I talk three different combination limits on this podcast, all including Wilson's Snipe. I know you're thinking "who cares about snipe!". All I can say is if you think dove shooting is fun you need to head to a marsh in October and hustle after some snipe. They'll teach you what shooting is all about! And they eat pretty good too.
I talk three different combination limits on this podcast, all including Wilson's Snipe. I know you're thinking "who cares about snipe!". All I can say is if you think dove shooting is fun you need to head to a marsh in October and hustle after some snipe. They'll teach you what shooting is all about! And they eat pretty good too.
PRAIRIE CHICKENS & WILSON’S SNIPE
You guys would like Russ. He’s as unselfish a hunter as you could wish to hunt with. I remember back in the 1970’s he knew of an albino pheasant on a farm that really wasn’t good pheasant ground and he invited me to stop out opening day to hunt for it. I declined reasoning that Russ found the bird and he should shoot it. Instead, Russ invited another friend who shot the bird and never got it mounted. Like I said, Russ is a great guy, just not the most critical judge of character.
Like the rest of my hunting buddies from the 70’s, Russ began to do more and more archery hunting and less chasing birds. Soon, he hardly bird hunted at all. But he invited buddies to deer hunt with him on farms that he had secured permission on and like always happens, one day they were still hunting the ground, and he wasn’t.
I always took Russ to good places and on good hunts and fishing trips. The best places I knew. He knew not to ever tell anyone where we hunted or take anyone there. I don’t forgive such transgressions. I drive thousands of miles, walk hundreds of miles and knock on dozens of doors to find the areas that I hunt. I treat the landowners with respect and never ever wear out my welcome. And I only return with a friend if I am absolutely certain that the landowner is okay with it. I think that Russ would agree that I’ve shown him the best ruffed grouse, prairie grouse and coyote hunting he’s experienced. He has shown me as good a pheasant and fox hunting as I’ve shown him. Russ and Del are the only two guys that I’ll travel out of state with. In all of your life, there aren’t many guys that you can trust to not ruin your hunt.
Russ owned an eight-year old English Setter, named Twister. Russ didn’t care as much about bird hunting as he did getting Twister into birds. I tried for years to convince him to hunt early season prairie grouse, but he thought the temperature would be too hot. Some guys are just too particular about their hunting.
In 2011, I told him I was heading to Nebraska to hunt prairie chickens and Wilson’s Snipe in mid-October and he was welcome to ride along. He had shot more than a few sharp-tails with me over the years in both Dakotas and Nebraska, but never a chicken. He said he’d like to shoot a chicken but didn’t care about snipe. I can’t imagine not caring about snipe. They are one of the most fun birds in the mid-west to hunt.
Russ was mostly concerned with whether or not chickens would hold for his dog. I told him that mid-October is not too late to expect chickens to hold if you find them in enough or too little grass.
I called Biologist Bill for some insight on bird numbers and he said to not expect a lot. There were huntable numbers, but not a lot of chickens or sharp-tails. I had been hunting this area for three years and “not a lot” was still enough for me to expect a limit every day. Bill suggested a CRP Map field a little nearer Iowa, that a fellow biologist said he moved chickens in. I promised to check it out and let him know how we did. I lied to Bill. As soon as I got home, I headed to Nevada and Oregon for chukar and quail and next thing I knew, seasons were over. So, if you’re reading this Bill,
“We didn’t see any prairie grouse there, but I did see where some had been roosting. Russ and I split up trying to work the whole section, and each of us flushed a few pheasants. Thanks, Randy“.
We drove all night as is my custom and were hunting around 9:00 a.m. We started out in a section that I had shot quite a few chickens in and only a couple of grouse. We hunted the bottom, along mowed hay, about 100 yards apart. Russ was whoaing Twister and then I heard a shot. Now I had hunted pheasants with Russ and Twister the year before in North Dakota, and Twister handled those pheasants well. He pointed Russ’s limit every day and a couple of the birds I shot.
I caught up with them a few minutes later as Russ was picking up his bird. Twister would mark well and approach for the retrieve, but he would not pick up a bird. He would just stand over it. Russ never lost any birds with Twister that I’m aware of, and it’s usually a short walk to where your bird falls, so Russ was happy to pick up his own. And Russ and Twister’s birds made for much better pictures than mine and Bo’s.
I told Russ that he and Twister had just shot their first prairie chicken and we spilt up for real. We hunted the rest of the section and I saw a couple of birds flush very wild and that was it. This hunt wasn’t looking good. I was expecting for each of us to be very close to limited out, in this field.
We drove north past my best field to find it mowed flat. Then a little further north to another that was just okay for birds. Never a lot, but always some. I dropped Russ off on the north, high side, and drove back south to the low end. I told Russ to be ready as soon as he crossed the fence, as I had shot chickens in that corner just a couple of weeks earlier.
