Woodcock Hunting: Here I am again, me and my dog Toki around the mountains of my house hunting for the Queen of the Woods, the Woodcock, the dream of every hunter and I also think of every hunting dog.
Since I was a boy, already passionate about hunting, I have been walking around these woods in the mountains behind my house, the Alburni massif, in the province of Salerno, between Sicignano and Petina, near the Cilento National Park. Once I used to go there with my grandfather and my father; I must say, however, that hunting alone with your dog is something fascinating. You hear all the sounds of the forest, you hear the sound of your breath, that of your dog and the sound of footsteps seems so loud that it almost annoys you. There Woodcock hunting it has been my desire and my passion since I grew up enough to go hunting with my grandfather and father; I have always believed that it was the type of hunting that most compares you with Nature with a prey that is not at all easy to find and therefore capable of bringing out the best of every hunter. Thanks to my grandfather and my father I have always practiced hunting according to certain ethical values, living and protecting Nature: “Love Nature and respect the environment. Hunt only what you need and have respect for your prey ”. These are some of my rules as a Hunter, as a serious Hunter with a capital "C".
We are at the end of October and the air is nice and fresh but it is not cold, at least I do not feel it, but maybe it will be because of the hike made to get here at more than 640 meters. I was lucky, the sky is clear and there is not a cloud even to look for it; the grass around the path shines from the dew giving the whole landscape an almost dreamlike atmosphere. Around me poplars, downy oaks, brambles, junipers sing with their rustle in the light breeze that touches the mountain. Toki gasps ahead of me as he wanders along the path never straying too far from me. I trained it really well from an early age when a friend of mine gave it to me. Toki is a Espagneul Breton, stopper and retriever par excellence both for the innate instinct conferred on him by the genetics of the breed and for the countless hours spent training him.
Watching him at work is a pleasure he is already patrolling the area as he usually does to begin to become familiar with the hunting ground; all around the wood is inhabited by elms, downy oaks, strawberry trees, some pine trees and as you walk you are sometimes struck by the scent of mastic, myrtle, fennel and rosemary that grow in abundance in this wood. It looks like the ideal groundbait environment for the Queen of the Wood. Toki continues his tour. I observe him continuously to see some signs of the Woodcock's presence, sometimes he slows down and stops with his head held high to refine the search, especially near some areas where the bush becomes thicker, sniffing around to catch any odor; I follow him and every time he seems to have heard the Beccaccia's appetite I try to see some further traces of his passage by reading the facts. A good hunter must know his prey well, know its habits, behavior and the traces it leaves. In the case of the Woodcock it is useful to know how to read the facts, that is the excrements left by the wild; this can help us to understand if there is or has been a Woodcock in the surroundings and therefore behave accordingly.
For now I have only found dry facts, probably from the night just passed; we hope to find more fresh ones, this would mean that some Woodcocks are still nearby. We have been hiking in the mountains for almost an hour now, but it seems that the Woodcocks have now moved away from this place. It doesn't matter, we insist! Toki still wants to go around and I with him, the beauty of hunting is also this: to go around in the middle of Nature, in pine contact with Nature, in search of prey and have fun with this alone even if the game bag is empty. But hope is the last to die and after an uncertainty in Toki's attitude I see a series of fresh facts, they seem to shine. Here we are! A woodcock was probably in pasture around here until shortly before our arrival. It will not take long and Toki I am sure he will find it, I make him better smell the area where we found the fresh facts, “Go Toki, Search! Search for!". After a couple of wider laps Toki suddenly slows down, some sniffs apparently well directed cautiously towards a precise point and begins a guided tour towards the root of an old elm about 50 meters in front of me. He found it!
Toki is a great hunter and it is wonderful to see him performing a splendid still, statuesque to say the least, almost respectful of the Queen. But now it's my turn. I approach me trying to make as little noise as possible, I take my Benelli Montefeltro Caliber 12 and wait for the whisk. The dog seems to have understood me on the fly and when he realizes that I am in position for the shot he takes another step towards the point where he saw the game but Toki is unable to complete a single step that a sudden shift breaks the unnatural silence of the wood . The whir of the Queen flying from the bushes just before me; the woodcock thus begins a low flight with a very fast slalom through the trees that makes shooting even more difficult; the first shot in fact resolves itself in a sensational pan against a pine but with the second shot I can finally stop the woodcock's escape. Toki is no longer beside me since the first shot, he immediately sprinted towards the woodcock following it during the flight, in fact after a few moments I already see him near the place where I saw the Queen fall, “Take Toki! Brings! Brings!". Here he comes back to me trotting with one of the most beautiful woodcocks in his mouth that has ever happened to me. “Bravo Toki! Good boy!". After this good deed we deserve a snack before we start looking for another Queen on this beautiful morning of pure passion.