Snipe: Sherry Abad Photo

[swellcat]

— Photo by and courtesy of Sherry Abad

Good-looking, well-marked bird, woodcock-like but far less rufous.

What patterns do you like with snipe?

What have you used as substitutes?

[Bazzer69]

Snipe is not all that scarce either here in the USA or from the U.K. so why look for a substitute, but I’m sure there will be a time when it to goes on the prohibitive list!
B

[daringduffer]

That would be an easier target than they normally are, as far as I know. They are supposed to be a lot easier to miss than to hit. Somebody mentioned recently that the word sniper comes from successful snipe hunters.
Purple Snipe and Yellow Snipe is all I have tied. I haven't used any substitutes so far. I have two snipe skins, one procured from Northern Ireland William a couple of years ago and the other from Cookshill much earlier. Both are Common Snipes, I haven't bothered to get a Jack Snipe. For some reason that is a bird I am uncomfortable to see killed. Some people are strange...

dd

[Old Hat]

I have a snipe that purchased from Jim the first time I met him. Like DD, snipe and purple and yellow snipe is all I think I have tied with it. I have never found it all that special a hackle fishing wise, but it makes for nice spiders to donate to events.

[wsbailey]

Harold Howorth’s Henthorn Purple uses teal lesser coverts as a substitute for snipe. He found them to be more durable.

[swellcat]

. . . Henthorn Purple uses teal lesser coverts as a substitute for snipe.

That's good. I have an abundance of blue-winged teal.

That would be an easier target than they normally are, as far as I know. They are supposed to be a lot easier to miss than to hit.

Easy for me to miss . . . the only one I've ever fired upon in anger.

It was an incidental flush, unexpected, while pursuing pheasants in northeast Kansas with a borrowed pump shotgun while having 40 years of muscle memory using a semi-automatic. Border of a lovely cornfield with a wood-lined stream very nearby. No dog; no warning. White-bellied snipe blew up on full afterburners, approximately mach 3, away and to the right (my weaker side for cross shooting). Got off one wee crack, woefully behind and to the left—not even close. Managed to eject the hull, but failed to even close the chamber fully.


Road on western border of the NE KS WIHA

The snipe lived on to reproduce and have her great-great-great grandchild pose on a post for Sherry Abad in Alberta, Canada.

[wsbailey]

I’m surprised that no one has brought this up yet (unless I missed it).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snipe_hunt

[swellcat]

I’m surprised that no one has brought this up yet (unless I missed it).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snipe_hunt

Probably better known than the actual fowl . . . which makes it harder to discuss hunting the real birds. They should've named the joke version "unicorn hunting" or something.

[tie2fish]

I’m surprised that no one has brought this up yet (unless I missed it).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snipe_hunt

From 2012 ... viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3392&p=40510&hilit= ... unt#p40510

[zen leecher]

I shot at a number of snipe when I lived in western WA. I wish eastern WA had the same abundance. We have them here as they travel south, our pond edges aren't all that marshy so they don't stick around and usually sometime in November things begin to freeze up. What I would like to do is find a mid-western woodcock hunter and get some skins.