I heard faint shooting not long after I began hunting and hoped Russ was into birds. I didn’t see anything until Bo and I nearly topped out and a pair of chickens flushed at about 50 yards. I hustled over and Bo beat me to the spot. As we worked a wide circle around the area, Bo flushed a single chicken that was just out of the wind. I hit him well, but the hill was steep and Bo ran a long ways down, sorting through a stream of feathers before reaching the piled up chicken. She galloped up the hill and happily surrendered the bird. I saw Russ and Twister on the horizon hunting towards us so I sat down giving him a chance at any birds between us. It turned out that the shooting I had heard earlier was Russ killing a skunk that Twister was interested in. But he later shot a sharp-tail that I didn’t hear out of a flock of about ten. While Russ was explaining to me where the grouse had gone, a chicken flushed from the crest of the hill we were on. It was a forty yard flush that neither of us were expecting. Bo and I trotted up the hill and another pair flushed. I took a poke at one but he was out there a ways and I missed. “Out there a ways” is just an excuse. I’ve killed a lot of birds further away than that poke.
And so went the rest of the day. Russ got his limit sharp-tail and I passed on a couple of grouse, wanting chickens.
We drove to the snipe area where I took a limit of snipe with Bo the previous year, and all of the snipe type habitat, was flooded.
This was the second trip I’d made to the sandhills hoping for a chance at snipe and chickens. The previous year, I found plenty of snipe in this same wetland and believed that the chicken side of the dual limit was going to be easy. I had several nearby sections, that held a majority of chickens for the past couple of years. Even a month earlier, I took a couple of limits of just chickens here with Bo. But come the snipe migration, I couldn’t buy a chicken in the surrounding hills. So I did what every respectable bird hunter would do. Bo and I took a combination limit of sharptails and snipe.
We drove back to a private field of wet hay ground and I caught the farmer as he was returning to the house. He was very nice and said we could hunt all the snipe and prairie grouse we wanted but he hunted pheasants. I was surprised that he actually knew what snipe were. Once the CRP acreage in this area matured, pheasants returned to their pre-CRP numbers, which was just a few in the cattails. Not shooting pheasants in this area was a reprieve.
Russ hunted one side of the wet meadow and me the other. He saw one or two snipe while Bo flushed three or four. I shot two and a tight sitting chicken. The meadow hay was about ankle high and that chicken flushed from a narrow strip that the hay mower had missed. This strip was about knee-high and six inches wide. The chicken flushed at about 25 yards from me and 5 yards from a big black dog bearing down on it.
You would never believe that prairie chickens will do that from what you read, but I’ve seen it many times, even a daily bag limit’s worth from 3” tall hay meadows. I’ll talk about prairie chicken hunting in a separate episode. If you’re at all interested in walking up prairie chickens you’ll want to watch for that podcast.
We drove to town that night for something important that I can’t recall now, but as we crossed the Loup River, a yearling whitetail skidded into the running board of my pickup. The first deer I’ve ever hit.
The next morning I wanted to drive past a picked soybean pivot to see if there were any chickens around. There must have been 40-50 chickens and another 20 sharp-tails in the corner by the gravel. We stopped short and watched many of them sail across and land in a private pasture beside a couple of half-picked corn pivots.
We hunted the wet private meadow and I picked up two snipe. We hoped there would be a few grouse or chickens at least around the edge, but the dogs found none. We then stopped at the marsh. We were just killing time until we thought the farmers would be back picking corn. We really wanted into that chicken pasture. I shot two more snipe in a small patch of baled grass just off the parking area at the entrance of the marsh. It was a stingy way to shoot eight snipe, but it was better than sitting around.
When we returned to the corn pivots they were off-loading wagons into a semi-trailer. I talked to the father of the owner. He said they didn’t own the pasture, but he was a friend and we were welcome to hunt. “If the owner stops, which he won’t, just tell him you talked to me“. The man asked for my name and said he’d try to remember me if I returned another year.
I am continually amazed at the hunters who won’t knock on a door. This conversation was in 2011. There is still a very strong tradition of allowing hunting without a fee. Don’t let guides, outfitters or writers convince you otherwise.
I suggested to Russ that he and Twister hunt the top of the range of hills and I would work my way along the bottom with Bo and then swing into a lower range to the north. We would meet at the east end where this pasture met a CRP Map pasture, that I had shot chickens in before.
Bo flushed a small group of chickens along the bottom and I dropped one. A few minutes later, Russ and Twister were into a flock of grouse and Russ also shot one.
We split and Russ and Twister shot another grouse. Me and Bo topped the first rise in the smaller hills and were in the middle of a good flock of chickens. I doubled, finishing my limit of just chickens.
Back at the road, I turned the truck to face the field and sat on the seat with binoculars watching Russ and Twister hunt their way back along a shelterbelt. A bird flushed from the trees, crossing in front of Russ. I watched it crumple and then, I heard his shot.
Russ’s limit bird was another chicken. We ate lunch, talked about our birds, then returned to the marsh.
Earlier, I didn’t want to just hunt the marsh for my snipe because I knew that there wouldn’t be any grouse or chickens for Russ. Well, he had his prairie grouse limit now.
