Discover ways to hunt marsh hens by timing the tides, navigating coastal marshes, and understanding the tradition of a Southern wingshooting custom
The tide was already pushing excessive into the spartina once we eased the skiff off the trailer and into the salty estuary to hunt marsh hens. The morning air was barely humid, slow-moving, and carried the odor of pluff mud. The solar started to rise and, off within the distance, herons stalked the grassy edge because the tide crept throughout the flats. Someplace, hidden deep within the marsh grass, are the marsh hens. Their tell-tale kek-kek-kek name carries over the water. The sound is all too acquainted for anybody who’s hunted these birds or poled a flooded flat. It’s a reminder that probably the most peaceable wanting marsh isn’t quiet in any respect—redfish crash, mullet bounce, and marsh hens cackle—all indicators of an excellent morning.
Marsh hen looking is among the oldest and most uniquely Southern types of wing capturing nonetheless practiced as we speak, however its recognition is small. In contrast to the quintessential southern bobwhite quail hunt, there aren’t any high-quality shotguns, pointing canine, longleaf pines or tweed jackets. Marsh hen looking is messy. It’s a working man’s chicken hunt that relies on the tides, the wind, and the moon. This hunt is performed within the hidden corners of coastal estuaries that stretch from Virginia down via the Gulf Coast. It’s not upland looking within the conventional sense, nevertheless it’s rooted in custom, the coastal life-style, and flushing wild birds.
That is the whole information to marsh hens. We’ll discover the alternatives it grants hunters prepared to commerce boots and briars for skiffs, pluff mud, and spartina. And in case you’ve ever wished to mix a morning of wingshooting with a day of chasing tailing redfish or speckled trout schooled on the flooding tide, nicely, chasing marsh hens is likely to be your new obsession.
What’s a Marsh Hen? Clapper Rails, King Rails, and Different Species
Throughout the Southeast, “marsh hen” is the catch-all identify for a number of species of rails, most notably the clapper rail and king rail, with the occasional Virginia rail or sora combined in.
The clapper rail is lean, long-legged, and long-billed. It’s the basic chicken hunters determine with this pursuit. Clapper rails reside their complete lives within the salt and brackish marshes, slipping between grass stalks like ghosts, feeding on fiddler crabs, snails, and just about something small and unfortunate sufficient to get caught beneath their uniquely curved payments.
READ: North America’s Huntable Rails and Snipes
They’re masters of staying unseen. As a substitute of flight, they like to run. As a substitute of open water, they slip via grass so tight you’d swear it couldn’t cover a mouse, a lot much less a chicken the dimensions of a small duck. And in contrast to quail or grouse, rails don’t flush until they completely don’t have any different possibility.
That’s the place the tide is available in.
Marsh Hen Habitat: Flooded Marshes and Quick-Shifting Water
To know marsh hens, it’s important to perceive the marsh. Not the marsh from a roadside or a beachfront trip balcony. An actual marsh, the sort you uncover solely by poling into the again corners of a creek till you hear the underside of the boat sing with the scraping of oysters towards the hull. It’s the place the spartina grass grows thicker than hay and the mud beneath you sinks. True marshes really feel alive with tiny shifting creatures in all places.
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At low tide, the marsh reduces from a as soon as large river to one thing resembling a small creek. It’s a maze of oyster bars, slender cuts, hidden potholes, and uncovered mudbanks, adorned with spartina grass towering above. Throughout a superb excessive tide, the whole panorama transforms. Grassy bluffs are submerged and spartina resembles a summer season garden. Ponds type the place dry floor was simply hours earlier than. Water spills deep into the marsh’s inside, and all the pieces that lives there has to adapt. Shrimp, crabs, and minnows rush into the flooded grass being chased by redfish. And marsh hens—preferring to run from hazard—now can’t.
When the marsh floods sufficient to utterly engulf the grass and fill the inside of the flats, marsh hens lose their escape routes. They’ll’t run throughout submerged floor, so that you’ll discover them in tall clumps of grass or strolling on useless grass mats. With water pushing in from all sides, the protected spots disappear till they flush.
Excessive tide is the second hunters look ahead to.
