september rail bird gunning

greg setter

greg setter

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After getting home from my adventure out west, I got a call from a buddy that gets a couple of tides every year with the Camp's down in S Jersey, and he had a spot for me. It's been a few years since I went, and was glad to get the spot. I think it was Rick henderson that said this is the best 2 hour hunt out there, and I think he is right. September is a pretty nice month out this way, but it can still be pretty hot and sometimes the humidity lingers a week or two into the month. This day was a flat out 95 degrees and our tide was around 2:30, so that means you shove off around 1:15. This is wild rice, and September is Sora rail time.
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It is not easy work pushing a sport through this stuff.

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But these guys really like doing it, and they are all related to each other, which makes it even better. I am not sure how many generations of this family have done this, but I think it is several.

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I was a little surprised that none of them jumped in the water, it was so hot. Then the sun would come out.

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But the shooting was pretty good, and the water was just right, and we all got at least 6 or 7.


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And here I am, all happy with something for dinner.
 
So neat. Something I've always wanted to do.

Did it for several years in a row in Missouri with Mark Schupp and Ira McCauley. Cover wasn't as heavy and was smart weed and Millet mostly but the number of birds when we hit the migration was incredible. DEFINATELY something I'd like to do again both there and in New Jersey.

Great post.
Steve
 
Nice photos.

Those skiffs are a much better platform for this hunt than my MMB sculler is. All the folks I know who hunt rails in Merrymeeting Bay use the same sculling boats we use for ducks a few weeks later.

They can be poled, but they are surely not made for it.

One of my favorite hunts, but it's hard to interest many of my duck hunting buddies in it.
 
I am determined to learn how to do this. There are a bunch of marsh in coastal NC. Best way to learn the marsh is to fish it. One problem is that I am still in Pa during September. Too many things to do, too little time.
 
Great post Greg! I read this when you posted it, but I had to run before I could post up! I've really enjoyed my relatively few days gunning rail. Thanks for putting this up, if everyone shared some of the neat things that they have done in the course of the year!
 
Bill Wasson (who was once active here, I believe) used to guide rail hunts in Maine. I think there are a few folks in NJ, the Chesapeake, and the Carolinas who do as well.

Last year was odd--I never saw any rails. A buddy of mine who lives on the Bay said they all showed up at once and were only here a few days, but he had a couple of epic hunts while they were in.
 
Piling for rails in NJ and rail hunting in the Coastal Marshes of the Carolinas and South are as different as jump shooting beaver ponds and layout gunning for divers. Both Duck hunting but completely different.

The traditional NJ Rail hunt, which incidentally ushered in Sport Hunting in the United States, is all about the smallest game bird in America, Sora Rails, and flood tides in wild rice beds. Pole boats with one guy doing the true grunt work and one shooting.

Rail hunting further South is a spartina marsh affair. Bigger boats and the primary target species is the Clapper Rail. I've seen a few people over the years poling for them but never in a specialized boat like the Jersey marshes. Hit a big tide on a Southern coastal marsh and you can hunt it out of your duck boat, (and honestly most do it under power and hope the CO's aren't out), or if the bottom is hard by walking. That might happen in the Jersey marshes but from the ones I've seen you aren't going to be motoring a 16' Jon through a rice bed with much success.

Neat stuff that few bother with anymore.


Steve
 
There are only a few pushing for Sora's here in Jersey. The guides I go with don't hunt clapper's, although they are abundant just a few miles away in the spartina grass marshes along the bay where I do my duck hunting. They get Sora's early and Virginia's later in the season. The wild rice beds are upstream in the fresh water part of the Maurice River, the clappers are in the brackish to salt sections mostly, like Steve described. One way people will hunt clappers here is to pole or drift down a creek smacking two clam shells together and waiting for them to come out to the water's edge to check out the noise, and they use that method at low tide. Actually, the guy that I rent my hunting shack from told me he used to do it that way, I'm not sure anybody else does. And I'm pretty sure he wasn't waiting for them to fly. I don't know if anybody pushes for clapper's in the area, although I think there are one or two that do it on the marshes along the coast behind the barrier islands. There are a lot of them there though, they really put up a racket on hot September days. When you can hear them yakking it up all over you realize how many are out there.
 
The clacking two clam shells together is something I've never heard of. Definately something I'm gonna have to try the next time I'm out on a low tide with the camera.

We used to shoot s fair number of Sora's and Virginia's in Sept on flood tides in Florida if those came on a full moon where essentially the only marsh unflooded was just the tips of the black needle rush at the highest edges of the marsh. Any lower tide and you couldn't get the little guys to flush.

My only experience with rails in fresh water, other than the very occasional single while duck hunting was in Missouri and it was totally different. No tides of course and it was easy to either pole or walk up all the Sora's you could imagine even in really thick vegetation. Plus at daylight they'd be free flighting throughout the marsh something I've never seen anywhere else.

Steve
 
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