My boss set up a dove hunt for six of us from the dealership and four of his hunting buddies. We left Atlanta Tuesday night and arrived in Cordoba Argentina Wednesday around 11:00AM. Weather was perfect, lows in the 30's, highs in the 60’s!
Vans from the lodge picked us up at the airport and we were shooting doves by noon! I've never seen so many birds in my life! We were told that in the section of Argentina where we hunted there were between 30 and 50 million birds. We shot for about four hours and between the ten of us we killed a little over 2100 birds! We hunted two more full days and on the last day only five of us shot for a half day before we had to head to the airport. The other five were too beat up or hung over to shoot the last day!
For the entire hunt we shot 14,124 birds, and shot 28,650 shells! At $14.50 per box, our shell bill was $16,617.00!
I shot a total of 1009 birds and used 2000 shells which gave me an accuracy percentage of 50%. Not bad for my first dove shoot in about 30 years.
Drew, my boss's son, had two days that he shot over 1000 doves per day. Three other guys had one 1000 plus days.
Of course you can't bring any birds back to the states. Most of the birds, except the ones we and the eagles ate, were donated to orphanages near Cordova.
We hunted full days from 9:00AM to 12:00AM then took about a 1 ½ hour break for lunch and then hunted till about 5:30PM
Each shooter had a guide with them who would load the gun, pick up birds and empty shells. The guide would sit behind you and when your gun was empty you would slide it back and he would reload five shells. My guide could load five shells in less time that it took me to load two!
If you ever go on one of these hunts there are five things that you MUST take with you.
1. Ear protection.
2. Gloves (to cut down on blisters and burning your hands on a hot barrel)
3. Shooting pad for your shoulder.
4. Ibuprofen for sore muscles. The muscles in my arms were so sore by Friday night I had a serious problem just lifting a beer bottle, but, I managed!
5. Sleeping pills for the flight down and back.
The lodge that we stayed at was first class! Outstanding staff, great food and very comfortable.
http://www.daviddenies.com/pica-zuro.phpHere's a few pic.
Author
Topic: Argentina Dove Hunt (Read 7912 times)