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Any Woodcock around yet?
- Thread starter beangado
- Start date
USMC1345, I'll send you a PM, I'm not that far from you.
Woodcock are all over New England, including suburbia. There are resident birds that never leave, and there are migratory birds that are just passing through. If you guys want to hunt woodcock successfully, you're gonna need two things: An idea of what their favorite habitat looks like, and a well trained bird dog.
I have been blessed with a truly great bird dog (who I am proud to say I trained) who has also taught me more about what birdy cover looks like than I ever could have learned from a book. Simply put, I've learned that woodcock like to be in thick brush on the edges of farmers' fields. WC fly and swoop around above the open fields in the evening doing their mating stuff, and then spend their days in the thick brush avoiding predators and looking for worms and bugs to eat in the damp soil. If you have access to a spot like this, watch how 'birdy' your dog becomes in certain spots, and you are probably getting close to the birds. After seeing a few WC and the two of you learn more and more together, you will be able to look across a field and recognize cover that holds birds. Getting a shot off and hitting the bird is a whole other thing! This is where your dog needs to know to hold its point, allowing you to get into that thick cover and get into a position to get a shot at the bird before it flushes. These birds flush straight through thick cover and continue into deeper cover, so trying to figure out where they are gonna fly and being ably to make the shot connect is quite a task. This is definitely one of those things that is certainly easier said than done, but when great dog work, birds, and shooting all connect - it makes for an awesome day!
Woodcock are all over New England, including suburbia. There are resident birds that never leave, and there are migratory birds that are just passing through. If you guys want to hunt woodcock successfully, you're gonna need two things: An idea of what their favorite habitat looks like, and a well trained bird dog.
I have been blessed with a truly great bird dog (who I am proud to say I trained) who has also taught me more about what birdy cover looks like than I ever could have learned from a book. Simply put, I've learned that woodcock like to be in thick brush on the edges of farmers' fields. WC fly and swoop around above the open fields in the evening doing their mating stuff, and then spend their days in the thick brush avoiding predators and looking for worms and bugs to eat in the damp soil. If you have access to a spot like this, watch how 'birdy' your dog becomes in certain spots, and you are probably getting close to the birds. After seeing a few WC and the two of you learn more and more together, you will be able to look across a field and recognize cover that holds birds. Getting a shot off and hitting the bird is a whole other thing! This is where your dog needs to know to hold its point, allowing you to get into that thick cover and get into a position to get a shot at the bird before it flushes. These birds flush straight through thick cover and continue into deeper cover, so trying to figure out where they are gonna fly and being ably to make the shot connect is quite a task. This is definitely one of those things that is certainly easier said than done, but when great dog work, birds, and shooting all connect - it makes for an awesome day!
Id be interested in trying, but have no idea where to even look. My GSP pup is going to be hunting his first season, been working him on quail and pigeon regularly. Hes got a lot of energy but very very birdy.
45collector
NES Member
Nice. Can you get enough meat out of one of those for a small one-man dinner?
45collector
NES Member
The gf and I drove up to Gloucester yesterday and hiked into Dogtown. Neither of us have ever been in there before. What a cool place to explore! The trail markers aren't exactly easy to navigate there so we ended up walking a lot longer than we planned looking for the "Babson boulders". We found them eventually, with the help of a nice guy we met on the trail who was carrying a SxS 16 gauge hunting for woodcock with his two spaniels. I talked hunting with him for 5 minutes or so.
I would love to hunt deer in that place but I'm guessing there's lots of guys who have the same idea. The topography is excellent there though. Very glad we did that yesterday. I took some pics but that was with my old Pentax 35mm with black and white film, so like the old days, I have to wait to develop the roll.![[laugh]](/xen/styles/default/xenforo/smilies.vb/012.gif "Laugh [laugh]")
I would love to hunt deer in that place but I'm guessing there's lots of guys who have the same idea. The topography is excellent there though. Very glad we did that yesterday. I took some pics but that was with my old Pentax 35mm with black and white film, so like the old days, I have to wait to develop the roll.
