Woodcock

Yep turkey season. Hopefully I’ll be released by doctor to start driving by then.

I killed 8 this season. Shot a limit this past Saturday.

Way to go 608!!! Glad to have you aboard Great picture---- Do you have a DOG you use if so let's see it

Enjoyed the Woodcock season. So much of the public land in North Georgia would be worthless to bird hunters if it wasn't for Woodcock. Now my dogs
will be back hunting released quail and those hard to find grouse.

Coach me and Drake will be hitting partridge in north Georgia in February and maybe another in March but now sitting at the computer with feet in a vibrator trying to soothe this neurophrothy (spelling bad) but it's feeling mighty good

608 and Coach, good to see your posts. What dogs y'all using? Gil

My son and I both have young German Shorthairs. I also still
Have my old setter. The dogs are what we love most about
The sport. I would love to hunt down in your part of the state
Sometime. I have enjoyed reading of your posts this year.

Coach, thanks. You are preaching to the choir about woodcock. Gil

Hey fellows, you think these boots will make ONE-MORE woodcock season???? By the way this is the great "Bow-Flex " tape after one season

We've got one, ,maybe two more hunts scheduled for SC next week.
Last year, in one large tract in SC we took over 20 birds. This year, two. We hunted this morning and didn't see a bird. The area was bone dry this year compared with previous years. If it wasn't for hunting in Georgia, our season would have been very poor. As it was, we were down in the numbers this year compared with the previous two years. Gil

Gil, being my only second year hunting woodies. I started out my first two hunts in the same places I hunted last year and did not flush a bird? So moved to different locations and that's when Me and Drake got successful so I'm already looking at new places for this next season

It pays to have plenty of spots so that you don't put too much pressure in any one area. One of our best spots got wrecked by Matthew which destroyed the canopy in one of our historically best bottoms for woodcock laying the oaks down making it not only hard to hunt, but the additional sunlight affected the rivercane which became too sparse to hold birds. Birds will be moving north soon. Gil

a fine thread, enjoyed all the posts. Did some briar busting today but no woodcock to be found.

Asty

Got the woodcock machine cleaned up this weekend, after a NASTY-SNOWY W/C season----Getting 5 miles better in gas mileage!!!!

Our main hunting areas are often miles from the nearest towns. It's an unnecessary time killer to leave the woods and hunt someplace to eat while out in the sticks. Over the years our midday woodcock hunting break included hastily gobbled down ham and cheese or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches made at the last minute, tossed into a grocery bag with a few oranges or bananas, a truck load of water for us and the dogs, and a 35 year old Nissan stainless steel vacuum bottle topped off with black coffee. This year was a little different. The sandwiches and liquids were always there, but with the cold weather we had this year, I thought a hot meal would be better. I bought both a 24 and a 48 oz. wide mouth stainless steel Thermos bottles. Depending on whether it was just Floyd and me or if we took extra folks, the size of the bottle differed. The day before I'd cook up either venison chili, lentils and salmon stew, fish and oyster stew or chicken stew. I'd heat it up in the morning and load the bottles after preheating them with boiling hot water. I asked Floyd what he liked the best. He picked the fish stew made from a tripletail and a pint of Bluffton oysters topped off at lunch with grated cheese. The fish stew ingredients are simple: onion, garlic, bay leaf or two, celery stalk, chicken or fish stock, diced onion, a pound of diced potatoes, a pound or more of cubed fish, seasoned with fresh thyme, salt and pepper and cooked for several hours. The chicken stew was my favorite. A whole chicken slow cooked in a crock pot, stripped down of bones and skin, placed in a large pot with braised carrots, parsnips, onions and seasonings with all stewed together for a couple of hours in the broth ladled in from the crock pot. The salmon and lentil stew was a variation of the fish stew, but without the potatoes or chicken stock. Thick, flavorful, and hearty. Whatever the meal, all agreed that it sure beat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for a midday energy boost. Gil

GLS said:

