# woodcock, is it time?



## Steelheadfred (May 4, 2004)

Hunted Yesterday in 6 spots I had never hunted before a real goose chase so to speak.

I was hunting up and around a certain posters on this sites home turf and I found plenty of WC, I found them just about every place I looked. One cover felt like it had a flight down with short flying birds the other covers appeared to have all local birds. 

I found them in 9 year old Aspen, I found them in 40 year old Aspen with islands of brush and mixed pine. I found them in 15 year old aspen and I found them along creeks.

The grouse on the other hand were much much more challenging to find, the best spot being one of the spots I mentioned above that my brother and I took three birds out of. The balance of the spots never had more then 1-2 ghost birds in.

I could have shot 6 limits of doodles yesterday had I been so inclined.


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## dogwhistle (Oct 31, 2004)

sounds like a very nice day. it appears you got into a lot of flight birds.


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## Steelheadfred (May 4, 2004)

dogwhistle said:


> sounds like a very nice day. it appears you got into a lot of flight birds.


 
Some were flights some were not, the day I described above is not a non-typical day for me. I would say on average I move 3-5 WC per hour over the course of the last two weeks of Sept and the first two weeks of Oct. some days more some days less. I am not looking for them either and surely a few are re-flushes.

The one spot yesterday felt like a flight, weak birds grouped up a bit, the other spots felt more like locals, good hard flying birds in more traditional WC habitat.


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## dogwhistle (Oct 31, 2004)

the only way to know for sure is to check their passports.


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## birdhuntingbtch (Mar 30, 2009)

All of the places that we have hunted in the past 5 years or so that have produced a good number of woodcock aren't this year. We see them in tougher to hunt spots then we did before. We think that the birds we are seeing are older, smarter birds. That move into the tougher cover, that in past years where we've seen more they have been more of the younger birds. 

I wonder if we lost a hatch did we loose a hatch? We limit ourselves to take shots at the birds only when the dogs do their job. My husband lets me do most of the shooting this way we do keep the number of harvested birds down.

If this year seems harder with less birds, we will really have to be concerned next year, of how many we harvest


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## BarryPatch (Jul 21, 2004)

Flight birds are in SW MI today.


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## 2ESRGR8 (Dec 16, 2004)

Flight birds all over my spots right now as well.
I had to drag my Setter out of the pines today just so I could leave that spot for another.


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## Linda G. (Mar 28, 2002)

We had stragglers today. Had no less than 8 flushes in two hours, but walked three times further than I had to walk any day last week. Grouse were very spooky today, very little wind. Nice afternoon to get out. Odd, but where I hunt I saw far more hunters during the early part of the season than I'm seeing now. Lots of people give up on birds after the bow season starts, I bet.


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## onebad800 (Apr 28, 2003)

So are they gone from the U.P. now , I';m bummed will be there weds -sunday deer hunting but birds during the day....


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## Steelheadfred (May 4, 2004)

Buddy called me this morning, they were north west of Newberry yesterday and said a large flight was in that area so I would say maybe or maybe not on where you are going to be up there.

They got home late last night.




> We had stragglers today. Had no less than 8 flushes in two hours, but walked three times further than I had to walk any day last week. Grouse were very spooky today, very little wind. Nice afternoon to get out. Odd, but where I hunt I saw far more hunters during the early part of the season than I'm seeing now. Lots of people give up on birds after the bow season starts, I bet.


So Linda are you finding what you would call "enough" birds now to make you happy or do you still think this year's WC season was a complete bust?

I am trying to understand what you mean by having to walk three times further to find 4 WC an hour?


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## chemo13 (May 10, 2006)

Up in Helps UP we flushed many woodcock. This was on Fridaym. 6 year old clear cut.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Linda G. (Mar 28, 2002)

Get a grip. I never said this year's woodcock season was a complete bust. I said I hadn't been seeing many birds, which is true. And then I said, we'll see what the flights are like. 

It did pick up this past week when the flight birds began coming into this area. But am I still seeing a lot of birds? No, the maximum number of flushes we've had in one day was 20 in three to four hours on the ground, and that was last weekend. It's been stragglers since then, as I said, a single, or maybe two birds, then a long ways to the next bird. A long ways being 100 yards or more. That's way down from what it was like five to ten years ago around here. 

