|
10-27-2019, 06:27 PM | #13 | ||||||
|
Gary my experience similar to yours. I have found them in the middle of a gravel log road 40ft. wide. On spruce hillsides, but the go to place is still the alder seeps and runs, but they can be any where. An old Maine warden is credited with saying '' woodcock are where you find them''. I still expect to find them in odd places. Thank you for the replies and keep them coming.
|
||||||
The Following User Says Thank You to Daniel Carter For Your Post: |
10-27-2019, 08:50 PM | #14 | |||||||
|
Quote:
Actually, woodcock have been discovered in the South for as long as folks in the South have enjoyed eating them and shooting them for sport. Here Andy Devine, aka “Jingles P. Jones”, and his wife along with Grits Gresham and a friend enjoy hunting woodcock in Louisiana - Andy using his Parker .410 with the beavertail forend. I'll bet he was good with that little gun. I wonder who has it now?? .
__________________
"I'm a Setter man. Not because I think they're better than the other breeds, but because I'm a romantic - stuck on tradition - and to me, a Setter just "belongs" in the grouse picture." George King, "That's Ruff", 2010 - a timeless classic. |
|||||||
The Following 8 Users Say Thank You to Dean Romig For Your Post: |
10-27-2019, 09:25 PM | #15 | ||||||
|
Thank you, I meant that they were a far second to the game birds like quail.
|
||||||
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Daniel Carter For Your Post: |
10-27-2019, 10:05 PM | #16 | ||||||
|
Very true!
.
__________________
"I'm a Setter man. Not because I think they're better than the other breeds, but because I'm a romantic - stuck on tradition - and to me, a Setter just "belongs" in the grouse picture." George King, "That's Ruff", 2010 - a timeless classic. |
||||||
10-30-2019, 06:59 AM | #17 | ||||||
|
I've hunted woodcock in Missouri for 32 years. I have also hunted them in Iowa, Minnesota, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia and Louisiana. There are not many woodcock hunters in the middle of the western portions of their flyway, but as quail populations have diminished, those bird hunters who have kept hunting have started seeking woodcock. We have our own local birds in North Missouri, and I've stumbled upon chicks from March to April depending upon weather conditions.
I've noted here in Missouri that a covert that holds birds headed North is not always one that will host birds migrating in the Fall. I have also seen an increase in birds moving from points. I can't say that I have seen an increase in birds flying lower upon being flushed. That seems to be determined by the cover from which they are flushed in my experience. The screwy weather of the past several years has made flights much less predictable. Twenty years ago flights peaked around October 31st. Lately, I see more birds around November 7th, but again, the weather is the key.
__________________
“Every day I wonder how many things I am dead wrong about.” ― Jim Harrison "'I promise you,' he said, 'on my word of honor, I won't die on the opening of the bird season.'" -- Robert Ruark (from The Old Man and the Boy) |
||||||
The Following 5 Users Say Thank You to Garry L Gordon For Your Post: |
10-30-2019, 07:49 AM | #18 | ||||||
|
Certainly the weather, but also as with so many other things in nature, the diminishing daylight plays a significant role in woodcock migrations.
Woodcock in my covers when flushed usually tower to 20-30 feet in height but it usually depends on the cover and the kinds of trees and bushes there. And of course, some do stay low and fly like that escape artist the grouse. .
__________________
"I'm a Setter man. Not because I think they're better than the other breeds, but because I'm a romantic - stuck on tradition - and to me, a Setter just "belongs" in the grouse picture." George King, "That's Ruff", 2010 - a timeless classic. |
||||||
The Following 3 Users Say Thank You to Dean Romig For Your Post: |
10-30-2019, 07:52 AM | #19 | ||||||
|
I have hunted woodcock since 1969, both with and (mostly) without dogs. The remarks by previous posters regarding changes in habitat behavior (e.g., "sideways" vs. vertical flushing, degree of wetness underfoot, and birds flushing further away, and especially running, are all spot on.
In my experience these changes became very noticeably manifest about 15-18 years ago, and in my firm opinion, were greatly exacerbated by the perfection and widespread use of the beeper collar on dogs. Similar to the effect on pheasants of a slamming car door at the edge of a huge Iowa cornfield, my belief is that the tone, frequency, and rhythm of these signals instantly alerts birds and wildlife to the presence of dogs plus humans, which equals 'danger'. The first manifestation of these phenomena I noticed was the running bird. While grouse hunting, it was always assumed that the bird would take whatever action necessary to stay ahead of/away from the dog and hunter, running being the safest expedient as opposed to flushing, thereby offering the hunter a shot, so years ago it was expected. With woodcock, however, almost never. Another perspective to consider is that the woodcock is migratory; imagine surviving individual natural hazards (predators, weather) from cover to cover as the bird leaves the Canadian maritimes, for example, then pauses to rest and feed before eventually winding up in Louisiana, South Carolina, of some other southern state at the terminus of its journey. I fully expect that by the second or third encounter in successive covers moving south, these birds recognize these audial signals and immediately go to "red alert!". |
||||||
The Following 3 Users Say Thank You to Kevin McCormack For Your Post: |
10-30-2019, 08:03 AM | #20 | ||||||
|
What about bells Kevin, that have been in use for considerably more than a hundred years?
.
__________________
"I'm a Setter man. Not because I think they're better than the other breeds, but because I'm a romantic - stuck on tradition - and to me, a Setter just "belongs" in the grouse picture." George King, "That's Ruff", 2010 - a timeless classic. |
||||||
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Dean Romig For Your Post: |
|
|