Snipe

They're very good on the table. I like to grill them. They remind me very much of doves. Easy to clean and very meaty for their size. Oh, they're also a challenge to hunt.
 
They are stronger tasting then say a dove but they are good. Kind of like waterfowl. It's hard to describe but they are worth a try. They are the only option we have to experience shorebird hunting.

Make sure and look at a lot of ID info on snipe before shooting some. Dowitchers can easily be mistaken for snipe to the new snipe hunter. Snipe are seldom if ever in flocks (there may be a bunch together but they won't act like a flock flying in formation) and if you see white on the base of the back don't shoot.

Tim
 
I shot and ate a few yesterday and they were quite good. I grilled them, keeping them on the rare side.

Bring plenty of shells!



Ed
 
Snipe make great eating and are an underappreciated game bird. They are some of the best (and most frustrating) gunning I've done. Check out Worth Mathewson's book on the subject if you are interested.
 
Mike,nice pic of the Watercocks.Bet you had some sport shooting that many birds in a day.I never thought they would be away from coastal marshes.What method do you use to hunt them?Would be neat hunting the old way, of polling with the gunner standing/sitting in the bow,going through the tidal marsh grass.
 
We walk freshly drained fields and flush them. Humbling and good excercise.

snipe3.jpg

 
Jim,judjing from the dog,it must not have been too muddy walking that day.Nice bag,and great shooting,even with the two emty boxes.You probably have a box and a half of unfired shells in your pocket.lol
 
We hunt them in the St. Clair delta marshes. We walk them up in shallow vegetated areas (cattails or bulrushes) with patches of exposed mud. They do seem to prefer cattails over bulrushes and of course that's mucky stuff to walk around in. It's good exercise and fun shooting.

Thanks for the link to the book, I'll check it out. - Mike.
 
Joe O - thanks for the link to the book, it looks very interesting and I've already ordered a copy. Snipe hunting is fast becoming one of my favorite things to do during the warm, bluebird days of October here at Lake St. Clair. With the low water levels we have now, there's lots of habitat and lots of birds.Oct23_snipebag_small.jpg
 
Mike,nice pic.That's great shooting.If you get tired slogin thru the mud,you might consider getting set up with a shallow draft pole boat,to move quitely through the marshes.
You do need a few inches of water though.Never heard of anyone Snipe hunting arounl LSC the years I was stationed at Selfridge.Course that was sp many decades ago that the Snipe may not have evolved as yet.LOL I believe I'll order the Snipe book myself.I enjoy Worth's writtings.
 
Rails were traditionally shot out of shallow draft boats pushed by a poler....Rails walk on emergant vegation laying on the waters surface, Snipe don't. Rails gratly favor marshes with enough water where they can be poled. Preferred habitat of Snipe is far drier, in fact if the water is doing more than "squishing" underfoot its too deep. They'll certainly work the very edge of water that could be poled but that would be a poor way of hunting them....

You'l enjoy Worth's Snipe book.....takes a real dedicated Snipe hunter to write not one, but two, books dedicated entirely to Snipe as he has. He's the only person thats ever given Waterman a run for his money when it comes to writing about them and given his experience with them in the 51st State, (England if you have forgotten your history), and Russia he might just be ahead on points.....

Steve
 
I wasn't confusing them,I just didn't think of Rails.Now that you have brought it to my attention,I remember that polling was the prefered way to shoot Rail,Not having done either,I do know the Snipe is a close relative of the Woodcock.Have run across a few of those over the years.
Being from the east and knowing some people from the NY/NJ area,I was under the impresion that our 51st state was where alll the Ricans live:0)
 
that we were overrun with the English slipping across our porous borders, taking our jobs and refusing to speak our language long before the Puerto Ricans became a problem.....heck we even kicked their butts in a War and still the bulk of them staid.....seemed the proper thing to do to just annex them as a State after later saving their asses in another War.......

Personally I think the failure of the Government to have the stones to kick the illegal aliens out of the Country started way back then after we didn't make sure they all left after they signed that first treaty.....its been the same ever since....show up univited and we just pretend it isn't happening......now days its even worse though cause not only will we not kick em out we won't start a War with them either....

Steve, leaning to the Right today, Sutton
 
You know,our problem is we never adopted the motto,"To The Victor goes the Spoils".They get us speaking their language in increments,Like all the talking heads on the news,calling any hard surface on an airport "TARMAC".We don't have one square inch of Tarmac in this United States.Our talking heads thought it was cutesy when they heard the BBC TH using the term during the Faulken war.Next we'll be calling an engine ,a lump,and the trunk a Boot,and so on,and so on.Enough of this.Let's shoot some snipe.
When you lean far enough Right to smile at Atilla the Hun,we'll talk.lol
 
Does that mean it's wrong for me to tie my deer to my bonnet?
Click to expand...
Well if you had it lashed to tne Bonnet of your MG TC you might obscure your vision through the windscreen,requiring radar to be installed in your facia.Smashing!
 
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