Sniping aint easy

Well most seasons it aint. I did not get after then until the last couple weeks, but it was one of the best seasons yet for hunting them. Both for numbers of birds here right now and my dog Dash figuring them out both by slowing down and by putting more distance from the birds when pointing them. When it was windy enough a third to a half of my birds were pointed. Listmember Flyboy's GSP Scout pointed a few too, in fact it was him that got me to give Dash the chance to work them out for more of that way of hunting them. By tradition listmember Dave Spear also met up with me for the season ending hunt. Here are a few shots from the season.









This one you can see the high flushed bird after Scout pointed it. Unfortunately my camera battery had run out so the pic was with my phone and not as good as I wanted. Flyboy did successfully shoot this bird.

Nice!!

Nice pix, looks like a good time.

We were covered up with them but gave them little suckers a pass this year.

Great pics and I love red dogs

Man I thought I was the only one snipe hunting anymore lol

Love shoosting snipe!!!!!

not many people even believe theyre a real bird lol I didn't hunt them as much this year because I didn't want to disturb the ducks and few geese. But, did give'em hell after duck season closed. very fun bird to hunt. whether it be pointing with dogs, walking up, or sitting there at daylight waiting on them to come in.

Dad had a cattle lease next to our place when I was a kid...
big tank, always a couple snipe fly off when we'd roll up...
maybe a few coots..no real dux back then...
we never tried to hunt them...
have contacts in S/E Tx now..
maybe woodies and snipe...
that'd be cool...
seen a post somewhere a guy sed snipe fly like "drunk bats on meth" yeah, they do that!

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one of the opinion their hard to hit.

Jumping and shooting singles is gonna be tough regardless how good you can shoot. One local spot gets covered up with birds, I'd see small groups of 3-12 birds flying around and (fortunately) flying right by my hide. I've dropped 4 or 5 birds that way, but it's the exception, not the rule.

Season before last I shot a single flying about 20 feet from where I was sitting. It dropped like a rock. I went over to pick it up noticing that the front of its head had been shot off and the long snout missing entirely. I was a couple feet from that bird getting ready to pick it up when it jumped up and flew off. Tough birds, for sure.

tough shooting makes for fun days afield....to an extent

what are yall shooting at these snipe, 7 or 7-1/2 shot? I assume lead shot is legal to use?

Yeah you can shoot that 7.5 lead unless you're hunting in a WMA that requires steel. I shot some 7 steel on that last trip and some 6's when it got windy for long flushing shots.

Some WMAs still allow lead, but most don't. And the few Corps lakes that allow Snipe hunting (most don't) you can use lead if not duck hunting. They are really small fast birds as I think someone put it "like a bat on meth running on jet fuel". Easy to have big enough holes in your pattern to still miss them with a good shot. I prefer #7 steel, but very windy days I have had to drop to 6 steel. I like 8 1\2 spreader loads or 9s where I can use Lead, but with wind and far flushing birds or lake shore type hunting I will drop to a load as big as 7 1\2 and a modified choke. A lot depends on what else your hunting too. I have killed a lot of snipe with #3 and #4 steel because I was hunting ducks first that day.