RESURRECTING THE CLASSIC SHOREBIRD HUNT                  

                                                            By R.E. Massey

Minnesota Sportsman, July/August 1982 – Vol. 6 No. 4

Flashing and twisting, the flock sped through the morning mist and pitched determinedly at my decoys.  They baked as a unit and set wings to land.  Throwing my double gun to my shoulder, I dumped one with a splash into the decoys and cracked again without success as the flock bored on through the fog.  They had shown no reservation at all at the sight of my decoys and as my dripping spaniel placed the bird at my feet, I paused to reflect.

It had taken me three weeks to construct my rig of decoys for this moment, and now that work seemed well worth the effort.  It was September first, a full month before the waterfowl season opened.  Yet here I was decoying birds, enjoying another sunrise hunting scene on Lake Oliver in west central Minnesota, gunning a sporty shorebird called the Wilson’s snipe.

That was a golden day, a day of action and relaxation.  Shooting a limit of eight by noon, I couldn’t resist bringing out a friend and introducing him to this discovery that I had made.  While I worked the dog and called at the passing flocks, he too shot a limit.  Returning home, we gathered the families and feasted on those dark-meated birds.  They had subtle flavor that was much like the nutty taste of the wild rice with which the birds were served.

As in any form of hunting, preparation is the key.  To succeed, you would do well to thoroughly familiarize yourself with the quarry.  The Wilson’s snipe is very similar in body shape and coloration to the woodcock.  The snipe is lighter and more trim than the woodcock, and a better flier.  The flight of the snipe is invariably erratic, alternating between a fast straight path and a zig-zag through the skies.  Only the better wingshot will consistently take home a limit.

Michigan Representative Harold Sawyer has recently introduced a bill (H.R. 3442) to set up what he calls a Webless Migratory Bird Research Fund.  This would include a two dollar federal permit for the taking of these birds.  The money collected from those who hunt snipe, woodcock, doves, rails, and cranes, would be used for a research program managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  The Fish and Wildlife Service would identify and gather information from the hunters of theses birds and this information would be used to establish programs for the scientific management of the individual species.  The monies not used for this research would be turned over to the individual states to help them finance their programs.

Once, at the earlier end of this century, this gourmet’s treat was avidly pursued by sportsmen across the nation.  The old tradition of snipe hunting, however, has now been a dead article here in Minnesota, and indeed the whole United States, since the 1930’s.  Because of this, I knew I would have to start from scratch if I wanted to achieve any success in hunting the snipe.  But I had seen those glorious old snipe decoys now in the hands of collectors, and I wanted to find out if I could recreate this once-popular scene in our American hunting past.

Fortunately for me, I had an ace up my sleeve.  My eighty-seven year old father had seen it all done before, and yes, he did remember how it was.  Forcing air out of the corner of his mouth, he made a scraping sound.  That call would turn the flock to the decoys, and he taught me how it was done.  This call can be mastered easily.  The sound of the Wilson’s snipe is “scaip, scaip, scaip.”  It is a subtle call and not easy for your ears to pick up in the marsh, but once you hear it, you’ll remember it, because there is really no other marsh sound like it.  You don’t even need to hear the call from a live snipe to learn it.  A recording of bird sounds found in The National Geographic’s, “Water, Prey, and Game Birds of North America”, a book which you can easily obtain from your local library, will get you started.  Listening to the recorded call or hearing it from a live snipe enabled me, as it will you, to duplicate this call just as the “old-timers” like my father did before the big drought of the 1930’s wiped out the sport of shorebird hunting in our state.

During the winter previous to my first season on these birds, I visited the lumber yard and purchased several eight foot cedar four by fours.  Making a template by studying pictures of snipe, I traced the outline of the bird onto the wood.  The heads and bodies had to be made separately and dowelled together.  Next, I roughed out their shapes with a rasp and knife.  I obtained glass eyes from a taxidermy warehouse.  Finally, I sanded them smooth, painted them with flat colors, and attached a dowel to represent their legs.  My complete rig consists of a dozen of these full bodies and a dozen silhouettes.  My decoys include representation of two species of snipe because these species are commonly seen resting together.  They are the Wilson’s snipe and the Yellow-Legs snipe.  Here a word of caution is in order.  Although you may find these two species together, the Yellow-Legs snipe happens to be an illegal target for our state’s gunners.  It is really no problem to distinguish between the two, as the Wilson’s is a dark brown bird, while the Yellow-Legs is grey.  These preparations complete, there remained buy one problem to solve.  Where to find the snipe.

As it turned out, finding the birds in large concentrations was no trouble at all.  Mud flats were the key.  These shorebirds like to probe the mud for their principal food source, worms and insects.  Knowing this, and getting out at the end of August for some scouting, I located a large flock (or “wisp”) of snipe using the east shore of Lake Oliver, near my home of Appleton in Swift County.  Part of that shoreline was a brushy point of land extending out into the lake with mud flats on either side.  It was a perfect opportunity to set up the decoys which would be highly visible to the snipe as they traded back and forth along the lake’s many feeding areas.  The thick willow cover there would provide the perfect blind.  The action I found was immediate and non-stop.  So good, in fact, that I soon switched from a twelve-bore to a .410, as the close-in decoy shooting required no more firepower than the small gun would provide.

Minnesota sportsmen, here is a neglected hunt which deserves your attention.  Consider for a moment a few of its many merits.  A month before the duck season opens, you are sharpening your skills and your shooting reflexes.  By the time the duck season arrives, you are in fine gunning form. 

Your retriever has seen a month of work on snipe before the ducks challenge her.  She has honed her own skills on the many retrieves and has relearned her manners in the blind.  Besides, as we all know, your dog needs all the action she can get.

Aesthetically, what can beat a decoy hunt?  Your will see flocks wheeling over and pitching in.  Your will find a formation of these elusive birds setting to your decoys a stirring sight, I can assure you.  Further, you will be out on the waters alone.  Another group of hunters won’t be crowding your decoys and spoiling your day afield as is often the case during the waterfowl season.  This is hunting the way it used to be, the way it was meant to be, the way it can be again.

Perhaps the biggest incentive to resurrecting this antique hunt is the exotic taste of these birds.  Your will quickly begin to appreciate why these birds, though they are not large, were so popular with the hunters of that earlier era.  That taste which is neither of duck nor of upland fowl will lure you back with your rig of decoys time after time as it has me.