I tried. I really tried to get him to come along and shoot snipe. He said he could watch me miss them just fine from the truck seat.
There were a lot of snipe on the pasture edge around the west side of the marsh. Russ said he thought I sure shot a lot to get just four snipe. I think I was hitting with every other shell. I guess he could laugh as long as it wasn’t him doing the shooting.
The odd thing was, after I had my eighth snipe, I unloaded and swung a little wider around the water on my way back, and Bo flushed a lone chicken from the edge of the marsh. A 15 yard chicken flush. Another 30 or 40 yards and she flushed another in my face chicken and another before we were back to the truck. To think, if I had just hunted the marsh, I could have possibly taken my limit of snipe and chickens in about an hour. But what fun is that?
If many years earlier, I hadn’t stumbled onto a few snipe at the Valentine National Wildlife Refuge, I would never have dreamt of even a possibility of a combination limit of snipe and prairie grouse in the same day. Today, it’s a hunt I would gladly make every year.
Now, where are chickens and doves?
About snipe hunting. I have another combination limit podcast coming up soon, snipe and pheasants. As you might guess, I readily hunt snipe, not just in combination with other upland birds, but even when snipe are all that’s available. I often wonder why so many will gladly sit on a bucket in September heat, to shoot a few doves, yet so few guys will take a leisurely walk in a wet pasture on a cool fall day to shoot snipe. If it’s a perceived lack of challenge, that just ain’t so!
In all honesty, I’ve shot more snipe than doves, and waterhole doves are a fish in a barrel compared to snipe. I’ve walked up doves and they’re still easier shooting than snipe. I haven’t shot doves over feed fields and I’m assuming that’s where they are the most challenging. I will be shooting feed field doves in Nebraska this coming September and I’ll have a better comparison between doves and snipe then.
Okay, where to look for snipe. First of all, snipe aren’t rail. You’ll find few snipe in cattails and floating vegetation. So few that I would never look there.
And snipe aren’t woodcock. They won’t be in trees or brush, no matter how wet it is.
Snipe are more of sight defense bird, like sharp-tails.
Snipe like splashes of water. Wet cow pastures with clumps of grass in the 10-16” height range are about perfect. I shot quite a few just last year in a flooded, standing soybean field. (It’s ok, it was a food plot on a public waterfowl area.) and in wet hay meadows all over the Midwest.
I’ve shot them in flooded, standing corn fields and that’s about as tough an upland bird hunt as you want to try. They just skim the stalk tassels as they ricochet out of range. One of my proudest days of upland bird hunting, was taking an eight bird limit of snipe from a standing cornfield when I was 19.
A couple of years ago I flushed about a dozen snipe in a standing corn field with knee deep water that was partially iced over. I was hoping to find a high spot with a public land rooster avoiding more traditional pheasant hunters, but flushed snipe instead. I don’t know if they were resting on the ice or clinging to corn stalks, but neither makes any sense to me.
If you can’t find grass, or crop stubble, they’ll hang around if there’s some cover provided by dirt clods. I found good numbers just last season where the Iowa DNR was using heavy equipment to dig a shallow water depression for ducks. Those snipe were in rutted up mud and puddles 5o yards from any vegetation.
I don’t walk many pasture creeks anymore, but when we were young a buddy and I used to shoot a few along winding pasture creeks, even if there was hardly any grass.
Many years ago I was knocking on doors in central Minnesota looking for access to sharp-tail grouse hunting on a drizzly fall day. I turned into a farm drive closely bordered by a boggy pasture and there were snipe everywhere. It was the heaviest concentration of snipe I’d ever seen. I talked to the landowner and she said they’d never noticed them in all the years they lived their but they appeared in swarms the evening before. She had no idea what species of bird they were.
Just remember, snipe don’t swim and prefer any wet, relatively open, flat ground, with good visibility.
Timing their migration is sometimes difficult. Like woodcock, they can be a here today and gone tomorrow bird. Also a few years ago I found a decent number in a burned over waterfowl area in northwestern Iowa the day before pheasant season. I’d been hoping to find a concentration that would allow for an opportunity at a snipe/pheasant combination limit and thought that might be it. I had my limit of pheasants by 8:30 am drove just a couple of miles to the WPA and only found one snipe.
Hey, I just remembered. I was chukar hunting in Nevada a few years ago along a trickle of an irrigation canal and flushed four snipe in about 100 yards. I didn’t drive all the way to Nevada to shoot snipe, so I left them be. The canal itself was at about 5,000’ elevation and nothing but rock and sand banks. A really strange place for snipe to be found.
I had a lot of time to think on my 26 hour drive home and realized that that trickle emptied into a mud flat behind an old corral. It was private, but I had permission to hunt.
I realized that those snipe were feeding on that mud flat and probably just a few had settled on the ditch.
There was a nice covey of valley quail around the corral and another good covey on the spring that fed the irrigation. Yeah, you guessed it! I’ll be back to that corral in a year or two trying to time the Nevada snipe migration for a combo limit of snipe and valley quail!
My creativeness never ceases to amaze me.