Great story! Remember decades ago when I got my first Woodcock while hunting a bottom area during one of our regular Saturday small game hunts. My father took several of my high school buddies and myself to an old farmstead southeast of Atlanta for a combo squirrel, quail and rabbit excursion. In one boggy area of tangles and scrub hardwoods I bumped a solitary bird and, taking it for a single quail, made a successful shot. On the pickup it, too, turned out to be a woodcock. We had to check the regs. to be sure the critter was in season but we were ok there. Should have had that one mounted but it became part of the game dinner. Fried squirrel, biscuits and gravy, pan roasted rabbit and one morsel of dark, rich woodcock breast meat – Good Eat’in. I’ve heard from one of the game management officers that a WMA near Atlanta hosts some wintertime Woodcock. Confirmation next season and I’ll pass the word along, maybe.
