How did the fake snipe hunt develop? The snipe is a real bird that can be hunted, it is a water bird that is very small and flies kind of like a bat. They taste good too.
As one who sent many a novice scout out on a snipe hunt, I’d say it was developed simply to get the overanxious newbie camper out of one’s hair for awhile. How and when it was developed, I don’t have an answer for.
I seem to recall other such wild goose chases as well including:
- Getting 100 feet of shorline
- Looking for fish tracks
- Looking for “Fallopian Tubes”
and my personal favorite:
- Looking for a “Left-handed Smoke Bender”
-Dragwyr
“If God had meant for man to eat waffles,
he would have given him lips like snowshoes”
-Rev. Billy C. Wirtz
When I was in college I was working as a stockboy in a supermarket, and we had our own versions:
-
“Go unlock the parking lot.” Throw the shmoe a keyring with fifteen thousand keys. (there was nothing to unlock)
-
“Go into the meat dep’t and get a bucket of cold steam.”
-
“I need you to shake up the salad dressings.”
I’ve heard that snipe are practically inedible.
We have a similar tradition of wild goose chases here in Oz, especially for naive junior staff members on their first day/week in a new job. Typically they get sent out on errands to get:
barber-pole paint (red/white colouring outside old-time men’s hairdresser’s shop)
a long weight
a left handed screwdriver
a metric shifting spanner
a honey turnover and lettuce (say it out loud and you will get the joke)
There are others but I don’t remember them right now.
Knock softly but firmly, 'cause I like soft firm knockers…
Great ones, you guys!
I just came across a resource you may be interested in… not especially serious or accurate, but it fits in with the genre of this thread:
http://www.snipehunter.com/index.shtml
Be sure and make sure you have the shockwave plug-in. The intro is hilarious.
The Best Western inn I worked at had room numbers that skipped where the stairwell was, i.e. it went from 113 to 115, with no room 114. We had lots of fun making up guest requests for rollaway beds, extra towels and whatnot, sending newbie bus boys to take them to room 114.
Your brain-in-a-jar,
Myron
Imbibo, ergo sum.
I’d never heard of snipe hunting until very recently. What’s the technique? Making people think they’ve seen a non-existant bird seems rather dull.
I have heard of sending the newbie in metal working shop to catch a bucket of sparks…
As a graduate of that fine institution that the OP’er now attends, I can definitively state that the Virginia Tech snipe hunt is a time-honored tradition.
Snipes are sometimes caught in these outings, but colds, venereal diseases, and some fecal choliforms are more prevalent prizes. When participating in a snipe hunt, it is important to remember VT snipe are most often searched for in cow pastures, which are also the site of another avid outdoor activity: cow tipping. Should you find yourself actually capturing a snipe (or discovering that you are the snipe), keep in mind that an angry herd of cattle can ruin your snipe-hunting career for good. You may be better off sneaking your quarry into your dorm room.
My eighth-grade teacher used to send slow students to the basement for some sky hooks.
“The dawn of a new era is felt and not measured.” Walter Lord
I believe the standard technique is to take the victim out into a dark field somewhere, hand them a large bag of some type, tell them to hold it open, on the ground, while the rest of the group goes off to herd the snipe into the sack. The victim is then “left holding the bag.”
When I lived in New Mexico, we had a few other snipe-hunt-like activities specially reserved for visiting Texans. One was the pursuit of the wily New Mexican spoonfish. Another was Angel Fire West, the area of the ski resort reserved just for visiting Texans.
And I’d be remiss in my duties if I failed to mention the ever-popular Jackalope Hunt! Jackalopes, for those who don’t know, are fictional creatures that look like common jackrabbits but for their prominent deer-like horns. A typical jackalope hunt consists of going to a rabbit-infested area, waiting until a rabbit pops up, then hollering, “Don’t shoot! It’s a doe!”
All this reminds me of the souvenir stands in Georgia that used to sell cockleburs to tourists as porcupine eggs.
(Cockleburs are the spiny seed cases of a local weed, and are roughly the size of an almond.)
OK, I think that everyoned here definitely knows what the snipe hunt is but what I was referring to was the real snipe. I found this in an encyclopedia: " snipe
shore BIRD of the SANDPIPER family, native to the Old and New World. The common, or Wilson’s, snipe (Capella gallinago) is a game bird of marshes and meadows. The mud snipe, or woodcock (Scolopax rusticola), is a nocturnal woodland bird." It has always bothered me when people laugh when I tell them that I have been snipe hunting and killed a snipe. I was just wondering if anyone else had actually heard of the real life Snipe bird?
While we’re on the subject a popular one in the South is the Brunswick hunt. The funny thing about this one is that Brunswick stew is popular around here. Some people can be duped into believing that the beef in the stew is actually Brunswick meat. I think that the hunter has to capture the Brunswick after blinding it with a flashlight and kill it by clubbing it.
I guess I’ll add another one: When I worked in a restaurant kitchen, newbies were instructed to go find a “bacon stretcher.”
“One more anal-probing, gyro, pyro, levitating, eco-plasm, alien anti-matter story and I’m gonna take out my gun and shoot somebody.”
– Fox Mulder
So do we know the origin of this little prank, or is it one of those things that has been obscured by history?
Heck yeah. We used to have a few living alongside the creek on the family farm.
I can’t believe you actually shot one of the critters, though. I’ve never heard of anyone doing that. (And believe me, there were plenty of hunters where I grew up, willing to go after anything remotely edible.)
When I was a scout, snipe hunting took place in the snow. Just after sunset, we’d send out an unsuspecting tenderfoot out to stand next to a stump (where snipes land) with a plastic garbage bag. He was supposed to snag the snipe with the bag, being careful not to break the beak.
We’d then stand in the shadows and huck snowballs at the poor fellow until he either (a) cought one or (b) was hit with a snowball. Ah, the good old days…
They are real good with breakfast and a piece of bacon wrapped around them. They’re in season in Virginia around the time of duck season. If you like to duck hunt, snipe are fun to shoot because they fly like bats and are more of a challenge.