Ever try to get/hit one of them?

we shoot lots of them in Ireland.
Bloody good fun!

Reminds me of a time when I was going to college at Colorado State in the early 70's. In those days Colorado had a split waterfowl season. There was a two week Teal season, then a couple of weeks of closed Duck season, then the general waterfowl season for ducks and geese.

Colorado had alot of "Wildlife Management Areas" in the Fort Collins area that were open to hunting. Many of these WMA's had ponds or lakes that provided good waterfowl hunting.

I had just bought my first shotgun and I couldn't get enough bird hunting. I hunted teal almost every day of the early teal season. After the teal season closed, I couldn't go hunting until I read the fine print of the waterfowl hunting regulations.

The two week period between the early teal season and the general waterfowl season was closed to duck hunting, but it was open to hunting shore birds -- Rail and Snipe! I could keep hunting!

So one afternoon I was the only one hunting on one of those WMA's that had a pond on it. While I was hunting I noticed a green sedan (the color of Division of Wildlife vehicles) drive into the parking area and park next to my car.

At sunset, I left the pond and walked up to my car where I was met by the DOW officer from the green car, with his ticket book in his hand. He asked me for my hunting license and began telling me that duck season was closed. I then told him that I knew the duck season was closed but I was hunting Snipe and I showed him the birds that I had in my vest. I also noticed that his name tag said "Area Supervisor" under his name.

The officer got a blank look on his face, he walked to the back of his car, opened the trunk,and took out a copy of the Waterfowl hunting regulations. After he read the regulations for a few minutes, he again looked at my birds and said "Nice limit of Snipe" and he got in his car and drove away.

Sometimes it pays to read the fine print in the hunting regulations. Not all Snipe hunting is done on a dark night with a gunny sack and a funny whistle.