16ga.com ~ View topic

Thursday hunting season opened for me. Two days before I picked up an old 1929 Ithaca Western Arms. I thought it would make a nice gun to carry on rainy days.

I took the same gun with me yesterday. I was starting to get a little more familiar with it but I need to have some adjustments made to the stock. It is a good bit shorter and has considerably more drop than any other gun I have

Today I 0pted for a 1914 Cogswell & Harrison. I bought the gun back in February but today was the first time I shot it. The stock dimensions are much closer to everything else I shoot and it feels at least 3/4 of a pound lighter than the Ithaca. I have decided that this year I will leave all other guns at home and will only hunt with the sixteens.

GR8 photos. Congratulations.

Very nice! Glad to see that the 16s are working well for you.

Excellent! Please tell us more about the snipe! I've always wanted to try that, having kicked them up quite a bit while duck hunting. They are FAST little buggers, kind of like low flying doves on steroids. Are they decent table fare too?

Member Joined: 08 Nov 2005 Posts: 3438 Location: Illinois

Where did this take place Question

Hoashooter, I shot them in Florida.

UncleDanFan, it's walk-up shooting on mud flats of shallow natural lakes that are in a low water cycle. For the most part people that don't live along one of the coastal states will only get them as they are passing through. There are exceptions but for the most part they pass on through on the way to me. I am where they winter so I get steady shooting for 3 1/2 months. Dove on steroids is a good description. I think of them as something like a cross between a dove and a bat, the speed of the former with the aerobatics of the latter. Sometimes you see them tagging along with ducks and it seems like they do it effortlessly. They are great eating, dark meat but milder and sweeter than dove. I fixed eight tonight with the basic bacon wrap. You can really do them up right with fancy recipes but with bacon and a little seasoning is perfect. Tonight it was Tony Chachere's creole seasoning. Here is a picture and so you can see that it would be hard to tell them from dove.

Skip

If you wanted to make a mini kabob you just stick a green pepper, tomato chunk, slice of porta bella mushroom, or whatever you happen to have in the crisper.

Joined: 17 Jun 2004 Posts: 265

I was duck hunting is Northern California on a bluebird day. The hunt was awful so we picked up out deeks and headed in. Driving out of the area we saw tons of snipe. I asked my partner if he wanted to hunt them. We gave chase and we shot dozens of shells, had our boots pulled off in the mud and came back to the truck humbled. We had 4 birds between us.

I became a Snipe hunter at that moment and I never looked back.

Joined: 19 Jun 2004 Posts: 1480 Location: Mpls, MN.

No doubt you use an 8 lb 16 gauge for this type of work. Very Happy

Best,
Ted

Joined: 17 Jun 2004 Posts: 265

Ted,

that's what the Darne is for. With my stash of Bismuth shells shrinking I may have to start using the Benelli for Snipe work. The 8 pounder is for dove Razz

Exactly Brian. It's basically just like most upland hunting, except you don't really need a dog, and you do it in hip boots and mud. What fun! Can't wait to give it a shot, pun intended.

What loads do you use? Since you have to use no tox, don't you need to use small shot, like 7 0r 6 bismuth? Sounds a tad expensive. I do have a 20 ga. pump in the back of my gun cabinet. and a box of #7 steel, maybe I'll give that a try.

California can be a great place to find them even though many people wouldn't expect it. One very successful person I know is in Oregon and he has birds all throughout the season also. Texas, Louisiana, and Florida are the primary wintering states but anywhere is a possibility, especially for migrating birds. Any temperate climate as north as the ground doesn't freeze is a likely place, espcially along the coast.

Not only do I slop though the mud in waders but it isn't always comfortable. Two of the three days I have hunted thus far the temperature has warmed to eighty degrees. On the third day it got close. Until last week I had only hunted snipe with twenty and twenty-eight gauges and a four-ten. It's my good fortune that I can shoot lead, otherwise all but two twenty gauge doubles I own would be immediately put out to pasture. They are the only ones that can handle steel and I'm not willing to pay the cost of any other non-tox. My guns weigh between 5 1/4 lbs for one 28 and a .410 up to an estimated seven pounds for the Western Arms gun I just got. I haven't put it on the scale yet. The Cogswell & Harrison weighs 6 1/4.

I don't use a dog and I have read in books where it has been written that a substantial number of birds will be lost if you hunt without one. There are enough cottonmouths and gators where I hunt that I'll take my chances. I keep a journal and the last bird I lost was November 11, 2005. Since that day I have picked up right at 350 snipe without losing one. However, you better be good at marking birds if you hunt in grass that is knee high or higher and dense, and you had better be willing to spend time looking for a few. When a bird is shot my eyes never leave the exact spot where I think he hit the ground as I approach. If I were to turn to attempt a double the odds of finding the first bird would go down considerably. There aren't too many longtime and hardcore snipe hunters running around out there but there are a few. Sometimes you just have to get into some nasty swamps to find them.

Skip

we usually get a few snipe incidentally to hunting huns and pheasant, but this year I have only seen one, and past years, dozens. iIdon't know what happened to the little guys out here this year. You're table shots sure make them look tasty!

duncan (brit)

Member Joined: 28 Oct 2005 Posts: 665 Location: Louisiana

In our local snipe bogs we have taken to wearing 'Trapper Boots', a rubber boot of 27"--shorter than hip boots but still 'tall' enough to get you through most low places. Waders are bulky and often uncomfortable in warmer weather especially with the amount of walking usually required.

As to shot sizes, like Skip I can still use lead for snipe and use 10's when possible, 9's otherwise--in the 16 the 2 1/2dr.eq. velocity (1135-1165) is sufficient.
Snipe appear to me to be more noise sensitiive that other game birds, often flush well forward,(dependant to some extent on the density of the cover) and will make a preacher cuss. Cook them rare. For me the most challenging game bird shooting I know of.
Ron

Joined: 05 Feb 2005 Posts: 29 Location: Philadelphia, PA

I was nuts about snipe when I was a kid. I hunted them on the Shannon estuary in Ireland with a single barrel 16 bore Webley. It weighed about 5 and three quarter lbs. with a 32" barrel and I shot better with it than I've ever been able manage since. Of course Ireland is snipe central but not a lot of hunters target them for all the usual reasons; not big enough, too much walking in mud, devils to hit. I've also tried it in New Jersey but could never find them in large numbers.
nialmac

Nialmac, I was nuts about them also. Thirty years ago when I was a teenager I would walk about a mile down to the lake and hunt. At dusk my dad would drive to the landing to pick me up. It became a part of me then and I have all but given up huntin g everything other than them and ducks. The birds haven't really started moving in here yet and I am expecting things to be better in a few weeks. The last handful of years lake levels have been low and conditions are quite good. I took my wife out yesterday. I set her up at waterholes with some muddy shoreline and hoped some of the birds I flushed would be driven to her. It is somewhat demanding walking a couple of miles in waders when it is nearly eighty degrees and I ended up carrying her gun back to the truck for her. Still, it was a good time and tomorrow I will be taking a friend so he can hunt them for the first time.

Skip