Page 93 - South Mississippi Living - January, 2025

Many sportsmen like to hunt woodcock in teams. Here, one fires at a flushing bird while the other prepares to fire.
dexterous bills to probe for their favorite food, earthworms. A woodcock can eat its weight in earthworms daily.
“Woodcock are common across Mississippi during the fall and winter, with the earliest migrants arriving in mid to late October and increasing numbers throughout the winter,” Havens explains. “Woodcock typically use younger-aged stands of bottomland hardwood forests and old fields with moist or wet soils, which allow them to probe into the ground with their long bills.”
With their outstanding leaf-colored camouflage, woodcock normally hold tight in cover until someone almost steps on them. When flushed, they seldom fly far, but commonly land a short distance away. Sportsmen who watch where the birds go might get a second opportunity at them.
“Woodcock hold tightly before flushing, due to their ability
to blend in with the forest floor,” Havens says. “A pointing dog can be very helpful for locating birds and allowing hunters to work into position prior to flushing. However, hunting can be done simply by walking slowly and staying ready for flushing birds. Developing an eye for quality woodcock habitat can help hunters to focus on areas with higher likelihood of producing birds.”
The woodcock season runs from December 18 through January 31, 2025, with a limit of three per day. A severe cold front up north could push more birds into the state.
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A dog handler watches the dogs. Woodcock like to stay in thick cover, so many hunters use dogs to flush them.
Since woodcock like thick cover, many sportsmen, and sportswomen, use dogs to find them.