Woodcock banding is probably the closest thing to actual upland hunting you can do in the spring, and is an extremely rewarding activity for any bird lover turned dog lover or dog lover turned bird lover, depending on the category of upland bird fanatic you place yourself in. Love for the dog work and love for the bird are the greatest drivers for the few hundred permitted individuals in Minnesota and Michigan who obsessively take to the dense covers where American woodcock nest during the spring. Ticks, poison ivy, indescribable mosquito hatches, and navigating the thickest of thick covers through thorns and eye-poking branches is not for the faint of heart, but once you hold a fuzzy timberdoodle chick in your hand for the first time, it is worth every moment of the search.
Winter Woodcock Hunting in Louisiana
by RuffedGrouse.com staff
Winter in Louisiana brings with it a unique opportunity for hunters: the pursuit of the elusive American woodcock. Known for its erratic flight patterns and remarkable camouflage, the woodcock offers a challenging yet rewarding experience for hunters looking to enjoy the colder months in the Bayou State. Whether you’re a seasoned upland hunter or a curious newcomer, here’s a guide to winter woodcock hunting in Louisiana.
Understanding the Woodcock
The American woodcock (Scolopax minor), also known as the "timberdoodle," is a migratory bird that winters in Louisiana’s dense forests, swamps, and thickets. With their long bills and rotund bodies, woodcocks are well-adapted for probing soft soil in search of earthworms, their primary food source. Their mottled brown plumage blends seamlessly with the forest floor, making them challenging to spot.
Woodcocks are known for their unpredictable, zigzagging flight when flushed, which adds to the excitement and difficulty of hunting them. These birds typically inhabit areas with moist soil and plenty of cover, such as young forests, river bottoms, and overgrown fields.
When and Where to Hunt
Woodcock season in Louisiana usually runs from mid-December to late January, coinciding with the bird’s migration and peak wintering period. Always check the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) website for specific season dates, bag limits, and regulations.
Prime woodcock hunting locations in Louisiana include:
Kisatchie National Forest: With its diverse habitat, this forest offers excellent opportunities for woodcock hunting. Focus on areas with young pine stands and mixed hardwoods.
Atchafalaya Basin: The swampy, dense cover of this region is ideal for woodcocks.
Private Lands: Managed lands with early successional growth can provide prime woodcock habitat. Be sure to obtain proper permissions before hunting on private property.
Essential Gear
Hunting woodcock requires some specialized gear to make your experience more enjoyable and successful. Here’s what you’ll need:
Shotgun: A lightweight 20 or 28-gauge shotgun is ideal for quick handling in tight cover. Use #7.5 or #8 shot for better spread on these small birds.
Comfortable Clothing: Wear durable, water-resistant upland hunting gear to protect against thorns, briars, and damp conditions. Blaze orange is recommended for safety.
Good Footwear: Invest in waterproof boots with good traction to navigate muddy and uneven terrain.
Bird Dog: A well-trained pointing or flushing dog can greatly enhance your woodcock hunting experience. Breeds like English pointers, setters, and spaniels excel at finding and retrieving these elusive birds.
Tips for Success
Scout Ahead: Look for moist, shady areas with plenty of leaf litter where woodcocks feed and roost. Fresh probing holes in the soil are a good sign of their presence.
Hunt Early or Late: Woodcocks are most active during dawn and dusk. Plan your hunts around these times for better chances of success.
Move Slowly: Woodcocks rely on their camouflage and will often hold tight until they are nearly stepped on. Move deliberately to increase your chances of flushing a bird.
Follow the Flight: When a woodcock flushes, watch its flight path carefully. They often land within a short distance, giving you another opportunity to flush them.
Conservation Matters
Woodcocks are a migratory species, and their population is influenced by habitat availability and environmental factors. Hunters play a crucial role in conservation efforts by following bag limits, reporting banded birds, and supporting organizations like the Ruffed Grouse Society and the Louisiana Wildlife Federation.
By respecting the resource and promoting habitat preservation, we can ensure that future generations of hunters enjoy the thrill of woodcock hunting in Louisiana’s wild landscapes.
