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Understanding the A-B-C-D-E-Fs of Learning How to Shoot Woodcock
This article originally appeared in the Fall issue of Michigan's Streamside Journal.
By Capt. Tony Petrella
We were sitting on the front porch one evening last June, listening to a symphony of nightingales, when Rex Farver looked at me and very seriously said “I’m going to send a Citori 28 gauge to you. You’re getting too damned good at hitting woodcock with that Beretta, and I’ve got to level the playing field somehow.”
My head whipped back and my mouth dropped open. I was surprised—no make that shocked--for several reasons. First, because even the best of friends simply don’t give you an in-the-box Browning Citori unless there are compromising photos involving farm animals stashed away somewhere.
Second, because I still vividly recall my last hunt with good friend Oscar Feliu. It was the last day of the season, and he was moving to Florida forever the next week. I missed five straight pheasant, and couldn’t shoot at the sixth because it flew directly over his head.
“Look at me and don’t ever forget this image,” I told Oscar in the gloom of that embarrassing dusk. “Because I’m the Poster Boy for Winchester ammunition AND the Audubon Society. I burn lots of lead and never hit anything!”
Well, I’ve burned a lot more lead during the past 15 years. And if I’m an Audubon Poster Boy these days there’s a bounty listed under my picture for several very good reasons.
In the first place, I got started hunting woodcock real seriously under the tutelage of John Norcross, a crusty old curmudgeon who taught me Shotgunning 101. Lesson One was buying a membership at the Grayling Gun Club. Lesson Two was using that membership every Sunday and every Wednesday to shoot skeet.
“The Colonel,” as I referred to John Norcross, was a stern teacher. “Dammit, you’ve got to LEAD those birds!” he’d roar. Then he’d shake his head in disgust and quietly tell me and everyone else at the range, “you won’t be knocking down many birds over your dog shooting like THAT.”
During the next several months of my “freshman year,” I burned a lot of powder. Fortunately, The Colonel was doing the handloading. So when I missed a ridiculously easy low-house-seven I’d look at the sideline kibitzers and yell “Dammit, Colonel, you’ve gotta put some PELLETS into those loads!” Even The Colonel laughed. Usually.
A stands for Attitude Because I spent so much time at the Gun Club, I began to shoot consistently in the 20s. No, I still haven’t run a “straight,” but I’ve come close plenty of times. Now I expect to knock down those clay targets, and get exasperated when I miss--especially when I get lazy or overconfident and “drop” a straightaway.
So, the first step in learning to shoot woodcock is learning to shoot skeet. In fact, I rarely shoot a regulation round anymore. Instead, I try to simulate actual hunting conditions.
First, I hold the shotgun at the “low mount” position as if I was standing over a dog’s point. Next, I ask the “puller” for the birds I want—all high-house at stations one and two, for instance, and all low-house at stations six and seven. Then I ask the “puller” to fire the birds at his own discretion, just as if a woodcock or grouse decided to flush. Then I mount the shotgun to my cheek as I’m releasing the safety and take the shot.
All of that repetitive training has given me the confidence to walk up on a dog and stay calm at the flush. I expect to drop the bird.
B stands for BoreMany of the shooters at the Gun Club come armed with granddad’s old 12-bore cornshucker. And some of them shoot pretty well—at skeet and trap and ducks and even pheasants. But in Michigan’s tight woodcock coverts I don’t think you can beat a 20 gauge double gun with 26-inch barrels.
I live on the headwaters of the Manistee River, and I spend a lot of time pushing my way through tangles of streamside tag alders that woodcock so dearly love. This is no place for 30-inch barrels because you simply can’t make those classic “swings” they teach you in shooting school.
Instead, it’s what I call “poke-and-pull” shooting. Find an opening in the myriad tree branches where you think the bird is going to fly and, if and when it does, poke the gun up into that tiny clearing and pull the trigger.
Those shorter tubes will clear the branches a lot easier than gramps’ old gun, and it’s a lot faster to make a follow-up shot instead of racking back the slide during the heat of battle. The lighter weight of a 20 gauge also is a real benefit after several hours in the field.
Obviously, a 28 gauge is lighter yet. But I’m not sold on the idea of using number nine loads, which “conventional wisdom” and English Tradition always seems to mandate. There’s simply too much foliage in these Michigan woods, especially in the early season. I want some knockdown punch. More on that in just a bit.
C stands for Choke Perhaps as much as any other single factor, how a shotgun is choked will make or break a woodcock shooter.
We’ve already talked about those 12 gauge slide guns with 30-inch barrels, nearly all of which are choked Full in order to throw out a long shot string into the path of ducks and geese. Many older double guns also have tight chokes.
Personally, I shoot Skeet and Cylinder in my Beretta when I’m doing jungle work in those thick alders and the close-growing stands of young popple that woodcock admire so much. Once woodcock season closes in early November, and the leaves are completely down, I’ll switch to Modified and Improved Cylinder for longer shots at skittish grouse.
Punching holes in the sky with a tight wad from a twelve just doesn’t make sense to me. I once “field-dressed” a rooster pheasant with a charge of sixes out of a 12 gauge. Think of the mess it makes of a poor little woodcock!
D stands for Dogs Truth be told, this is my very favorite part of bird hunting. What possibly compares to watching a hard-driving dog suddenly whirl around and lock up into a statue with every fiber of its being screaming “IT’S RIGHT HERE, DAD!”
If I didn’t have a wonderful pointing dog to hunt over, well, I probably wouldn’t even bother going out in the field. For me, that means my English setter, Ghost. What a sight to behold as she crashes through the brush, catches a whiff of scent, and either stops stone solid or does a panther-like slink until she pins the bird.
