doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Woodcock in Canada, where to go??

For most provinces you do not need a guide to hunt game birds BUT you do need a guide to hunt big game. This is not true for all provinces and territories so read the hunting regulations for each.

Ontario does require non residents to get a non resident outdoors card and a non resident small game licence. Its at the beginning of the regs under licencing, not under the small game regs. Looks like around $400 Canadian funds combined.

https://www.ontario.ca/page/hunting-licence-non-residents-ontario

It may be New Brunswick or other Maritimes I was thinking of for small game hunting.

Good grouse hunting in New Brunswick I hear.

Looks like $72 for a non resident small game licence.

Woodcock also seem to come and go within a two or three week period in these parts... from what I understand.

Woodcock across their range are going to be best found under very specific conditions not unlike how you find them in NY. Your outfitter will best know what those locales are going to be. But it's going to be areas with humus soil that support earthworms. Typically not mature forests but rather first or second growth and for wild areas that means edges along drainages where beavers have done the cutting or in farming areas, regrown pastures or where aspen pulp cutting operations have occurred. Where the migrants will be found are the same spots where the locals were living the week before. I like to hunt reclaimed pastures and the ideal is a west-facing slope that overlooks a drainage stream as here the birds will be charging their batteries during the day as they rest before the night feeding. Once the ground freezes they will want to get the hell south so when they depart is a matter of weather and when migrants arrive is a matter of the weather further north. It is pretty typical in central Ontario to be shooting local birds into 1st or 2nd week October and migrants are done a week later. A week of north wind will encourage all of them to "flock off". If a person has access to hunting just on the north side of the great lakes there can be populations that hold there and stack up until conditions are good for making the crossing.

There's good woodcock hunting in New Brunswick.

There's good woodcock hunting in Ontario also. Its my experience though that there are vast areas of land where you won't find them (but will find grouse). I would start by contacting a prospective camp owner to make sure he knows locations of singing fields and the adjacent areas where they breed and raise young and later are frequently encountered through the summer for instance by fishermen. Chances are it will be where poplars meet tag alders.