Closing Thoughts
Winter woodcock hunting in Louisiana combines the beauty of the state’s natural habitats with the challenge of pursuing one of North America’s most fascinating game birds. Whether you’re trekking through Kisatchie’s forests or wading into the Atchafalaya Basin, the experience is about more than the hunt — it’s about embracing the adventure, camaraderie, and connection to the outdoors that make this pursuit so special.
Grouse & Woodcock Hunting at the Hungry Trout Resort | Video
Bird Dogs Afield visits Hungry Trout Resort in Wilmington, NY for early season grouse and woodcock hunting. This is Episode 1 of 2 episodes.
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Woodcock Banding – An American Woodcock Society Film
Woodcock banding is probably the closest thing to actual upland hunting you can do in the spring, and is an extremely rewarding activity for any bird lover turned dog lover or dog lover turned bird lover, depending on the category of upland bird fanatic you place yourself in. Love for the dog work and love for the bird are the greatest drivers for the few hundred permitted individuals in Minnesota and Michigan who obsessively take to the dense covers where American woodcock nest during the spring. Ticks, poison ivy, indescribable mosquito hatches, and navigating the thickest of thick covers through thorns and eye-poking branches is not for the faint of heart, but once you hold a fuzzy timberdoodle chick in your hand for the first time, it is worth every moment of the search.
FOLLOW THE AMERICAN WOODCOCK MIGRATION LIVE!
Tracking the American woodcock
Flushing woodcocks in Michigan
2014 WOODCOCK - Counts - Central Region Down 7.3%
The 2013 recruitment index for the U.S. portion of the Eastern Region (1.60 immatures per adult female) was 3.2% less than the 2012 index and 2.3% less than the long-term regional index, while the recruitment index for the U.S. portion of the Central Region (1.54 immatures per adult female) was 7.2% less than the 2012 index and was 1.4% less than the long-term regional index. Estimates from the Harvest Information Program indicated that U.S. woodcock hunters in the
Eastern Region spent 136,700 days afield and harvested 62,500 woodcock during the 2013-14 season, while in the Central Region, hunters spent 306,100 days afield and harvested 180,600 woodcock.
See the full FWS report
2014 AMERICAN WOODCOCK POPULATION STATUS, Report Now Available
RGS Expands Forest Habitat Effort with Creation of the American Woodcock Society
Coraopolis, PA - The Ruffed Grouse Society (RGS) is proud to announce the creation of the American Woodcock Society (AWS), a branch of RGS initiated to expand forest habitat efforts and upland hunting opportunities to new landscapes across the nation. “The formation of the American Woodcock Society is a landmark event for forest conservation in the United States. The Ruffed Grouse Society has been the leader in woodcock conservation for decades. The creation of AWS expands existing efforts while advancing habitat creation and membership reach to additional regions that may not have ruffed grouse populations,” said RGS/AWS President and CEO John Eichinger. While grouse and woodcock share similar habitats, they don’t coexist across all landscapes, and AWS advances forest management and mission outreach to states that may not have grouse populations, especially in the southern United States where the majority of woodcock spend the winter months. Enhancing habitat in these regions also benefits many songbirds and other wildlife that rely upon young forest habitats. In addition, these regions continue to have a strong bird-hunting culture, and the habitat created by RGS/AWS will strengthen and expand these sporting traditions. “The goal of our organization is, and always has been, to preserve our sporting traditions by creating healthy forests for grouse, woodcock and other forest wildlife. At this crucial time in forest management from Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico, the AWS allows us to positively affect our nation’s forests and to spread awareness of our mission to a significantly larger group of supporters. The bottom line is that RGS and AWS will be able to collectively benefit more members, officials, conservationists and hunters who are passionate about the birds we love,” Eichinger concluded. The AWS will begin operations immediately, and anyone interested in AWS habitat efforts, chapters or membership can contact RGS/AWS at (412) 262-4044 or aws@ruffedgrousesociety.org. |
Two Woodcock Points - Bigfork MN - Video
Volunteers help Michigan DNRE biologists band woodcock
Spring is the other bird season: banding season, when hunters exchange their firearms for landing nets and pursue woodcock with the express purpose of capturing them, only to release them as soon as they've been festooned with small metal leg bands.
From April until June, a small contingent of dedicated bird-dog owners takes to the wood lots of Michigan to locate and band the needle-nosed migrants. The bands that are returned by hunters provide important information to wildlife managers about the population, distribution and life history of woodcock.
