Wet weather great for woodcock hunting

Believe me, I’m as sick of this endless cycle of rain followed by more rain as I’m sure you are.

I can’t even cheer myself up by repeating the old saw, “it’s good weather for ducks,” because, with the exception of the early goose season, I haven’t hunted waterfowl in years.

Wet weather is wonderful for woodcocks, though, and I  enjoy slopping through the muck in pursuit of the goofy looking and even goofier acting bird most Yankees call the timberdoodle.

I’m going to pause and provide a brief woodcock taxonomy lesson.

The woodcocks include seven or eight similar species of wading birds in the genus Scolopax, but the American woodcock (S. minor) is the only one of interest to North American hunters.

Their closest relatives are the various species of snipe of the genus Gallinago. (Hopefully, that will head off a repeat of the chastisement I received from several alert readers in regard to a recent column about the sauger.)

It’s nearly impossible to misidentify an American woodcock. It has a chunky 10- to 12-inch body covered with mottled brown and black plumage, short legs and an exceptionally long 16- to 19-inch wingspan.

The distinctive nature of these features notwithstanding, a woodcock is most readily identified by its large eyes, which are set well back on the sides of its head, and by its 2- to 3-inch pointed bill, which it uses to probe moist soil in search of earthworms.

Even though woodcocks look like shorebirds and are related to several genera of shorebirds, they’re rarely found on shorelines. (Falling reservoir levels can be an exception.)

Woodcocks are found in bottomland timber, along brushy creek banks and just about anywhere else woody cover and moist soil coexist.

Woodcock nest in Missouri and are considered to be common here, but their numbers peak during their fall migration, an event timed as much by the southward advance of frozen soil as by declining daylight.

Woodcock hunting season opened Oct. 15 and will end at sunset on Nov. 28. The best woodcock hunting usually occurs during November, so now’s the time to go.

The scent of woodcock is sheer ambrosia to about every breed of sporting dog. It’s a rare dog of any of the pointing breeds that won’t lock up solid on the first woodcock it smells.

Controllable Labs, springer spaniels and other flushing breeds work well on woodcock because the birds usually hold tight until they’re almost stepped on.

I can keep my beagle in close when I want to, and she’s proven her willingness to act as a woodcock dog on numerous occasions.

I’m one of those guys who, if forced to make a choice, would leave his shotgun at home rather than leave his dog behind.

I must admit that having a dog is by no means a prerequisite for being a successful woodcock hunter. It can take a lot of boot rubber to walk up tight-holding woodcock, but it can be done.

When flushed, a woodcock usually flies almost straight up until it clears the brush or other ground cover, pauses a split second and then rockets off in the direction its bill is pointing for about 50 yards before lighting again.

These birds are a lot harder to hit than they look. To avoid embarrassment, use a short-barreled, fast-pointing shotgun with the most open choke possible. For example, my woodcock gun is a 12-gauge L.C. Smith bored cylinder in both barrels.

I’m far from an expert woodcock finder, but most of my best coverts have thick stands of willows, maples or sycamores from less than 20 feet tall.

The ground beneath the trees ranges from merely moist to a mixture of swamp and hummocks. There are  creek banks with more mature timber and reservoir flood plains with weeds instead of trees among my steady producers.

I need to warn you that hunting woodcock is not for the easily frustrated. Since the open season coincides with the fall migration, concentrations of woodcock can  be here today, gone tomorrow.

If the birds find the weather and the available food to their liking, they might linger in the same spot for a week or more. Just because one group of woodcocks vacates a given covert doesn’t mean another group won’t move into it within a few days.

Hopefully, it will be a long time before there’s a better year to give this oddball game bird a try. Don’t let it pass you by.