Why Excessive Tide Is Important
Each form of chicken looking has some pure situation that dictates success. In relation to looking marsh hens, there is no such thing as a single issue extra necessary than the tide. Not simply any tide, both; the very best tides of the month. These tides normally coincide with full and new moons, tropical stress modifications, or robust onshore winds. These “king tides” or “flood tides” are what elevate the water ranges so the tall grass is submerged sufficient to push the marsh hens onto the perimeters of open water.
With no excessive tide, you’re not looking marsh hens. You’re joyriding via the marsh with a shotgun, hope and a dream. However with it? You’re in for one of the crucial distinctive wing-shooting experiences in North America.
The hunt sometimes occurs in a slender window, perhaps an hour on both aspect of peak tide. Too low, and the birds are hiding the place you’ll be able to’t get to them. Too excessive and so they head for the hills. However hit it excellent, and also you’ll end up pushing via flooded grass that’s now lower than two toes excessive, and tucked into the grass like a woodcock in a thicket is a marsh hen. Look ahead to ripples or motion and pay attention for that sharp kek-kek or flutter of wings.
Once they flush, marsh hens fly quick and low, wings beating with shocking energy for a creature that appears so reluctant to fly in any respect. Get on them fast as a result of they will drop again down into the grass in a second.
Find out how to Hunt Marsh Hens from a Skiff
Searching marsh hens seems like a hybrid of wingshooting and poling for redfish. One hunter stands within the bow, shotgun prepared, scanning the grass for motion. The opposite works the pole, guiding the boat throughout the marsh edge. Poling quietly is vital as a result of the marsh is an echo chamber. Even the sound of a poorly planted pole can ship birds working deeper into the grass. To search out extra success, transfer sluggish, and skim the grass. Search for nervous water, a fast flicker of motion, or an uncovered prime of a chicken’s again because it tries to slide away.
In relation to the flush, marsh hens rise shortly, typically exploding from the grass only a few toes from the boat. They fly low, skimming the water. Pictures occur quick, typically instinctively. A 20-gauge or gentle 12-gauge with No. 6 or No. 7 shot is ideal.
Given marsh hen habitat, recovering birds requires consideration. A rail can fall into the grass and disappear immediately. Hunt ethically and mark the autumn like your supper relies on it—as a result of in case you lose the chicken, it does.
Lastly, don’t overstay the tide. When the tide turns, it turns shortly. A couple of minutes of inattention can strand your boat within the marsh for hours. Except you wish to meet each oyster round, begin heading out earlier than water ranges start to drop.
Searching Seasons and Rules
Most Southeastern states supply rail seasons, sometimes opening in September and working into late fall or early winter. Bag limits are beneficiant, however that doesn’t imply hunters must be. These birds are resilient, however in addition they rely closely on wholesome marsh habitat, which continues to be threatened by coastal growth and rising sea ranges. They aren’t migratory like geese or woodcock, so the birds that you just discover within the marsh grew up within the spartina not removed from the place they flushed.
Authorized issues embrace:
Legitimate looking or small recreation licenses
No looking from a “vessel below energy,” that means the skiff can solely be propelled by poling or paddling
Respect for public vs. non-public marsh boundaries (onX is vital)
Adherence to wanton waste legal guidelines
Some water our bodies are restricted to solely non-toxic shot
It’s crucial to examine your state’s actual dates and guidelines annually. Rail seasons not often change dramatically, however the tide chart and entry guidelines typically do. And since a lot marsh exists in a patchwork of private and non-private possession, do your homework earlier than you launch.
The Solid-and-Blast Alternative: Marsh Hens and Inshore Fishing
One of many hidden joys of marsh hen looking is how superbly it pairs with fall inshore fishing. A excessive, cool climate flood tide isn’t simply good for marsh hens. It’s additionally prime time for redfish and speckled trout, and it’s not unusual to seek out flounder laying up on the perimeters of creeks and marshes through the flood tides. Few outside experiences mix the joys of a flush with the finesse of a well-placed forged fairly like a marsh hen cast-and-blast.
Because the grass floods, redfish push deep into the flats, rooting for fiddler crabs. Seeing a copper tail waving above the grass is among the purest thrills in fly fishing. When you’ve bagged just a few marsh hens, seize a rod and wander the identical flooded flats on foot or from the skiff.
Speckled trout college up alongside present seams and flooded creek mouths, particularly when the tide is pushing in or out exhausting. Delicate plastics, topwater plugs, or shrimp below a popping cork can all be produced earlier than or after a hunt.