Woodcock are migratory birds that are more closely related to shore birds than they are to other upland game birds, but have adapted to forested habitat. Woodcock prefer early-age forests with moist soils.
Mottled brown birds with long beaks that they use to feed by probing the moist earth for invertebrates, woodcock are so well camouflaged that their first instinct, when approached, is to freeze. That makes them perfect for pursuit with pointing dogs.
Michigan leads the nation in woodcock banding, largely because of its volunteer army of woodcock banders. Every year, volunteers spend more than 1,000 hours in Michigan wood lots, banding 1,000 or more mostly recently hatched woodcock.
Michigan has been in the forefront of banding since 1960, when federal wildlife officials asked state natural resources agencies in woodcock production states to help band large numbers of woodcock for a population study. Michigan wildlife biologist G. A. "Andy" Ammann participated in the banding effort and helped refine the technique of using pointing dogs to locate woodcock broods.
By 1965, six people, mostly professional wildlife biologists, were actively banding woodcock in Michigan. But as time progressed, Ammann and others trained volunteers to join the effort. By the mid 1990s, there were about 100 volunteers banding woodcock in the state.
The drill is fairly simple: Volunteers take to the forests with their dogs. The dogs point nesting or brooding woodcock hens. Using long-handled nets, the volunteers capture the hens -- if they can - which they'll band before they release them. But they also look for nests or chicks on the ground.
When a brooding hen is flushed, she'll typically fly just a short distance and then feign a broken wing, a behavior designed to draw the bander away from the chicks. It's a tip-off to banders that chicks are present.
The mottled brown and yellow chicks blend perfectly into the early spring vegetation; it takes eagle eyes to spot them as they remain motionless, waiting for the perceived danger to pass. After the banders have searched the area visually, identifying what chicks they can find, the banders gently pick up the chicks. That usually prompts the chicks to start peeping; the calls typically spur the remaining chick to begin running, making them more visible.
The banders work quickly to minimize stress to the chicks. They measure the chick's beak to help determine its age. (Woodcock are born with a 14 mm beak and it grows 2 mm a day). They attach a thin metal band with a serial number to the chick's leg and record all relevant data. Then they release the chicks. The hen and chicks soon re-unite. In fact, many woodcock banders recount having a hen fly back and sit nearby while they band the chicks.
Not just anyone can band woodcock. Would-be woodcock banders must attend a mandatory workshop, study under the guidance of an experienced bander, and have their dogs certified as able to perform the task without jeopardizing the birds' safety. The Department of Natural Resources and Environment issues permits to allowing individuals to band woodcock.
Randy Strouse, a retired skilled tradesman in an auto plant, has been banding woodcock since 1991. Strouse says he tries to spend at least 60 hours in the woods banding each spring and usually bands more than 50 birds, though he has surpassed 80 some years.
"I hunt, just like anyone else, but if I see a woodcock on the ground and it has a band, I won't shoot it when it flushes," Strouse said. "If it's this year's bird, you wouldn't be able to gather any information from it."
Strouse will gladly tell you he'd rather band woodcock than hunt them.
"The banding community really likes doing this," Strouse said. "If I had to give up one or the other, I'd give up hunting."
Banding woodcock makes it possible for hunters to contribute to conservation efforts in a hands-on manner. And it makes the whole effort practical.
"Without the volunteer banders, we wouldn't be able to band anywhere near the number of woodcock we band each year," said Al Stewart, the DNRE's upland game bird specialist. "It's the main reason Michigan leads the nation in the number of woodcock banded."
Banders are busy in the Michigan woods right now and will continue through early June, by which time the bulk of the chicks have developed enough that they can fly and further banding efforts are fruitless.
Original MI DNR article
American Woodcock Migration Mapping System - Reactived
Woodcock Migration Mapping will be Active from September 2012 through April 2013
Submit Daily Migration Activity Report
Access Historical Maps and Summaries
**The map is a real-time summary of daily (24-hour) entries which reset each midnight, so we encourage our visitors to report each day they encounter woodcock. To view prior 24-hour or longer prior period historical maps, click the Historical Maps and Summaries link.
More Info and Complete RGS Article