Our main hunting areas are often miles from the nearest towns. It's an unnecessary time killer to leave the woods and hunt someplace to eat while out in the sticks. Over the years our midday woodcock hunting break included hastily gobbled down ham and cheese or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches made at the last minute, tossed into a grocery bag with a few oranges or bananas, a truck load of water for us and the dogs, and a 35 year old Nissan stainless steel vacuum bottle topped off with black coffee. This year was a little different. The sandwiches and liquids were always there, but with the cold weather we had this year, I thought a hot meal would be better. I bought both a 24 and a 48 oz. wide mouth stainless steel Thermos bottles. Depending on whether it was just Floyd and me or if we took extra folks, the size of the bottle differed. The day before I'd cook up either venison chili, lentils and salmon stew, fish and oyster stew or chicken stew. I'd heat it up in the morning and load the bottles after preheating them with boiling hot water. I asked Floyd what he liked the best. He picked the fish stew made from a tripletail and a pint of Bluffton oysters topped off at lunch with grated cheese. The fish stew ingredients are simple: onion, garlic, bay leaf or two, celery stalk, chicken or fish stock, diced onion, a pound of diced potatoes, a pound or more of cubed fish, seasoned with fresh thyme, salt and pepper and cooked for several hours. The chicken stew was my favorite. A whole chicken slow cooked in a crock pot, stripped down of bones and skin, placed in a large pot with braised carrots, parsnips, onions and seasonings with all stewed together for a couple of hours in the broth ladled in from the crock pot. The salmon and lentil stew was a variation of the fish stew, but without the potatoes or chicken stock. Thick, flavorful, and hearty. Whatever the meal, all agreed that it sure beat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for a midday energy boost. Gil

Click to expand...

Gil, thanks for the recipes. The soups sound great, I will give them a try!

Evan

My all time favorite is SMOKED VIENNA SAUSAGE (of course Drake had his can also ) and a pack of CHEESE CRACKERS and ( of course Drake had his pack also). I hunt alone , so it's simply stop by the market load up with ice and pepsie hit McDonalds for breakfast and off we go to the woods! Now I only hunt on one plot of WMA so the distance is not a problm( Don't waste your breath and ask me which one please ??) Hang in there boys!!!!

Evan, tilapia works fine in the fish stew. (I don't use oysters or shrimp often in the stew. When I do, I add them the last 10 minutes before serving.) After sauteing onions and garlic in the pot to translucence with olive oil, add the cubed fish and rest of ingredients and cover with water, bring to a boil and simmer for an hour or two. On the salmon/lentil stew, use the dried pound bag of lentils. The lentils don't need pre-soaking and are done in an hour. I use about a pound of skinless cubed salmon and add water as needed. Mike, that's one spoiled dog with his own crackers and can of Vienna sausage, but aren't they all?
Gil

The SC woodcock season closes out tomorrow. Our season closed out today. We had waited until today as the temps were down from yesterday, but unfortunately, the cold front arrived windy which gave the dogs fits. We hunted my Abby and Willa and Floyd's Pop and Sadie. We normally don't hunt 4 dogs, but since it was the last day for us, we gave it to the dogs. I can imagine the panic of the woodcock, twittering "The Britts are coming." The wind gave the birds the advantage. We hunted private property near Floyd's which is less than 10 miles from where I live. We hunted here 15 days ago and found a dozen birds in a little over an hour. Today we found 5 birds, all wild flushes without a single point. We managed one bird. The area is threaded by a Tupelo swamp and is well known in this area as it goes on for miles across many property lines. Here's a photo of the swamp. Note the swelled butts of the tree trunks. The Tupelo "butt swell" was prized by old time Louisiana duck decoy carvers as it could be carved green without checking. It is also the wood preferred by Floyd for carving his bird carvings. He prefers to let it dry before carving. He harvests the wood from this swamp. Not only is Tupelo a preferred wood for carving, the tree produces blossoms loaded with nectar which attracts honey bees. Tupelo honey is the gold standard of which all other honeys are judged. There was a reason Van Morrison's song, Tupelo Honey, contained the line "she's as sweet as Tupelo honey." The landowner's hives (called "gums" by old timers locally) are under this live oak which is a rock throw from the swamp behind the photographer. I only had one other in range opportunity besides this bird. Those who shoot the Ideal will understand the befuddled panic in attempting to take the safety off these guns on an unexpected flush. I had one such flush today. Abby had found a bird a 100 yards out. It must have flown before I could get within 50 yards of Abby judging from my Fenix 3. Assuming it was the same bird, I suspect it landed between us and I almost stepped on it. The safety flummoxed me. After decades of shooting a tang safety, the Ideal's "off safety" direction operates in the opposite direction of a top mounted safety. Below is a photo of the habitat surrounding the swamp. No rivercane, but plenty of saplings. I imagine this looks like some of the habitat in the north. Well, to book end the woodcock season, I can't think of anything more fitting than a photo of one of Floyd's woodcock carvings, carved not only from Tupelo, but as sweet looking as tupelo honey.

Beautiful country. Same type areas I use to hunt when I was able. That is a beautiful carving done by Floyd. This has been a great thread.
Jeff