One year in Argentina, the outfitter was spread pretty thin due to scheduling multiple hunting parties. Daniel stayed at his lodge, Roger stayed down at Estel's goose ranch and they left the duck hunting to the senior bird boy - Jorge Alvarez. Jorge and I hit it off from the very beginning. My first hunt in Argentina, I was in a group of 8 hunters. When we got all squared away with gun permits and export permits at the airport, they hauled us to the first ranch in a large van. All the other hunters were small groups of friends, so I was the odd man out. I sat in the passenger seat in the front of the van because all the buddies wanted to sit together, it made perfect sense. Well, Jorge was our driver. He spoke no English and I spoke no Spanish so we pointed at things and grinned and shared the sights of the trip. None of the other hunters were smokers, so it was a no smoking ride for me, whatever. When we made our first rest stop, I didn't go into the restaurant with everybody else, but stayed outside and smoked a couple Luckies. I saw Jorge refueling the van, then light a cigarette. We hung out smoking while the others had a snack and then got back on the road. After about 40 minutes, Jorge made an announcement that we needed to pull over because he had to add some oil to the van. A couple of the other guys spoke Spanish, so we all got the message. I stepped out of the van to see if I could be of any help and Jorge motioned me to come around to the front with him. He opened the hood then pulled out a pack of smokes and offered me one. I declined, but lit my own Lucky Strike. We smoked for a few minutes and then closed up the hood and got back in the van and drove on.
At our next rest stop, again I stayed outside and Jorge brought me out a cup of coffee and we burned one. A little side note; that was my first cup of Argentinian coffee and it was delicious. Anyhow, a while later, Jorge announced the van was overheating and we needed to stop for a few minutes for him to add some water. I got out to help and we had a smoke and then drove on to the ranch. It became our little private joke and Jorge and I shared a smoke break every chance we got for the whole week. That small common bond turned into a fast friendship. That was several years ago and we still exchange Christmas cards and emails.
Back to the story. We did our duck hunting near Bragado, a fairly famous small town. Jorge apparently was a duck hunter all his life and really understood how to hunt and how to make us hunters enjoy the hunting. We did something different each morning and afternoon. One morning he took us to a private Argentinian hunting club. I have no idea how he had a membership, but it was a really neat place. Some natural ponds and some man made that were ideal for duck shooting. The terrain was more varied than the places we had hunted the first year, so we had a great number of species of birds. We shot everything from Whistling ducks to Swans. It was fantastic. I killed my Coscoroba Swan there. A few had passed us a little out of range for our #5 duck loads, but one ventured too close to our decoys. I put a good head shot on the bird and saw him absorb the hit and saw the blood spreading on his head and neck, but he flew on. Fortunately for me he only made it to the field behind our pothole and I retrieved him after the hunt.
Another morning we went out on a large lake. That was the only time I ever went out in a motor boat to a blind in Argentina, all my other hunts have been wade in hunts. Out on that big lake we again killed a great array of birds. I killed my first ever Fulvous Whistling duck and a Black Necked Swan that morning. The lake was full of Swans, but again, none flew close enough for me to be comfortable with taking the shot with duck loads. Then a fully mature bird came loafing by only about 10 yards off the water. I dropped him stone dead and it actually fell in the boat where we had it tied up in the reeds behind the blind. Pretty cool.
One afternoon of that hunt we had some really foul weather, or maybe fowl weather. Got fairly cold and the wind picked up a lot and just about the time we got to the pothole to hunt it started sleeting really hard. We killed 95 ducks in a half hour. They were pouring into that little pothole in a cornfield by the hundreds. I actually stopped the shooting well before dark. My gunning partner was miserably wet and cold and I wanted to make sure we got all the ducks gathered up before it got dark. Once we counted the birds I was sort of sorry that we hadn't made it an even 100, but it was fine.
