...but downing them is most often a breeze.

Finding ‘Em
Finding soras is usually not difficult, but getting them to flush from heavy vegetation can be an effort. I have found the best method is to have one hunter poised in the bow of the boat with gun in hand and dog at his side, while the other poles the craft through thick stands of wild rice or cattails. Soras have a habit of running ahead of danger, so the boat must be propelled at a speed sufficient enough to pressure the birds into flight. A ploy that has worked for us is to attempt to “drive” soras toward open water to get them to flush.

For example, wild rice often grows in long fairly narrow “fingers” with open water on each side and end. Soras, often invisible in the thick rice, will skedaddle unseen ahead of the boat as we push them toward the tip of the finger. At that point they run out of cover and are forced into the air.

Soras are often scattered in loose bunches of three to six birds--what I assume are family groups. When one bird flushes, there are usually others nearby. On a number of occasions I’ve witnessed three four birds in the air at once.

Soras tend to hide in the thick stuff.

When hunting in especially dense cover, if the water is shallow enough, sometimes one man will jump overboard and push the boat. Anyone who has ever walked in a wild rice bog knows how difficult that can be. If the average potbellied American depended on sora meat for sustenance, well, we’d all have the physique of a certain California governor.

As difficult as soras are to flush, they make equally easy targets once they are in the air. Their flight appears labored, and it’s amazing to me that they manage to migrate each spring and fall. The trick is to shoot quickly. If you drop a bird too far from the boat, it can be hard to find in thick vegetation.

Of course, a good dog is almost mandatory for finding downed soras. The small birds can be a tough retrieve for a dog. Since a dead sora barely floats, I would imagine they give off very little scent, and because of the tall vegetation in which soras live, a dog seldom sees a bird fall.

Take the edge off of you and your gun dog with an early-season sora hunt.

My colleagues and I always carry a bucket of rocks when hunting soras. As I mentioned earlier, soras will usually “peep” when a stone hits the water. We also employ tossed rocks to help a dog find a downed sora in heavy vegetation. A stone lobbed to the spot where a sora dropped will help guide a dog to the fallen bird. My current dog Axel, a male Deutsch Drahthaar has learned to watch for a thrown rock, and listen for its telltale splash, if he did not see the bird fall. Only once has he retrieved the rock.

If you scoff at this technique, thinking a hunting dog should be guided by hand signals, so be it, but remember soras inhabit the nastiest cover and often the dog is out of sight as it struggles and splashes, half swimming, half lunging during a retrieve.