Snipe Hunting in Wisconsin

Several of the locals gather around the new guy in the Student Union or in a coffee shop or local bar. Mr. New Guy has only been in town for a week or two and hails from some part of the country that is unfamiliar with sub-zero temperatures, wind-chill factors, ice-fishing and snipe hunting. The 'locals' are about to invite him into the fraternity of the land of the Great Northern Railway by inviting him to accompany them on a snipe hunting outing the following night. This activity is accomplished only late at night and requires an unfrozen river, lots of warm clothing, a net, a group of good-natured (but mildly sadistic locals) and one particularly gullible new guy in town.

The directions go like this:
The new guy is told that the snipe live along the rivers in the local woods and are especially elusive. Catching as many of them as possible on one of these 'special' late-night outings is the mark of a real man in these parts. To get the job done, the group, dressed very warmly and with a large net in hand, walks the newbie into the woods to the river, where he is instructed to stand in the water with the net, prepared to catch in it as many snipe as possible when the experienced fellows go upstream and make loud noises to frighten some of the local snipe down river and into the waiting net. The mare of them that he manages to snag in his net, the more of an immediately accomplished and accepted local person he will be. For some reason, that seems to matter a great deal to some people.

In any event, a goodly number of newcomers actually go for this. They accompany their local brethren into the woods, stand in the freezing water in the dark and hold the net open wide in their hands. Soon, they hear the calls and whistles, thumps and hollers of the other people doing their part to scare the snipe down into the net. Interestingly enough, to my knowledge, no living person has ever actually seen - let alone caught - a snipe, but the activity goes on unchanged as it has for over a century.

One fellow from what was once known as Somalia, was so disappointed at not having snared any snipe on his first time out, that he insisted on going out three more times before it began to occur to him that snipe-catching might not be his calling. Maybe this is funny and maybe it isn't. What it is, most certainly, is an example of what fraternities call 'hazing' - the indoctrination by (hopefully mild) abuse of the new person at the hand(s) of the experienced.

There are many versions of this sport. Some involve slingshots instead of nets; yet other require the initiant to dress up in weird and indescribably ridiculous outfits - but the plan and purpose is always the same. To humiliate, frustrate and welcome a new person so that he/she might, too, pass along the tradition at their first opportunity to someone who knows less about it than they now do.

Now, we would never do such a thing to anyone. Would we?