I’ll never forget a couple of days when she put on some pretty spectacular exhibitions for my friends Don Schulz and Ted Kraimer. In each case, neither had ever hunted birds over a dog.
“Where do you think you’re going?” I asked Don the first time he hunted with me and Ghost. “I’ve always been my own dog,” Don said when I stopped him from going into the thick alders along the river. “Not today,” I replied. “That’s HER job. YOUR job is to wait here until she tells you it’s time to come shoot the bird.”
Poor Ted was so overwhelmed by Ghost’s pointing ability that he missed nine consecutive woodcock before finally dropping his first ever over a dog. We still reminisce about that day. “I don’t think Ghost has forgiven me yet,” Ted said recently.
But both men learned the joys of watching a good dog go about its business!
E stands for Effective Loads Michigan’s woodcock season opens in late September every year, which means there are plenty of leaves on the popples and tag alders. Sometimes frost hasn’t yet killed the fiddlehead ferns. That means you’ve got to pack some punch.
Several years ago, Capt. John Gospodarek invited me to hunt pheasants on a lease he had near Great Falls, Montana. When he made the offer, he also suggested that I purchase some long-range loads. “These pheasant can get up pretty far out,” John said.
So, while I was buying several boxes of number fives for those pheasant, I added a couple boxes of seven-and-a-halves for grouse and woodcock. Ever since, I won’t shoot anything except Remington Express loads in my Beretta. I don’t know if it’s the full ounce of lead, or if it “patterns” my shotgun, or if I’ve simply gotten a little better. But I DO know that I’m hitting a lot more woodcock these days.
Which is why Rex called me again just a few minutes ago to tell me he was back from a business trip to Europe and would “pack up that 28 gauge and get it sent out as soon as I come back from Houston next week.”
Bringing me to the final part.
F stands for Fit This is pretty much an extension of sections B and C, because all three have to work together if your success rate is going to climb. Let me explain.
When I lived in East Lansing, most of my bird hunting involved pheasants around Clare and Mt. Pleasant. I shot a Browning A5 Light Twelve, choked full. And, except for that humiliating day with Oscar, I usually shot it pretty well.
Once I moved north, The Colonel took one look at that shotgun and promptly loaned me one of his short, light 20s. But I wanted my own gun. And when I got that classy English setter, I wanted a classy side-by-side.
Right at that time, Neville Geake was closing his venerable old sporting goods store at Woodward and Eight Mile. I had called upon him for many years when I was a fly fishing tackle rep, and was sorry to see him close the doors. I told him so, then launched into my dog/gun situation.
“What did you have in mind?” Neville asked. Then he walked off. A minute later, he came back to what was left of the fly fishing department. He stuck a 20 gauge side-by into my hand and said “This is for treating me right all those years.” I was overcome by his generosity. He even threw in a handsome gun case.
There was just one thing wrong. I couldn’t hit anything with it, as I publicly proved the very next day at the Gun Club.
At that time I was regularly knocking down 17 to 21 birds during a round of skeet. Happily shouldering my new side-by-side I promptly shot a six. “He hung over?” I heard somebody mumble. “Naw, new gun,” somebody replied.
We went around again, and I improved to a seven. “It’s gotta be the gun,” one old-timer stated flatly. I refused to believe that, and shot a third round just to prove that it wasn’t “the gun.” Another six.
Finally, Marc Norcross pulled a spare shotgun from his truck and looked me in the eye. “You’re not leaving here shooting six, seven, six,” he said, thrusting his shotgun into my hands. I shot a 20 amid a chorus of “It was the gun! It was the gun!”, and went home to call Bryan Bilinski at Fieldsport in Traverse City.
To make a long story short, Bryan spent several hours with me the day we met to find my new shotgun. First thing that morning he had six different 20guage doubles laid out on the counter. “Spend the next half-hour just mounting each of them to your shoulder,” he said, walking off.
I narrowed my choice to two, then finally settled on the Beretta as he put me through more “tests.” By the end of the day, Bryan had marked the stock where it met my cheekbone, measured my pull length, checked the barrel “regulation” with an impact-test, and calculated what had to happen next. “The butt needs to be shortened and the stock needs a hot-oil bend to conform to your facial structure,” Bryan told me.
In other words, that shotgun was going to Fit me perfectly.
When we finished with the Beretta, I begged Bryan’s indulgence and pulled my little side-by-side out of the truck. He took a few more minutes to measure and calculate. “This gun shoots low and right by nearly seven inches,” he told me. “Actually, I’m surprised you even managed a seven with it!”
“Why? I mean, how can that happen?” I wanted to know.
“Sometimes it’s the way the stock fits your face. If the impact point is off by four inches, for example, the stock has to be adjusted a quarter-inch in the opposite direction.
“Or, Bilinski continued, “the barrels might actually be bent—they’re softer than you’d imagine. That would also cause the point of impact to be way off. Just like this shotgun. Checking barrel regulation is an important but usually overlooked aspect in fitting a gun.”
So, all of you unhappy woodcock hunters might be well advised to go back to “school.” Review you’re A-B-C-D-E-Fs and see how you and your shotgun measure up in each category. You might be in for a real surprise.
Capt. Tony Petrella is a former sportswriter who covered the Miami Dolphins for the Palm Beach Post, and the National Hockey League for the Atlanta Constitution. He now guides anglers in southwest Florida half the year in pursuit f tarpon, snook and redfish, and guides trout anglers and upland hunters in Michigan the other half. |
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