Gunning Snipe on the Gulf Coast 1901

[Dollar]

I forget that's a clients gun I'll have to ask.I know it was his mothers and he is well into his 70's.
As for taste I like them when cooked rare.Breats is dark and legs are white meat.Similar to woodcock.

[Chris Pope]

Originally Posted by CraigThompson

I’ve never to my knowledge seen a live snipe , fired at one etc . I’m curiouse how are they as table fare and what kind of flavor do they have if cooked to taste the natural flavor ?

A few of us old guys like to hunt snipe in NH. The season opens the 15th of Sept and we view it as the equivalent of MLB's "spring training" prior to the opening of woodcock and grouse on Oct 1st.. It's a perfect time to let the dogs and the hunters get back into the routine of real field work only the covert allows full view of the dog and the birds when we put them up.
As for taste, I find them to be very different than woodcock. They have a much lighter flavor but still tasty none the less.
Absolutely love snipe hunting and can't believe other upland hunters don't partake. I think there's hardly a state in the US without them.

[mobirdhunter]

The history of snipe hunting in the US is interesting. Once a common, and much sought after, game bird, their numbers plummeted from market gunning (along with other shore birds). Our management practice back then was to shut down all hunting (instead of the current practice of altering season length and bag limits). In the interim, the country lost a generation of potential snipe hunters, and the interest in snipe never caught on again to the degree it once enjoyed.

The bag limits and seasons are now generous. I usually try to find some here in Missouri a day or two every season, but I don't really have much in the way of good migration habitat to hunt in my area. I know they come through, getting up some from wet, harvested cornfields while quail hunting. Duck hunters in the area often report them, too.

I went to a marshy spot the day before our firearms deer season this year specifically looking for snipe. I found none, and when I arrived back at the parking area, I met some out-of-state deer hunters talking with a Conservation Dept. employee. When I told them I was snipe hunting, I got some might suspicious looks.

Such is snipe hunting in Missouri.

[Chris Pope]

Hope I'm not violating the "getting off subject" protocol but a quick snipe story... I had the opportunity to volunteer for a weekend at a NAVHDA test in SW Montana a few years ago. The judges were running a test where dogs were working a field for planted birds and being judged on ability to find, point and be steady to flush, shot, and fall of the bird. A young GSP was working well in front of his handler and came all the way to the end of this very big field and went on point about 40 yards from where we bird planters were hiding. A fellow volunteer commented that the dog clearly was pointing something he shouldn't be because we hadn't planted any birds there.
I remarked quite the contrary, the pup had pointed a snipe that I saw fly in there a half hour earlier. Poor dog got called off the point by an exasperated handler. My fellow test volunteer, a native Montanan, wasn't aware they even had snipe there...

[Double Lab]

A few years back they had record flooding in central SD. Duck were everywhere and so were the snipe. Every field we walked held them and if you have ever been to SD, the wind never stops. Talk about a challenging target I can't even describe their flight path. What a blast.

[Big D]

Only snipe hunt I was ever on was 70 years ago at summer camp at night with a pillow case

[Dollar]

Thing about snipe is generally they want to flush into the wind.Walking with the wind can be challenging.Birds will flush straight away and you'll really get to see the erratic flight path.Walking with the wind the birds will generally flush left or right trying to catch the wind for lift.Snipe wings are swept not like a woodcock or quail so they want wind for lift.
Either way they still are great game birds.

[Milton C Starr]

Originally Posted by Russell E. Cleary

Here is another, and more chromatic, rail gunning painting that Guthorn references in his book, by this top-tier American artist: WILL SCHUSTER AND BLACK MAN GOING SHOOTING, Thomas Eakins; 1876.

Heres another one of his works I saw recently about rail hunting.

[Dean Romig]

I have always loved that one Milton. But then I love anything painted by Eakins.





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[Milton C Starr]

Originally Posted by Dean Romig

I have always loved that one Milton. But then I love anything painted by Eakins.





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Im heavily interested in hunting from the 1870s-1910s. A bit off topic but are/were there any books from back then about hunting the methods or practices used. I love the aesthetics as well of that time period before gaudy camo.