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Sidelock
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Sidelock

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I have given up uploading photos on here. I am happy to email them to someone more computer savvy than I am


Edit: see if the images come up now

Last edited by Mills; 01/16/20 05:17 PM.
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With the season winding down for GA, cooler temps returned and we had a beautiful day in the woods courtesy of the MuttPak. One epic screw-up was us emptying chambers at a going away easy shot. While muttering to ourselves about the miss, a second one got up. Would have been an easy shot but we were still unloaded. While cursing our stupidity, a third got up while were still unloaded. Stupidity confirmed. Still riding the Ithaca SKB 100 20 gauge horse. For the MuttPak, Gil

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GLS,
I know all too well the 2nd and 3rd bird going up and having empty chambers from a silly 2 shot salvo. It seems that I never learn! Glad you had a successful day regardless.
Karl

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Karl, another wrinkle from yesterday was I was one bird shy of a limit. We drove to another cover and it took us 30 minutes of the torture of the damned going through birdless thickets. As we circled back towards the truck, Abby got birdy and a bird got up. This completed the day and when we popped out of cover it dawned on us that we were about 50 yards from the truck from where the bird fell. Gil

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Since we're on the subject of Southern American Woodcock, would any of you share tips on where to look for them. The boy, the pup and I put about 10 miles of walking in yesterday (probably closer to 20 for the pup) and we had no luck.

Started in the Atchafalya Basin hunting what young growth woods we could find. (In keeping with the thread, here's a picture. Boy, pup, AyA 4/53 16 gauge all in their first ever Louisiana woodcock hunt.)


There is also a cutover with very thick, very young growth (essentially no trees) that we didn't really hunt. We saw some guys at the end of the day with brittanies coming out of there and they looked like they were beat up by the briars. They weren't in the mood for talking or sharing wisdom to a newbie becasse hunter. They said they only shot 'a few'.

In the afternoon, we headed to the hills and creek bottoms of West Feliciana parish. Tried the ravines along the creeks, young pine stands, wet hardwood stands, and everything between. It was a beautiful day, but no birds.


Is this just the product of a young dog and an inexperienced woodcock hunter, or should we be looking elsewhere?

Last edited by Woodreaux; 01/18/20 02:11 PM.

Jim
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Well, you're in the right area; the Atchafalaya Basin has the reputation of being the premier doodle wintering ground. We look for closely packed vertical stems or brier tangles. For us, presence of water seems to be key with scattered puddles which raises the water table and consequently lifting worms closer the forest floor. When we first got serious in pursuit, we first concentrated in areas where there were large areas of rivercane, chest high or higher. We broadened our search to include thickets of huckleberries/sparkeberries, new grown pine clusters and dense colonies of hardwood sapling thickets including sweetgum. Nearness to open fields or wide grassy road shoulders of the same thickets seemed to help. We've found them in mature pine forests but mixed with hardwoods and clusters of cover and nearby puddles. We've broadened our search areas over the years and are constantly searching for new areas. If the cover is easy to walk through, look elsewhere, but we've found enough in the open to suggest otherwise, but odds are, the thicker the better. A shortcut in finding good cover and what to look for is to hire a guide. There are more than a handful in your area, but be sure the guide understands your intentions.
Good luck. Gil
PS: I just saw where you saw some hunters coming from the area and were pretty closed mouth about action. You were in the right spot. Anyone who discloses where he shoots woodcock is talking way too much.

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Jim,
It seems that when I encounter bracken fern, I have better luck. But with woodcock, one day they are there and the next day gone. I attribute much of that to their migratory actions here in the north.
Karl


Sometimes I've found them warming themselves in the midmorning sun in grass areas.

Last edited by Karl Graebner; 01/18/20 01:30 PM.
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This a relatively open canebrake than where we usually find them. But they were there that day...Willa is looking back at me from her vantage point on an edge of the canebrake. Gil

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Thanks all. From what you all are describing, the areas we were hitting were mostly good. My brother has hunted "up north" (meaning north louisiana) and has found them in the creek bottoms. He was tagging along with some experienced guys.

The spot we were hunting in the Basin is around the cutover funded in part by AWS / RGS in the Sherburne WMA. We may have been walking through areas that were a little too open. I also think my dog needs some exposure to get the idea. As far as she knew, we were looking for pigeons.

There are only a couple of weeks left. I may look for a guide as suggested. Ideally, someone would let me bring my dog along. We both need the education.

As far as upland goes here in the swamp, this is what we've got, so I'm hoping to figure this thing out.

Best news of the day-- after walking a cumulative of about 5 hours behind the dog and finding no birds, my son said, "Dad, woodcock hunting is my favorite."


Jim
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Jim, what breed is your dog? Once you start hunting heavy cover, a bell, at a minimum should be used. Where we hunt, gps tracking is almost a must. Sometimes we can't seen the dog from 15-20 feet away. One big factor in southern birds is that we are at the migratory stop sign. While there is some movement, it's not migratory unless arriving to winter over compared with states above us where it's passing through or native birds. This has been a spectacular season for us no doubt because of the bad weather to the north which came early this year. After all the talk of needing dense vertical stem cover, comes this video last year from Louisiana looking more like a S. Ga. quail woods. We tried some similar woods around here and found birds in the broom straw but under brush cover. Go figure. Gil
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGnyWoWxyKE

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