ESPN Hunting

Trip particulars

If you are a dove hunter, there's a place in northwestern Argentina that you need to go to before you die. … and once you get there, you're gonna think you already died and are in dove hunter's heaven.

Tucuman province in northwestern Argentina (about 675 miles from Buenos Aires) is home to hundreds of thousands of acres of corn and sorghum (dove food) and literally millions of doves.

Recently a group of seven hardcore dove hunters (Bobby Harris, Henry Dunn, Barry Denson, Ray Clark, John Anderson, Dennis Baggett and myself) from the Albany, Ga., area had the opportunity to hunt there.

A disclaimer before I describe our trip, although it may sound like it, this is not a paid advertisement for Trek Safaris or Gustavo Olson's hunting operation — I paid my own money (no discounts) to go just like you would and will gladly pay it again next year. Our trip was a memorable experience and much, much more than just shooting unbelievable numbers of doves. Hopefully I can describe why.

Having dove hunted in Bolivia the past two years, I really didn't believe Argentina could possibly have more birds. Bobby Harris, who had hunted the Cordoba region of Argentina several years ago, assured me that it did. And he was right.

Having more birds is not a big factor because you can only physically shoot so much in Bolivia or Argentina, but the sheer spectacle of seeing the birds is just awesome.

Our late July trip started in Atlanta when we boarded a Delta flight for a 10-hour overnight flight to Buenos Airies. I envy those who can sleep on an airplane. I can't, but with help of a sleeping pill, I was able to get 2-3 hours sleep.

After landing about 8:30 a.m., we were met by a Trek rep who accompanied us through customs and on the shuttle bus ride through Buenos Aires from the International airport to the airport serving the rest of the country. Both airports feature some very nice and upscale stores and restaurants, so the 5-hour layover went by quickly.

The next leg was a 2 1/2-hour flight with a short stop in Santiago and we landed in Tucuman about 4:30 p.m.Gustavo Olsen met us with a truck and a shuttle bus for the 30 minute or so trip to the hunting lodge.

The lodge is named Rodeo de los Bueyes and translated means "Corral of the Oxen" because it's located in a picturesque little valley in the foothills of the Santa Maria mountain. The valley once was used to corral the oxen used by nearby ranches in the sugar cane harvest.

When ranchers began using "no-till" farming methods several years ago, vast acreages of sugar cane were changed to corn, wheat and sorghum. That coupled with the doves' habit of breeding 6-8 times per year has created dove populations rivaling those of the legendary Cordoba area. Olsen built the lodge some six years ago to accomodate hunters during the approximate six-month season.

Built to house 12 hunters, it has a swimming pool, gun room, lounge (den with a fireplace), dining room and the decor is hunting lodge oriented but very tastefully done (just like we all would do in our houses if our wives would let us).

After happy hour and settling in, we enjoyed one of Gustavo's trademark dinners featuring Argentine beef steaks (some say Argentine beef is the best in the world) and after the long trip, it didn't take long for heads to start nodding.

Wake up call came at 6 a.m to clear skies and temps in the mid 40's. Breakfast, then approximately a 30-minute ride in the small bus and as we turned off the highway, we can all see the birds streaming into a huge harvested corn field bordered by an uncut sorghum field.

They start dropping us off at about 150-yard intervals, and my bird boy was already in place back a couple of rows into the sorghum field with a case of shells and a revolving dove stool. I'm the last one to be dropped off and I can hear steady shooting already coming from the other guys. The sky is high blue with a gentle breeze and waves of doves are steadily flying over me with far more birds in the 25-40 yard range than I can shoot at.

These harvested corn fields are huge and I don't how to adequately describe the numbers of birds over them except to say that it looked like at a dark cloud at times. I stopped shooting several times to just marvel at the sheer number of birds.

Since it is the first morning, I'm shooting a little faster than I will later in the week. I brought two 20-gauge Browning over/unders (model 425 and model 525) with 28-inch barrells and I'm shooting imp. cyl. and mod. chokes in each gun.

The bird boy empties two boxes of shells into your pouch each time and seemingly within minutes, the first boxes are gone and I ask for more "cartouches," (spanish for shells and one of the few spanish words I know) and my bird boy simply replies "Oh, you want more shells." Turns out he spoke English a whole lot better than I do Spanish.

For the next 3 hours, I would shoot 50 times, change guns and take a short Coke break (they have coolers with ice, soft drinks and beer nearby) and gradually got used to the idea that unlike the United States, I didn't have to shoot at each bird as if it were the last bird coming over.

The morning passed quickly and the birds start to slow slightly. At 11:15 a.m., I asked the bird boy what time they broke for lunch and how many birds had I killed. He replied "at 11:30 and you've killed 483."

I told him to tell me when I got to 500. He did just as I saw the bus headed down the field to pick us up. I had shot 850 times (59%) which is a very good percentage in the U.S. but not great for Argentina, where you have an opportunity to slow down and pick easier shots, which I obviously didn't do much of this first morning.

Back on the bus, it was a short ride to our lunch break area and there were a lot of excited comments.

"I saw more birds the first 30 minutes than I have seen in my whole life."

"I shot 10 seasons worth of doves already this morning."

One of the more descriptive was; "I've been to two world's fairs and a goat roping contest and ain't never seen nothing like this."

Most of the ranches we hunted on, the owner lives in town and there is a guest house with an outdoor pavilion, covered eating area, adobe oven and barbeque grill, so that was where we ate and took our midday break each day.

Steaks and sausages were on the grill over wood coals and a spread of hors d'oeuvres awaited us, including Argentine wine, beer and soft drinks.

A harvested corn field wrapped around our lunch area and we marveled at the huge numbers of birds still flying all over the field (and us) during midday as opposed to doves in U.S., which typically roost during middle of the day.

The guest house had both recliners and beds, however, several of us opted to just lie down in the grass after lunch and enjoy the warm sunshine and mid 60's temps.

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