Page 92 - South Mississippi Living - January, 2025

SPORTS & OUTDOORS
story and photos by John N. Felsher
TINY BIRD, BIG ACTION
Elusive Little Birds Can Surprise Any Sportsman
A startling explosion of feathers into the face of a person who nearly steps on a creature typically marks the first experience with woodcock for hunters. For those who don’t die of a heart attack, such exhilarating encounters imprint a lifelong love for these diminutive feathered rockets that offer sporting challenges far above their weight class.
“When woodcock flush, they are incredibly hard to hit!” exclaims Mitchell Marks, an avid woodcock hunter. “They’re extremely agile in the woods. They must get through that thick understory, so they’re tough targets to shoot. They are difficult to hit in a place with a lot of small trees in the way when trying to swing a shotgun and shoot. It’s definitely a tough bird to hunt.”
The small birds don’t usually attract much attention from most hunters, but an ardent few pursue them passionately. Some enthusiasts follow the birds as they migrate from Canada, the Midwest and New England to the Gulf Coast each winter. Some birds stay in Mississippi all year long, but more head south to escape the harsh northern winters.
“Woodcock are not a heavily hunted species in Mississippi, so hunter numbers and harvests are difficult to estimate due to the
low sample size,” advises Houston Havens, a migratory bird biologist for the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks. “The majority of the 2023-24 season was warm and dry, which limited woodcock habitat and likely resulted in lower numbers than usual. However, we typically hear from a few hunters each year who report finding good hunting where good habitat occurs.”
Woodcock thrive in hardwood bottomlands with damp
soils and dense underbrush that gives them good cover. Any creeks running through pasture surrounded by dense thickets, agricultural fields or brushy upland forests make great places
to find woodcock. Woodcock don’t feed in standing water, but like slightly higher ground along lake and river shorelines or swampy edges with soft, damp soil where they can use their long
92 | January 2025
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