Like most men of his region and era, Grandpa Buck called the fat little birds that wintered in the river-cane and cutovers of Guilford County, NC snipe. “Most folks think of ‘em as a trash bird, but that’s because they don’t know how to cook ’em,” he said as we shuffled down the foot-worn path to the creek bottom. “I’d just as soon eat snipe as partridge. Of course, most people overcook them too”. As far as we were concerned, woodcock hunting in the Piedmont of North Carolina was our little secret.
“Snipe” hunting was secondary to squirrel hunting for us. With a lunch of Vienna Sausages and Saltines in my dad’s old tin Davy Crockett lunch box stashed in his game bag, we set up on a ridge overlooking the creek behind his house and scanned the treetops for bushy tails. By the time the sun was high enough to illuminate the far ridge, the Viennas were gone, and I was restless. Grandpa Buck helped me from the ground and dusted off my backside, “Let’s go see if the snipe are in the creek bottom yet.”
If birds were in the bottom, he traded the number sixes in his Spanish-made twenty gauge for the number seven and a halfs in the right pocket of his coat. My Topper .410 stayed broken until we were moving birds regularly. He passed me a single shell and walked with me step for step through the canebrake. “Keep her at port arms,” he coached. “Let them get above the scrub before you pull the trigger. Sometimes they pause up there long enough to give you a clean shot”.
I never killed a snipe in the woods with Grandpa, but it was the most exciting hunting we ever did together. By the time I was old enough to handle a shotgun effectively, he was too old and unsteady to get into the woods with me. That old creek bottom cover has evolved into a green space shared by the residents of a subdivision atop the far ridge. Grandpa and Grandma’s house is gone and Grandpa has gone to be with Jesus and Grandma. But he planted a seed that has become one of my life’s passions.
A few years back, after two decades of searching for purpose and meaning in textbooks and travel, I came home and settled about eight miles downstream of his old creek bottom. Aside from my dogs, I mostly go down to my section alone. Sometimes I carry Grandpa’s twenty, but I just can’t seem to shoot it like he did. The Topper .410 is waiting for my son, Luke Milam, to be old enough to tag along. I keep the number sixes in my right pocket and the squirrels are now a target of opportunity. I usually cook my snipe in a pan with olive oil and serve them with things that never saw the inside of Grandma’s kitchen. But sometimes I fry them in butter and serve them with white gravy on toast, just the way Grandpa liked them.
About the Author
Grayson Guyer grew up in North Carolina around bird dogs and dog men. He operates Lost Highway Kennels at Cedar Ridge Farm in Davidson County, NC. When not choring or training dogs Grayson can often be found on the bank of a pond with his little boy, a 2wt fly-rod, a Zebco Spiderman combo, and a stringer full of Bluegill.
