Night Hunts

I would never be so greedy that I would shoot at night. I have read about it for years, but it was a way of life when it was practiced. That's how the Market Hunters earned a living. Don't know that I fully agree with it even under those circumstances. But in the meantime, I don't really know of anybody shooting at night. Except for a couple times.

Down in Argentina, we shot geese in fields for about 3 hours in the morning. That was all the time that most of the hunters wanted to lay there on the cold ground. I asked if I could stay on after they were ready to pick up and got first one excuse then another from the outfitter, but the answer was always no. So for the rest of the day we shot upland game; perdiz and hares. Or shot doves and pigeons.

The goose shooting was great, but left us with a lot of time on our hands. So after a couple days the outfitter said he had found a pond where the geese were roosting and that we could shoot there in the 'evening'. I was all for it. Late that afternoon (about 1800) we headed out to a large pond. Around the bank it was 6 inches deep in goose feathers, so it looked promising. We put a few floater goose decoys in the pond and spread out in a semi-circle around the end of the pond that the outfitter said the geese would come from. We were standing in 6 foot high needle grass, so we were well hidden. We waited and waited. The sun went down and dusk started closing in on us. Just about the time I thought it was a bust, the first geese showed up. They came into view with their wings set, already gliding into the pond. In 10 minutes we had 135 geese down. It was unbelievable. I only shot at the male Magellan Geese, because they are mostly white and were easier to see and much easier to retrieve in that long grass.

The following year we tried the same thing again. The pond where we went that time had no cover around it at all. We sat down and leaned back against some little backrests right on the edge of the pond. Sticking out like sore thumbs, I was afraid it would flare the geese. I was wrong. That night it was truly dark before we saw the first flock. You had to shoot straight up over your head so you could silhouette the birds against the sky. Same result. 4 of us put down 110 in less than 10 minutes.

It was exciting. There are millions of geese in Argentina, so the birds we killed weren't even a drop in the ocean. To get to turn over a pickup truck full of geese to a poor farmer easily outweighs any feeling of being a poor sport and shooting a 'little late'.