Before you can get to the open water you have to start at the cypress swamp. The last time I ventured onto this lake the water was a good bit higher. As soon as I saw how low it is now is I was hopeful.



This looks more a place to hunt squirrels and deer than snipe but eventually we'll get to a more promising area.



When I broke out into the open I was greeted by a wall of head high grass. Doesn't that look like it will be fun to walk through when it is eighty degrees?



Ah, that's more like it. Open lake bottom and a little water are what we are looking for.



This is starting to look more and more like what snipe prefer. The only downside is a lack of cover. It's tough to sneak up on anything on barren mud. When I hunted this section of this lake in 1989 it was up to that point the best snipe hunting I had ever done. When the conditions are again like that it will once again be that good.



Someone had a camp on this island. I don't mind being out in that swamp during the day but I'm not so sure I want to sleep out there.



Finally we are at the water. No telling how far I had to walk to get there but this is the end of the road.



The water started at the far end of the island on the left. It's a good hike just to get back to where I took that picture from and I was still much farther from the woods where I started. At this point I was starting to think about that drink I had in my cooler at the truck.



One pellet through the head gets the job done cleanly without meat damage. I try and shoot all my birds that way.



This picture shows the water mark on the trees. I'd say the water is down a little.



Another pond to cross on the way out. The island on the right is a familiar one. According to my journal I shot a woodcock on it on November 10, 1991. I went out to the lake looking for snipe and after wading through thigh deep water I went up on that island to rest for a few minutes. While walking around on it I flushed and shot the woodcock.



I stopped to take a picture as I passed one of the few spots dry enough to lay the gun down. I don't know if I will be going back anytime soon. Walking through deeper mud than I am used to made it as physically demanding as any hunt I've gone on in a while.

Several grouse I've shot over the years would have one or two pellets in it. Of course most grouse I shot at would have no pellets in it.

This is in reference to the pic of the snipe with one pellet hole in the head....and not just random ramblings.

Enjoyed this pictorial essay on your snipe hunting very much, hard to find much about them written. I snipe hunt on the Ga coast, old rice fields, looks very much like the pics of your most open areas. Last several years have been great over here, how about you? Steve

Steve, I have heard from people near the east coast of Florida in the upper part of the state that have been doing well also. Not only is there not much written about snipe but there isn't much discussion online either. Because of that I started a forum geared toward snipe hunters two seasons ago. The hunting has been fairly good around here the last few seasons too. For the most part I am a once a week hunter and today I shot my one hundredth bird of the season. I will start another thread and post some of the pictures I took.

SH

Nice photos on your home page and an enjoyable post as well. Thanks for sharing.

I appreciate the compliment on the photos. I'm headed back out tomorrow so I had to make a little room in the refrigerator. What better way to deal with a few birds than to wrap a piece of bacon around them and give 'em a good broiling. I even have the proper tray to serve them on.

Snipe Hunter:

Thanks for some beautiful pictures of a kind of Florida that this old New Yorker has never seen -or even dreamed existed. I do have to say one thing though - Remember when you told Palmer on his thread about duck blinds and I quote" To a Florida boy it looks cold"? Well, I have to say about the first two pics you put up: " To a New York boy, that looks like fine water moccasin country!" (I was bitten by a copperhead at age 6 and hate snakes, I mean I really hate 'em!) Anyway, they were great pictures -except for those first two! Fact.

Gerry, a cottonmouth absolutely disappears against the leaves in a swamp bottom like that. A couple of warm days in the winter seems to draw them out. Since you made no bones about hating them I have some good news for you. Probably eight out of ten that I see are just skeletons, especially out on the mud flats. We are loaded with hawks and when a snake gets caught out in the open he is in deep trouble. How do you feel about gators? We have a few of them too.

Skip

Skip:

Since you ask - I ain't crazy about gators either! On my one and only trip to Africa I learned to develop a deep abiding hatred for crocs, just like the locals (black and white people alike) -and I understand that gators are cousins. Glad to hear that the hawks are on duty! We have a small hawk technically called a Cooper's hawk or a red tailed hawk. As a boy I sometimes saw a hawk grab a black snake -which wasn't even poisonous and did a lot of good by keeping down the rats and mice - but I was still happy to see the sight. I would be in 7th heaven to see a hawk grab a cottonmouth! (BTW, it was interesting to see that you called the moccasin a "cottonmouth". It's the term, of course, that I have heard Southerners use before and I guess it's pretty universal through the South. I always understood that the cottonmouth was a particularly aggressive snake. I shuddered at a story I read some years ago that bass fishermen in the bayous of Louisana sometimes had a cottonmouth crawling up the oar in the water. Now there's a real nightmare to this old man! (In Africa I heard about the aggressiveness of the black mamba and would have gladly faced any charge of DG rather than have such a snake near me! Fact) Anyway, I admire you Southern hunters going for birds who put up with snakes along the way.

Gerry

althoug i saw only 3 photos ,thanks for sharing with us ,here we hunt snipes or becacinas as we call them in a huge delta .Juan