Another morning of that hunt Jorge put me in a tiny pothole in the middle of a huge cattail marsh. I only had about a quarter of an acre of open water. No flocks of ducks came in the whole morning. But singles and pairs gave me steady action. I killed pairs of 7-8 different species than morning. Actually had one triple on Silver Teal, but don't remember anything else but singles and pairs. The other hunters had more shooting than I did that morning, but all of them shot together and killed about 50 spoonbills and only a couple other birds. So I still felt I had the better shoot.
As things go, that was the last hunting I did with Jorge. He unfortunately became very ill the following year and didn't do any guiding. Then had a bad car wreck which had him laid up for quite a while. I did hunt with his son one week, he took up the bird boy job just as his father had done. Jorge runs his own guide service now. Very small outfit that hunts big game only. I hope that he gets back to the ducks some day, I'd enjoy hunting with him again.
At our next rest stop, again I stayed outside and Jorge brought me out a cup of coffee and we burned one. A little side note; that was my first cup of Argentinian coffee and it was delicious. Anyhow, a while later, Jorge announced the van was overheating and we needed to stop for a few minutes for him to add some water. I got out to help and we had a smoke and then drove on to the ranch. It became our little private joke and Jorge and I shared a smoke break every chance we got for the whole week. That small common bond turned into a fast friendship. That was several years ago and we still exchange Christmas cards and emails.
Back to the story. We did our duck hunting near Bragado, a fairly famous small town. Jorge apparently was a duck hunter all his life and really understood how to hunt and how to make us hunters enjoy the hunting. We did something different each morning and afternoon. One morning he took us to a private Argentinian hunting club. I have no idea how he had a membership, but it was a really neat place. Some natural ponds and some man made that were ideal for duck shooting. The terrain was more varied than the places we had hunted the first year, so we had a great number of species of birds. We shot everything from Whistling ducks to Swans. It was fantastic. I killed my Coscoroba Swan there. A few had passed us a little out of range for our #5 duck loads, but one ventured too close to our decoys. I put a good head shot on the bird and saw him absorb the hit and saw the blood spreading on his head and neck, but he flew on. Fortunately for me he only made it to the field behind our pothole and I retrieved him after the hunt.
Another morning we went out on a large lake. That was the only time I ever went out in a motor boat to a blind in Argentina, all my other hunts have been wade in hunts. Out on that big lake we again killed a great array of birds. I killed my first ever Fulvous Whistling duck and a Black Necked Swan that morning. The lake was full of Swans, but again, none flew close enough for me to be comfortable with taking the shot with duck loads. Then a fully mature bird came loafing by only about 10 yards off the water. I dropped him stone dead and it actually fell in the boat where we had it tied up in the reeds behind the blind. Pretty cool.
One afternoon of that hunt we had some really foul weather, or maybe fowl weather. Got fairly cold and the wind picked up a lot and just about the time we got to the pothole to hunt it started sleeting really hard. We killed 95 ducks in a half hour. They were pouring into that little pothole in a cornfield by the hundreds. I actually stopped the shooting well before dark. My gunning partner was miserably wet and cold and I wanted to make sure we got all the ducks gathered up before it got dark. Once we counted the birds I was sort of sorry that we hadn't made it an even 100, but it was fine.
Another morning of that hunt Jorge put me in a tiny pothole in the middle of a huge cattail marsh. I only had about a quarter of an acre of open water. No flocks of ducks came in the whole morning. But singles and pairs gave me steady action. I killed pairs of 7-8 different species than morning. Actually had one triple on Silver Teal, but don't remember anything else but singles and pairs. The other hunters had more shooting than I did that morning, but all of them shot together and killed about 50 spoonbills and only a couple other birds. So I still felt I had the better shoot.
As things go, that was the last hunting I did with Jorge. He unfortunately became very ill the following year and didn't do any guiding. Then had a bad car wreck which had him laid up for quite a while. I did hunt with his son one week, he took up the bird boy job just as his father had done. Jorge runs his own guide service now. Very small outfit that hunts big game only. I hope that he gets back to the ducks some day, I'd enjoy hunting with him again.
