Made my 4th trip to Argentina last year and it was good, but not great. There is a really bad drought in progress down there and it finally affected the outfitter I go with. Past years he was able to work around the drought and actually find us greater concentrations of ducks, but our luck sort of ran out. When we got there we were informed that he had cut his limit to 35 ducks per day and that we would only be able to shoot ducks three days out of the week.
I was not pleased and got into a shouting match, and finally a shoving match with the outfitter. I won the match, but he pretty much prevailed on the duck shooting. When you are in a foreign country, and you are no longer in the Marines, you pretty much have to do what you are told, or I guess you could end up in a real bind. Hasn't happened to me yet, but a couple of close calls. Whatever. We were told that we would fill in the rest of the week with dove, pigeon and perdiz shooting. No way I'm shooting many doves down there, no sport to it at all. So a couple half hour afternoon dove shoots was all for me. We did kill several hundred pigeons, which I enjoy, but it isn't duck hunting. Had one really super day where 2 of us killed 20 perdiz. That was as good as it gets on upland birds. One evening we had a great shoot on parrots. The big $300 parrots. Their flight is so erratic that it makes for really difficult wingshooting, and they are really good to eat, so that was fun.
On to the duck hunting. Our hunting party consisted of a husband and wife from Mobile, that were super people. I hope to hunt with them again someday. They aren't hardcore and were very satisfied to kill a couple dozen ducks. The other hunter was a big mouthed cry baby from Louisiana. The very first morning the bird boys told me not to worry, they would take care of me. So I was out in the marsh having a great shoot when up walks the big mouth and looks at the bird counter that my bird boy was carrying. I was at 53 birds. He went crazy. Told me they had stopped him at 35 birds and wouldn't let him shoot any more. I finished up my 75 birds and went back to the trucks. The big mouth had appealed to the outfitter and was told he could shoot some extra birds the next day to even him out but then we would all be held to 35 birds per hunt. I can understand his position. He paid the same as I did and should have gotten equal treatment. But his approach was way out of line. Did a lot towards spoiling the entire trip.
I have stayed good friends with the bird boys since my first trip down there. I treat them like equals, I take them gifts just like I take the outfitter, I spend more time with them than I spend with the other hunters. Not sucking up, just establishing a friendship. I send them Christmas cards and they get a great kick out of that. I email them in the off season and they always respond. A friend is a friend, even though I don't even speak their language, we communicate.
So we negotiated a 4th day of duck shooting for myself and the big mouth. The couple was satisfied to hunt perdiz the last day. I killed the bird boy imposed limit of 75 ducks a day up until the last "extra" day that the outfitter gave in to. He was insistent with the bird boys that we be held to 35 ducks apiece. I still wanted to hunt, so it was fine with me. The outfitter didn't even go along with us, just a couple bird boys. When we got to the marsh, I suggested that the two of us just shoot together. That was fine with everyone. Once we were set up I suggested to the big mouth that we should just fire away until the 70 birds were down, and not worry about how many each of us killed. He was all for that. First shot he fired he killed four birds on the shore, walking around picking up corn. Made a point of telling me that he had me down 4 - 0. The final tally was 53 - 17. He was the most upset human I have ever seen. He couldn't believe that an old man had skinned his ass so thoroughly. Pouted all the way till he got on his flight at the airport. Of course he emailed me later and wanted to be friends. I told him I didn't hang out with people that shot as poorly as he did :-)
All in all I killed a 1000 birds or so, so it was still a great time. But I wish I could pick who I go down there with. I was real lucky the first couple trips, but the last two trips were not so great. Since I don't have any friends to go down there with I guess I'll just continue to hope for decent hunting partners and see how it goes.
I am probably going to take a couple years off from the Argentina trips. I want everything to return to normal once the drought ends so we can have an established plan before I get there and not have to struggle to get what I feel I paid for. I also want to shoot a combination of ducks and geese next time I go and with the screwy goose laws the last couple years that needs a little time to iron itself out.
Still a wonderful time and I still encourage every duck hunter to try their best to get down there once. I have killed 26 different species down there and still hope to add a couple more. Don't miss out on an opportunity like that if you can help it, Amigo.
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