The Sportsman's Lexicon of Sniglets

Mulak Reader - The Sportsman's Lexicon of Sniglets

I love sniglets, and have had a lot of fun over the years making them up. I’ve often used some of these inventions in my stories when I can sneak one by an editor. I never could get a magazine to buy this collection, but that doesn’t make it any less funny.

THE OUTDOORSMAN'S LEXICON OF SNIGLETS

Rich Hall calls them sniglets. An articulate person might call it jargon.
They are, of course, those descriptive figures of speech that nearly every outdoorsman uses. Some are common and widespread: "Sky-buster", for instance, or "trash fish". We've all heard them, and many of us have our own small collection of pet phrases that can always bring a chuckle from anyone who's been there himself. Here's a few. Hope you'll find a couple you can use:

Altoidiots: Fools with camouflage gear and shotguns. (See "Skybuster")

Anything Duck: An unidentifiable waterfowl, usually a juvenile female in eclipse plumage. In areas where the point system is used, often called a "Ten-pointer".

Aquacrapolla: Small accumulations of underwater vegetation on a fishing lure.

Ballerina Moss-backing: Tip-toed method of locomotion in water of a depth approximately equal to the tops of one's chest waders.

The Blessings of Lawrence: Bestowed by reloaders upon a single pellet of lead shot recovered after falling out during the reloading process and replaced in the shell in the belief that it will be the one lucky pellet in the entire load that will strike an otherwise missed target.

Blinkville: The netherworld into which game birds and animals disappear when you try to relocate or follow them.

Blue Cross Load: Reloader's product in which the powder charge has accidentally been doubled. (See "Conservation Load")

Bovinette: Small group of dairy cows or beef cattle at large in a woodcock covert.

Camouflage Enhancement: Improper placement of wader suspenders while shitting.

Child of Julia: Hunter who's primary concern with game animals is their table qualities. (See "Hassenphefferite", "Venisonmaniac", "Waterfowler a la 'orange", etc.)

Conservation Load: Reloader's product in which one of the components, usually the powder, has been left out. (Also see "Blue Cross load")

Corvair Setter: Any bird dog who is unsteady to wing, shot, and icy pavement at any speed. (Also see "Conservation spaniel")

E.T.Medium: Actual size of all outdoor gear marked "One-size-fits-all".

Farking: Straining action, always futile, with a fishing rod in the hope that pulling harder will magically free the hook from the bottom or the tree branch where it has snagged itself.

Flysnapper: A sapling of exactly the correct height and resiliency to cause concern when, after being pushed aside, it springs back and strikes you just to the right of your left thigh.

Genuflection Polka: Dance performed by waterfowlers when caught away from their blind at the approach of ducks.

Gizzard Counter: A hunter who knows not only how many birds he's taken, but also can produce graphs that show his shooting averages and bird counts over the past five years.

Groaner: (onomatopoetic) A missed easy shot.

Groaner, Lead-Plated: An easy shot over a staunch point preceded by a circuitous approach through thorns & briars, with all the effects of wind direction, footing, and probable flush route taken into consideration, but missed anyway.

The Herter's Mirage Factor: Reason for the discrepancy in what your tent looks like once it's erected and the photo of the same tent in the catalog.

Hot Gas Ballooning: Affliction of wader wearers. (See "Beans, side effects of")

Idgetzuum-good: Mysterious substance contained in ammunition of certain shot sizes or calibers as favored by superstitious hunters. (As in, "Naw. I'll stick with my old 30-30. I've used it for years, and idgetzuum-good.")

Investigative Choke & Range Testing: On an otherwise uneventful day afield, the irresistible temptation to shoot your shotgun out over a piece of quiet water you happen to pass by.

Kindling Reserve: The accumulation of tiny sticks in the pockets of shooting vests and jackets.

Kloussinuff: Indefinite period of time, anywhere from 15 minutes to 30 seconds before legal shooting time, length of which is usually determined by the proximity of a potential shot.

Larf: To continually pull back the bolt of a gun to be sure you've put a shell in the chamber, even though you know you have. (See "boredom")

Lastcastitious: The feeling that "Just one more cast" will hook the fish of a lifetime.

Leaky-booter: A waterfowler specializing in jump shooting.

Leftydexterious: One capable of doing something useful with his off hand OTHER than operate the fore-end of a pump-gun.

The Michael Jackson Effect: Having lost one of a pair of shooting gloves, the uncanny predictability that, within 30 days of purchasing a replacement pair, you will loose the same hand glove

Moronic Mountain Trout: Species of Salmonid known for its tendency to strike a bare hook or a fly tied to look like a marshmallow. Believed extinct, but occasional throwbacks occur.

Mulak: Any person favored by mosquitoes, gnats, blackflies, no-see-ums, and other forms of biting insects—A guy you want to have next to you on the day you've forgotten your insect repellent.

The Neanderthal Stomp: Method of locomotion on dry land while wearing insulated waders.

Nexbenditious: The impatient desire to fish "Just a little farther downstream."

Nose-picker: A collectible decoy in any one of several unusual poses (preener, turned-head sleeper, dappler, half-bodied tip-up, caller, etc.) that more accurately reflect the boredom of old time decoy makers than any genuine attempt at realism.

O.D.-40ed: Condition of a gun or fishing reel when too much aerosol lubricant has been applied.

Paw-bergettes: Small ice balls that accumulate between the toes of a bird dog when hunting in the snow.

Piece-of-Old-Wives'-Tale: Any outdoor cliché corrupted to mean something else, such as "I never shoot anything I don't eat—first." Or the one about Javilina hunters: "They go after them hock, loin, and stinker."

Plurd Tendencies: Fear of the unlikely. (After Melvin J. Plurd, the only man to ever be attacked by a Northern pike while swimming. He also holds the distinction of actually being bitten by a hibernating copperhead and of accidentally being struck by a stray .22-caliber bullet at a distance of up to one mile. Plurd died in 1957 of Dutch elm disease.)

Pocket Over-stuffitis: Fear of owning a gadget you might need but have left at home.

Reptilian Regression, The Point of: That moment when a hunter in a swamp concludes that his feet have become too wet to bother with attempts to keep them dry any longer.

Reverse-Hydropercolation: Process of getting your feet wet inside a pair of waterproof boots via the tops of your socks.

Scrapping the Hatch: Method of dry fly fishing where-in a night crawler is substituted for an imitation of whatever happens to be hatching.

Skeeter: One who is an excellent marksman on clay targets but finds it impossible to hit in flight any target wearing feathers.

Slinkyitis: Condition of having your socks work farther and farther down inside your boots.

Snork: To secretly sniff the smoke from recently fired shells.

Spaniel Snorkeling: Method by which certain hunting dogs keep track of their owners in tall grass by springing high into the air for a look around.

Sushi-maniac: Fisherman without a creel.

Wallet Whistle: Any call, lure, gadget, or gimmick whose main intent is to fool sportsmen into buying it rather than to actually serve some useful purpose. (See "Fish Call", "Inflatable Duck Blind", "Worm Warmer", etc.)

The Webfoot Axiom: Rule that states that if you shoot at passing ducks, they would have decoyed, and if you let them pass over in the hopes that they'll decoy, they won't.

Woodcock, -ing, -ed: (verb) To dodge by a series of random changes of direction and unpredictable maneuvers. (See "knuckleball".)

Znagglet: Any unknown item in a tackle box.

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This site was last updated 09/22/06