Snipe Hunting

[Chris Pope]

They are wonderful tasting little birds, very different from woodcock which I also enjoy. And what a terrific way to get your dog tuned up for bird season. It starts on Sept 15th in NH and you NEVER run into anyone else hunting snipe up there. The shots are open, no thickets of alders or spruce to get in the way. They can be sneaky so must be patient with the pup but given you're hunting a game birds before October 1st it's all good.
I run into them in a lot of places. I was a volunteer bird planter at a NAVHDA test in western Montana a few years back and watched a young GSP run 300 yards ahead of his handler to a ditch in front of where we were hiding at the end of the field, and then point a snipe that I had watched fly in about 15 minutes earlier. One of the judges, knowing that we wouldn't have planted a bird there, made the handler call the dog back off the point (ouch). Which is why hunt tests and trials aren't perfect.