How to Use Weather Changes to Bag More Woodcock

Migratory woodcock might not all go to the dance together, but sometimes a bunch will wind up in the same place at the same time. That sort of timely convergence is the stuff of a woodcock hunter’s dreams. 

Some convergences are known as “flights,” when birds just show up in a covert unannounced and in real numbers. In Pennsylvania, I once encountered 68 woodcock in one hour in a diminutive five-acre stretch along a small creek. A flight like this is a rare thing and usually the result of some major and rapid change in the weather.

More common is a convergence known as “staging,” and it happens where there’s a bottleneck—usually a place where some geographical feature causes the birds to pile up and wait for favorable weather before moving on.

One of the most famous staging areas is at the southern tip of New Jersey, where the unique location and configuration of the Cape May Peninsula funnels woodcock south to Cape May Point during their fall migration.

Here, the birds often gather in good numbers to rest and feed, waiting for a conducive tailwind to traverse 12 miles of water across Delaware Bay. The annual woodcock staging here is reliable enough to plan a December hunt with confidence.

Cape May also happens to be a rather famous vacation destination with a lot of amenities to choose from. While many of them are seasonal and closed this time of year, there are still enough great places open to make a visit worthwhile. It’s an ideal place to take a non-hunting spouse, as there’s plenty to do while you’re out chasing birds.

LAY OF THE LAND

The southernmost area open to hunting is Higbee Beach Wildlife Management Area, which consists of 1,095 acres located very close to the tip of the Cape. There’s water here, and a lot of it. And there are seashells, which to me seem like odd things to find while out looking for woodcock. The cover consists of greenbrier and honeysuckle understory with sweetgum trees and an occasional pine or holly. The soil is quite sandy, but not too sandy, because there are still plenty of earthworms around. When there’s a real concentration of birds, the place is overrun.

Sometimes I start at Higbee and hunt my way north. Other times I start hunting areas farther north and work my way to Higbee. Regardless of which direction I choose, Higbee is always a stop I make. It should be noted that, while Cape May is a famous birding area, there won’t be many birders there in December. Nonetheless, there are often more people around than you’d normally encounter while hunting, so I always try to be extra cautious when I hunt here.

Sections of the Cape May National Wildlife Refuge begin about eight miles north of the Cape and continue for another 10-plus miles. While Cape May NWR is roughly 11,500 acres in size, migratory game bird hunting is currently permitted only on refuge lands west of Highway 47 in Middle Township and north of Highway 550 in Upper and Dennis townships. This still represents the largest chunk of public land open to hunting on the Cape.

While hunting here can be good in both the wet and dry forests, I look for areas on the refuge with some newer growth, a thick understory and occasional openings. My friend Tom Cooper, a biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who’s been involved in several woodcock research projects on the Cape May Peninsula, tells me that the research confirms my observations.

“Even though stem density of overstory trees is fairly low, the dense understory here appears to provide adequate daytime feeding cover,” says Cooper.

I find this type of cover to be optimal for both resting and feeding woodcock, so that’s where I tend to concentrate my search for them.

Depending on where you go, greenbrier and honeysuckle will be present, as well as red maple, holly, oak, various conifers and the Atlantic white cedar. While the soil tends to be moist in a lot of places on the peninsula, the key to finding woodcock is to find some moist enough to host earthworms.

While it may be OK to use traditional lead shot in most places (I find No. 7 1/2 or 8 shot to be good choices for woodcock), remember that only federally-approved non-toxic shot is permitted for hunting of migratory game birds (including woodcock) on Cape May NWR. The regulations prohibit the use of more than two dogs by one migratory bird hunter, as well. The current regulations for the refuge, by the way, can be found on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service website.

OTHER OPTIONS

There are some other places in the area that hold woodcock, too. Portions of Cox Hall Creek WMA and Cape May Coastal Wetlands WMA are open to hunting, and there’s also Cape Island WMA, Dennis Creek WMA, Heislerville WMA and Egg Island WMA. Even though southern New Jersey continues its steady shift from woodlands, farms and fields to suburbia, there’s still some good woodcock habitat.

Dennis Creek State Conservation Area is roughly 20 miles north of the Cape, and like Heislerville and Egg Island (which are close by), it’s nestled against Delaware Bay. While close to three-quarters of Dennis Creek is coastal wetlands, there’s still about 1,000 acres of woodcock habitat. For the best chance at success here, as well as in similar habitat at Heislerville and Egg Island, hunt the strips of deciduous trees and shrubs that border the wetlands. Hunting anywhere on the peninsula should start where the water ends and the woods begin.

While it’s the wind that helps woodcock cross Delaware Bay indirectly, it’s the wind that also makes Cape May such a compelling place to hunt. Interestingly, it’s thought that the shift in the north wind, which aids in the crossing, might also act as a catalyst in initiating the migration for both juveniles and adults. Once that shift happens, many of the woodcock on Cape May will leave.

While Cape May is best known as a migratory stopover, there are woodcock that breed here and stay year-round. Interestingly, recent studies looking at the survival rate of migrating woodcock using Cape May have found that, given the right weather, such as an unseasonably warm winter with no major storms, many woodcock suspend their migration and spend the entire winter sojourning on the Cape.

This can be a bit of a double-edged sword. While the woodcock are around for the whole hunting season, a bad storm can have a devastating effect on the birds. Whether they go or stay is almost entirely weather dependent.

Over the years, I’ve chased woodcock across half the continent, from New Brunswick down to Louisiana. I’ve found Cape May to be one of the very best places to hunt the birds, and it’s a place I return to time after time.

CAPE MAY: IF YOU GO 

• Where to stay, eat and drink in Cape May. 

While Cape May is well known for its amenities, most of the 70 pet-friendly motels in the area aren’t open in December when it’s woodcock season. A couple in the budget range that still welcome guests in winter are the Red Roof Inn Wildwood and the Hyland Motor Inn. If my wife is coming along, however, I opt for a nicer place like the Marquis de Lafayette Hotel or the Sand Box Motel in Wildwood.

Restaurants in Cape May range from moderately priced to expensive. For fine dining, I like the Washington Inn, where both the seafood and the fillets are exceptional. Lucky Bones has some great sandwiches, and George’s Place offers breakfast, lunch and dinner at reasonable prices (though they only accept cash). Freda’s Café has limited hours but offers up some killer deserts.

The King Edward Bar in the Chalfonte Hotel is a nice place for an after-hunt drink, though they’re only open on Friday and Saturday evenings this month. Because December is considered the off-season, call any place you plan on visiting beforehand to confirm the hours of operation haven’t changed.

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• This article was featured in the December 2025 issue of Game & Fish magazine. Click to subscribe.

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