Falling under spell of woodcocks

I couldn’t stand it anymore.

In the five seasons I have been a member of Old Belfast Hunting Club, I have enjoyed some good deer hunting. I also endure some major distractions every day I sit on a deer stand. As much as I love deer hunting, I am really a bird hunter at heart. It just kills me every evening to see a dozen or so woodcocks zip over my head to go feed in the cutovers.

Woodcock hunting isn’t a big deal in Arkansas. I only know of a handful of people who do it. Oh, but once you’ve had a delicious woodcock stew or grilled woodcock breasts wrapped in bacon and drizzled with garlic butter, you’ll understand why it was once a capital offense for commoners to kill woodcocks in England. It is the king’s bird.

I finally crossed my tolerance threshhold Monday while sitting in a log blind in a ribbon of hardwoods waiting for a whitetail buck to appear. The buck, as usual, didn’t show, but while I shivered in the blind two woodcocks pinwheeled into the cutover behind me.

“Why am I wasting my time with these stuck- up deer when these beautiful woodcocks are begging me to dance?” I said to myself.

Our piney woods are excellent wintering habitat for woodcocks. They spend the days in the thickets. An hour or so before dark, they fly out to the cutovers to feed. The ground in the third-year cutover behind my deer hunting spot is wet and muddy, perfect for woodcocks to dig for worms and other invertebrates. Waist-high grass and timber litter offer protective cover.

As I crossed the cutover back in Monday’s waning minutes, three woodcocks flushed practically under my feet. That would have been an easy limit. Unlike quail, woodcocks aren’t particularly fast on the rise, but once they get horizontal they fly crazy, like doves.

Woodcock season ends Monday, and I’ll be darned if I was going to let another year go by on this place without challenging them. I’d be back Tuesday, and I wouldn’t have a deer rifle.

My woodcock piece is a Remington 870 Express Youth Model 20-gauge with a birch stock and a 20-inch barrel. The short stock is the right length when I wear layers of clothing under my hunting parka, and with that short stock I can mount it as fast as a cowboy action shooter can whip a Colt .45 from a holster. The short barrel is especially nimble in thickets, where saplings often snag longer barrels. The birch stock looks like Joe Frazier’s face after 14 rounds with Muhammad Ali. Woodcock hunting in thickets can be almost as brutal.

I arrived late Tuesday and began combing the cutover. The large holes of standing water made me thankful for my waterproof boots. I walked 10-15 yards and stopped. I repeated this pattern because woodcocks often sit tight and wait for trouble to pass. When you stop, they get jittery and often flush.

A hunter from a neighboring lease stopped on the road nearby. He rolled down his window and asked if I needed help finding my deer.

“Thanks, but I’m just trying to kick up some woodcocks,” I replied.

I could tell that response did not compute. He drove away slowly, suspicious-like.

I covered about half of the cutover and veered toward the hardwoods. Just my luck, two deer snorted and ambled into the bottom, their fannies swaying as their white tails fluttered. They passed within 30 yards of my blind. Meanwhile, flocks of light geese winged overhead. Their keening plaints filled the air.

By then it was prime time for woodcocks. I turned back toward the truck and continued my start-stop, zigzag pattern across the cutover. A flock of birds erupted from the grass in front of me. The gun snapped to my shoulder automatically as my eyes picked out and tracked a single bird. They were tweety birds of some sort, and my trigger finger was as solid as stone. I dismounted without ever touching the trigger.

“You still got it,” I thought to myself with some satisfaction.

What I didn’t have was a woodcock in the bag. It was the first time in five years on this property that I didn’t see one.

It was almost dark when I reached the road. I took a couple of steps toward the road and stopped.

“I still have 15 minutes,” I said to myself.

I turned around and made one last pass through that corner of the cutover.