2018 Spring Woodcock Adventures

It's been an odd spring this year, or at least it seems like it to me. Warm weather in February with plenty of rain and no snow, then March comes in like a lion with cold temperatures and winds but still not much snow.  The dogs and I have only been out a few a times, maybe I'm getting soft in my old age but I didn't feel like I should be "harassing" the woodcock with the cold nightly temperatures we have been having. Here are some pics of the few times we've been out.

 

Thicket and I hunted the Buffalo Covert one day. She moved two woodcock but didn't have any solid points.

 

We found a dead Pheasant which was strange because I've never seen a Pheasant in this cover in close to 20 years of hunting it.

 

I also found a dead Great Horned Owl which was even stranger. No obvious wounds on it.

 

As always Thicket had a great time.

 

 

I took Emma on my next woodcock walk. She's approaching 11 years old and time is robbing her of her stamina, but not her nose. She found 2 woodcock along Piney Creek.

 

 

Thicket and I tried the Miller's Corner covert on our next walk. Some nice looking cover, but no woodcock where there that day.

 

 

Emma got the call next to run in the big Shawnee Creek covert. She had one productive point and a couple of empty points.

 

 

 

Yesterday Thicket and I traveled north to look at a hawthorn regeneration project. The Pa Game Commission had cut this area 5 years ago in hopes of stimulating hawthorn growth. Sadly I didn't find any new hawthorn saplings growing there, just some locust and birch saplings and plenty of blackberry briers and multiflora rose.

 

 

Thicket did find one woodcock and gave me a nice point.

 

That could have been the end of my spring woodcock walks. As I type this we're getting hit by a pretty good snowstorm with 6 to 10 inches of snow predicted.  The woodcock are hopefully hunkered down beneath a blowdown or multiflora rose bush close to a spring seep to wait out the storm. I've found nests by now other years. Brutal but that's just the way Mother Nature works.