The Gadabout: The First Woodcock of '21

"They also serve who only stand and wait." ~ John Milton, When I Consider

Gentle Readers and Loved Ones,

Another Rowdy hunting story from two weeks ago - three days into Woodcock season.

Roughly last Thanksgiving, Jaybo and I picked up a brand-new Ranger from the East Bethel Polaris dealership.


Rowdy and the SAV

We spent the spring putting a roof and a windshield on it and it’s a much more usable way to get around the trails up near the cabin. I’ve been trying – with little success – to get the family to call it the “Sylvan Assault Vehicle” (SAV).

The SAV has allowed Rowdy and I to get into some really great game bird covers that we couldn’t get to with my truck. We got our first woodcock of the year just three days into the season in one of them.

There is a creek that winds through the public land north of the cabin. The snowmobile/trail crosses over the creek and near that bridge is really cool little area. There is a high sandy bluff surrounded on three sides by the creek and a smallish pond the creek makes. At the edge of this peninsula is a ring of young popples growing out of the black, loamy sandy soil. It’s a wormy woodcock nirvana. The locals have worn an infrequently walked trail that winds around the peninsula through the popples. It appears to be a duck hunter cover too.

Rowdy and I took this trail and had walked roughly a quarter of mile when he suddenly stopped and disappeared in the foliage. Today, the leaves are almost all gone but two weeks ago it was still very leafy and he was hard to see. I thought he’d disappeared behind this light colored log I’m catching glimpses of between the leaves. I thought it was one of those logs that the pileated woodpeckers tear up exposing the light colored wood.

I’m just about to beep him and call him back when I suddenly realize the light colored log IS Rowdy. I move a few steps left to get a better look through the leaves. He's roughly 15 yards away and just as I realize he’s staring at a spot about 3’ off his nose, the woodcock he’s been holding bounds up and flies over Rowdy’s head making the concurrent whirr and high pitched twitter they make when flushed.

This is not my video but it’s a great example of the unmistakable sound.

One of the benefits of my new hearing aids is that I can actually hear the Timberdoodles flushing twitter now.

The bird safely clears Rowdy. I’m already tracking and I fire once. I thought I’d missed. Rowdy is gone after the bird. I safe up the gun and reload. Thinking a bit, I decide to let Rowdy run. Frequently, woodcocks don’t fly far and settle back down. Maybe Rowdy will stir it up again and this time it’ll fly back toward me for a better shot. He’s made this happen before.

That’s when I hear Rowdy crashing back through the cover towards me. I call him over and I’m totally surprised to see he’s got the dead bird in his mouth.