Quail/snipe bunting

I'm new to the area, just moved from FL. Trying to find a area to hunt around ft hood or at least a few hours away. I dont have my Brits anymore so quail isnt much of option anymore but if someone provides the opportunity I'll be more than willing to go. If you know of any snipe areas also I would greatly appreciate it.

Wish I could help but the last time I hunted snipe I was holding a burlap bag open at 12:00am on a trail I was told he would be coming down. No luck.

How many did you get?

Hardly anyone hunts snipe. Look for irrigated or marshy pastures and ask. You may have trouble convincing owner you are actually hunting snipe.

Yeah I figured I'd run into that problem around here, had no problem in fl finding them since the whole state is a swamp.

No Snipe but massive mosquito bites and of course the trill of the hunt. The kid holding the other side of the bag got the chiggers and lost that thrill.

I hunt them. Thus my nickname. Snipe are unpredictable in Texas. On public land other than the coast, your hunting around lakes and WMA wetlands mostly. Corps lakes are not managed for hunting and not all of them list Snipe as legal game. I had to do a lot of letter writing and phone calls to get Snipe added to at least three of the lakes around me. Unlike Woodcock which seem to migrate to the same areas every season, Snipe here are unpredictable. Due to the nature of where we have to hunt them, the habitat is always changing. When during season the migration will get here or move on varies from year to year. And you still may have an area that was loaded with birds one year, everything be exactly the same the next year, and no birds show up. So any season I am going to hunt them much, I have to do some scouting hunts in different directions until I find them. Early season, I am usually hunting them in Oklahoma. Check the public hunting lands book when it comes out and check out the WMAs with wetland cells and the upper ends of the Corps lakes in your driving radius that allow snipe hunting. I have been hunting them for years and still have to do that most years. If your from Florida, you have probably hunted rails. They do migrate through during the September season. If you find them, you will have it to yourself. I am on the north side of DFW and often Snipe hunt farther north and east, so I'm not as familiar with the coast, but if I lived in Killeen I would probably be calling some of the wildlife managers of our coastal WMAs and inquiring. I would expect the Snipe hunting would be much better down there than up here. Hit me up after season gets going. If I have found birds to hunt, I'll give you an invite.

I prefer to use a net instead of a sack. It is much easier especially after I trained Blaze to run them into the net for me.

Welcome to the forum. They come through my part of Texas.

My whole life i thought they were not real

Oh they are very real.

You should hit up East Texas for woodcock come December. Get away from The Great Place for a while.

Sniper john, beautiful photo. Forrest

i'm assuming you can eat those?

A lot like a dove, but IMO a bit more tender and less gamy.

I still have problems determining the difference between shore birds we can shoot and ones we can't.
If I figure that one out I'm going to look for some. Watching some of the videos and reading articles of hunting in Virginia or the Carolinas it looks fun. I just don't want to show the GW all the rails and snipe I shot and find out they were some endangered shore bird.

They make a real distinct shrieking sound when they flush. Go here: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Wilsons_Snipe/sounds and listen to the "Flush Calls" link.

Once you flush a couple you'll get used to their zig and zag flight pattern. They also fly pretty uniquely when they aren't flushing, you'll get it down.

No other bird has a zig zag flight like they do.

Very nice. Sure was peaceful listening to that today.

Thanks. I can listen for that. Are there moorhens around here?

Moorhens and Gallinules. I have never seen one in the areas I hunt during season. The coast would be the place to hunt them. They would not be a very sporting bird to hunt, nor the best eating bird. More like hunting Coots. Though I have always thought a purple gallinule would make a cool mount.

You have probably seen Rails while Teal or Duck hunting and did not know you were looking at a Rail. I'm in N TX and all I see migrate through here are Sora and Virginia Rails. Virginia Rails are tiny. I have never shot one. I have shot several Sora Rails. They have a breast like a Dove and eat the same. Sora rails don't look like a bird you think could be hunted. They fly about like a grasshopper a short ways and drop like a rock to land. Heard the term "skinny as a rail"? They flatten out their body to be able to run through the marsh grass. So you have probably had them run away from you and never knew they where there. I usually have to make a push across an area to a natural block to get them to stop running and flush. I got out with a bird book years ago looking for them to figure them out. There are a couple small protected Rail species that migrate through so be careful. The coast would be a more popular place to hunt Rails. Up here it is migration and weather dependent. Most years in N TX I do not find a huntable population during season. Like Snipe hunting with a dog, it requires a versatile dog that has learned through experience. Not something that could easily be trained for in advance. My Vizsla Blaze would point them if they held and root them out to flush on command.

Sora Rails. And note that most of the ones I shoot in the Sept season are not fully mature birds.



When I first Snipe hunted it was before the internet. I actually went to the Dallas Museum of Natural history to see a mounted snipe in one of the displays to learn what I was looking for. I passed on a lot of Snipe those first hunts until I was certain what I was hunting the right bird. It is obvious once you figure them out, but I have seen more than one tailgate shot showing a line of dead Dowitchers posted on the forum from someone who thought they had shot a limit of Snipe. Dowitchers are probably the closest looking bird, but they have a White patch on the base of the tail. Snipe have an Orange patch at the base of the tail. Snipe have a more Quail color, fly faster and eratic, are smaller. If it is wading in water, it could be a Snipe, but is probably a Dowitcher. Snipe would more likely be on moist soil.

My Vizsla Dash with a Snipe



This is cropped from a picture someone posted on the forum long ago. These are NOT Snipe.



This is a picture from an online article about Snipe hunting. Only these are NOT Snipe. Note the white patch.



These are Snipe. Often you will notice the shoulders pointed like this in flight. Often the tail feathers will be flared out when taking off or on a turn. The sound they make taking off is said to be from the wind through the tail feathers.




Hope that helps.

Sniper John has the best pics.

Thanks for the photos SJ!

Wow.

Thanks. I read up on Dowitchers and looked at pictures but it was hard to tell the difference. The pictures of them flying help a lot.

I will look for them while out harassing ducks.

we pulled that on a city cousin, he beat us back to the house...

and the best knowledge