It is better, however, than it's been for the past three years. A huge improvement over the fall of 2007, for sure. That was the year that everyone in mid-central Michigan was falling over them that fall. 

You hunt like it's a war, and you do a lot of death marches. So of course you find more birds than anyone else would. I don't like to hunt like that. I don't want to walk 5 miles round trip in an hour. I go to where there should be birds, and there just haven't been the birds that we put up 5 and 10 years ago.

I'm also hunting seven brand new cuts that are between 4-8 years old, don't tell me my cover is too old. One of my best friends over here is the county forester, I hunt with him often, you've probably met him.

I was out this morning, had to come home for a volunteer thing I'm doing, but I don't think I'm missing all that much, the majority of the flight is over in this area. Time to head south or east. 

Will hunt around home this week, then head over to the other side of the state next weekend, there will be more woodcock over there, I'm sure. I never shoot more than one or two a day, at most, and there are lots of times that I don't shoot any because I don't put the gun on them. I just enjoy the dog work and seeing a pointing dog at work, that's what's fun for me. And I do enjoy shooting the occasional grouse. 

I'll concentrate on grouse this week, more than likely, but they are getting very spooky.


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## dogwhistle (Oct 31, 2004)

5 miles in an hour would be a fairly brisk jog.


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## FindTheBird (Dec 18, 2004)

I spent the last week in northern zone 2 and had 33 woodcock flushes (along with 70 grouse). I can't say if I've seen more or fewer woodcock due to the fact that I began avoiding known woodcock staging/flight areas after day #2 and was only hunting about 4 hours/day. However, we did seem to find a smattering of woodcock in a wide variety cover types--probably both natives and flight birds.


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## 2ESRGR8 (Dec 16, 2004)

dogwhistle said:


> 5 miles in an hour would be a fairly brisk jog.


 I would say that is a fairly accurate description of a day hunting behind Fritz's labs.


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## HuntersMoon (Sep 14, 2009)

Hunted Eastern U.P. Thursday to Saturday, and we moved well over a 100 woodcock hunting 4-6 hours a day with breaks. We had 3 of our 4 Small Munsterlanders running at a time averaging 7-15 flushes an hour depending on the location. Had 2 dogs on seperate points at the same time a few occasions. Even managed a triple from 3 seperate guns on one of them we thought was a dog backing but ended up being the dogs had 3 birds pinned. The guys I hunted with where up all week plus 2 weekends ago, and had the same numbers. We felt we where still hunting mostly locals with flight birds starting to mix in. I've hunted the middle lower since opener and noticed the numbers declining as of late. I was starting to think the flights where early this year myself, but I changed my mind. Talked to a couple other guys who said they where moving 60+ a day, so it wasn't just us. I'm thinking after this weeks warm up and we get the next cold snap the birds will be moving better.


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## GameTracker (Dec 11, 2006)

I hunted western lower part in the beginning of the last week and woodcock were present to the point to make things interesting, 3 to 4 birds per hour. 

On Saturday, went a bit more north and found only couple woodcock the whole day. Fortunately I found lot more grouse in a mix of the habitat, young aspen and in more mature aspen/hardwood mix. The key was to get "off the beaten path". 

It is nice when you get over a ridge and you find yourself in a clear-cut(that you did not know about) with grouse and no other hunters....

Still in those three days I did not run into a big concentration of flight woodcock. The one I found were scattered around.


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## dogwhistle (Oct 31, 2004)

2ESRGR8 said:


> I would say that is a fairly accurate description of a day hunting behind Fritz's labs.


in a 6 hr day, you would travel 30 miles. i doubt that wiould be possible behind big running pointers, if you could stand tthat pace. i would guess i travel 2-3 mph behind some hard running setters.


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## Bingo boy (Oct 20, 2009)

What is MI's daily bag limit for woodcock ? 

Here in Wisc it is 3 birds.


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## Induna (Apr 19, 2007)

Same here 3 birds.


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