snipe. We hike back to camp passing several others troops. Along the way Paul is telling everyone that he has just caught two snipe. The replies he received were along the lines of "sure you did."
We get back to camp. His dad is setting there grinning. Paul opens his pillowcase in the glow of the campfire and pull out the rocks. His jaw dropped and his face went blank. "A rock? All of this and they're just rocks?" We all started laughing. He was mad at first and then joined in laughing.
I have to say he was a good sport about it. When we got back he retold the story himself laughing the whole time.