Cleansing and Cooking Marsh Hens
Marsh hens are underrated desk fare. Their weight-reduction plan offers the meat a surprisingly gentle, earthy taste, touchdown someplace between darkish hen and a young, lean duck breast.
Most hunters favor to breast out the hens slightly than pluck them. Their pores and skin is skinny and will be robust, and plucking salty, muddy feathers is hardly definitely worth the effort. Equally, an in a single day brine not solely works wonders, however is a necessity. I exploit one quart of water, ¼ cup salt, 1 tablespoon of dijon mustard, ½ cup of purple wine, and typically a splash of vinegar, a bay leaf, or peppercorns.
In relation to cooking marsh hens, one of the simplest ways is to pan fry them with flour and salt. Put together an egg wash, flour, and a combination of Cajun barbeque and potato flakes. Dip the breasts within the flour, then the egg wash, then coat them with the potato flake combine. Fry till golden brown, season with a Cajun rub, and pair them with a sauce of your alternative.
Nonetheless, if you wish to be actually southern, serve marsh hens in a gumbo or with a aspect of soiled rice. One other basic Lowcountry marsh hen requires frying the birds after which serving alongside simmered onions, celery, and diced tomatoes. Add native rice, and you’ve got a dish that sings of the Southern Sea Islands.
Marsh Hen Searching as a Southern Custom
Marsh hen looking is outdated. It’s older than fashionable shotguns, older than fancy skiffs, older than most types of fashionable recreation. Coastal households alongside North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida have been looking these birds for hundreds of years, typically for sport, typically for meals, typically for each.
Previous timers discuss marsh hens the best way Midwesterners discuss pheasants or New Englanders discuss ruffed grouse. It’s a chicken that formed how folks lived, cooked, traveled, and seen the marsh itself. Everybody has a narrative they heard from their grandpa about these birds.
Historically, hunters used picket skiffs and canoes, poling or paddling via the marsh whereas somebody on the bow stood prepared with an outdated single shot. They didn’t do a lot scouting. They didn’t carry alongside any fancy gear. This looking was wholly depending on the tides and the flexibility to quietly slide a ship via grass so thick it may scrape the paint off the hull.
Even as we speak, the custom stays refreshingly easy. You simply want a ship, a push pole, a shotgun, and an appreciation for the marsh. Nonetheless, we now have the added advantages of contemporary shotguns, specialised shells, technical poling skiffs, and an elevated platform to face on.
Supporting Marsh Hen and Lowcountry Conservation
Marsh hens don’t simply symbolize a looking custom. They’re an indicator species and signify the well being of coastal marshes. When spartina grass dies again, creeks fill with sediment, and tidal circulate will get blocked, marsh hen numbers decline. Like many different recreation birds, habitat loss is the largest risk rails face.
Hunters can help marsh hen conservation by:
Supporting coastal habitat restoration tasks
Respecting bag limits and seasons
Collaborating in state marsh chicken surveys
Advocating for clear water and marsh safety insurance policies
Training the “higher than you discovered it” code. Pack out your trash and any that you just discover
Wholesome marshes profit not solely marsh hens, however redfish, trout, shrimp, oysters, shorebirds, and each different dwelling factor within the saltmarsh meals internet—us included.
A Hunt Rooted in Tide and Custom
Marsh hen looking is not like some other type of wingshooting. It’s completely depending on the moon section and tides, restricted to shallow drafting boats, and acquainted with a timeless panorama. It’s a practice handed down quietly alongside the coast, practiced by these prepared to wake early, slide a skiff into the marsh, and watch and wait because the tide rises round them.
The very best marsh hen hunts aren’t simply in regards to the birds. They’re in regards to the odor of the marsh at daybreak, the chatter of marsh hens laughing within the spartina, redfish crashing on shrimp and baitfish, and the easy rhythms of the tide. And, in case you’re fortunate, it’s about ending a morning of wingshooting with a fly rod in your hand and sight casting to stomach crawling fish, which will be taken as an invite from the marsh itself to remain somewhat longer.
Marsh hens supply us a solution to honor custom, pursue wild meals in wild locations, and keep linked to one of the crucial necessary ecosystems within the Southeast. We owe the marsh our respect. If reciprocated, the hens that decision it dwelling provides you with a hunt you received’t neglect.
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