October's "Woodcock Moon"

[Dean Romig]

On October 27th we will experience the full moon of the month and it's the one I like to call the "Woodcock Moon."
Legend and lore has it that the greatest migration flight of woodcock from the Maritime Provinces and Downeast Maine will be riding the air currents to warmer climes. I intend to be there to intercept them on Saturday morning, the 31st (weather permitting) high on our "Scrubapple Hillside" in Vermont. I was there last Sunday and found not a single woodcock feather, but immediately after the Woodcock Moon in most of the recent years we have found them there. Not always in significant numbers like we found them three years ago but numbers enough to provide hope and to know we haven't been forsaken by the 'Red Gods' of autumn. I just know we'll do better with Grace this year. She got a snootful of woodcock last year and even found one I thought I had marked down forty feet from where she pinned it.




.Photo courtesy of Patsy D'Agata 2015

[John E. Williams]

Dean, I am torn up like a jar of kraut over this event! I get like that every year and consider October's full moon as being the most significant of them all. I'll be trolling the coverts during the following days and I hope all of us who are looking get blessed with at least a few birds this year. Best of luck to you!

[Chaz Cole]

I'll be leaving for Wisconsin tomorrow and hunting through the 28th so hopefully I'll get into a flight! Best of luck to you Dean!

[Allan McLane]

Last Sunday I hunted a couple of the alder bottoms here in SEVT with three friends. Without benefit of a dog we moved 7 birds and took 1. That's not a big bag but the experience was worth every moment: the successful shooter was a twenty-something on his first visit to a woodcock cover.

The weather over the next week is forecast to be warmer than normal but I think the frosty mornings recently have given the birds a nudge.

[Dean Romig]

Allan, there's a certain Parker sixteen-bore hammergun in your arsenal that is the perfect woodcock gun





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[Allan McLane]

Originally Posted by Dean Romig

Allan, there's a certain Parker sixteen-bore hammergun in your arsenal that is the perfect woodcock gun


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Dean, I have yet to see that firsthand but it does work on dove:

IMG_20151011_145839_1.jpg

[Gary Laudermilch]

Not trying to start an argument or dampen your feathers but research results posted on the RGS site says that the moon plays no part in the migration. It is all about the weather up north. Although I seldom target woodcock I'll be hitting my favorite woodcock cover this week. Just in case the researchers are all wet. Good luck!

[Dean Romig]

I'm sure that the biologists employed by the RGS do everything they can to dispel "Legend and lore" but is has been my experience that a larger number of woodcock seem to alight in my stompin' grounds immediately following a full moon late in October or early November. Whether this has coincided with some sort of weather phenomenon, I never noticed but generally speaking if the weather was severe enough in Maritime Canada or Downeast Maine to cause a mass migration, I can assure you that them "Little Russet Fellers" kept right on flying well beyond my coverts.





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[John E. Williams]

Being mostly nocturnal, it's easy to draw the conclusion that heaviest woodcock migrations would occur around the full moon. I'm sure weather plays an important role, as does the shortening or lengthening of the days. Still, I've witnessed this correlation often enough over the years to mostly ignore what RGS researchers post on the internet. They also claim the ruffed grouse is essentially extinct in Indiana and got the hunting season suspended this year, yet I flushed two of them last week within a mile of each other.

[OH Osthaus]

be it moon (I like the romance of the idea) weather or Halloween witchcraft

bring on the migration- never saw it last year, and so far its the locals this year

just back from the covers - 66 degrees at the top - 72 in the valley

nearing 140 years old - this is first bird for me with the old Henri Pieper



and one very hot dog- no bun needed - two creeks in the area and I think he drained them both