If you've ever been a wingshooter—a term which denotes hunting birds of all types—from ducks and geese to quail and pheasant, grouse, woodcocks, and of course, doves—then at some point you've dreamed of dove hunting in Argentina where literally millions of doves flock to roosts en masse to the point where the sky turns dark with their numbers.
I was invited by a friend to join him, his brother, and another mutual friend to make the trek to the Los Ombues Lodge (https://losombues.com) in Entre Rios, Argentina. I said yes enthusiastically and to hell with the cost. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go with good friends to the place I had read about, seen videos of, and had been told tales of by several guys I know who had been there and done that. So, we agreed on dates, the Lodge was booked, as were flights—my flight plan was to fly from Dallas to Atlanta where I'd meet my buds and we would fly First Class on Delta Airlines flight directly to Buenos Aires where a Lodge representative would meet us and get us on a two-hour charter flight from BA as it's called, to Entre Rios which has its own grass runway minutes from the Lodge.
A week before the scheduled departure, my daughter and son-in-law called and invited my wife and me to join them on a 150-foot sailing yacht berthed in Nice, France. It was to be an 8-day 100 percent complimentary trip. The boat and crew are owned/hired by a college friend of my son-in-law who has become very wealthy owing to his entrepreneurialism and successful building and selling of several companies over the years. It's fair to say that the underlying value of this trip, if one could afford it, would be nearly two hundred thousand dollars—chartering the boat and crew alone would be $150,000 per week at the going rate. What a dilemma!
I was able to resolve this conflict in less than a minute. "Honey, you go to France, and I'll go to Argentina." (Sounds similar to the great line by Davy Crockett, who, failing in his bid to be re-elected to Congress from Tennessee, said, "You may all go to Hell and I will go to Texas!") While it's fair to say that my decision didn't go over well, the die was cast. She left for her Mediterranean cruise three days before I was to leave for Argentina so rather than sitting around doing not much, I took a quick trip to California to see my kids and grandkids that live there and turned right around and came back in time for my trip to Buenos Aires and beyond.
As it turned out, it was extremely hot and very, very busy in the South of France, including St. Tropez, Antibes, and Monaco during the family Med cruise. The accommodation, food and wine were great but the crowds and heat were downers. Enough about that.
I was packed and ready to go, got picked up by a car service and taken to DFW for my flight to Atlanta. None of us took our own shotguns as the Lodge provides any kind of shotgun you can think of as well as unlimited ammo for whatever you choose to shoot. I met my buds at a private lounge, had some snacks, then at about 10 p.m. we boarded our flight to Buenos Aires. I have to say that Delta's First-Class accommodations absolutely don't match those of American, British Air, or El Al whose First-Class suites are indeed first class. The airplane type matters: we had originally been scheduled on an Airbus 330-900 NEO which is the best in class of the Airbus line. Instead, Delta subbed in an Airbus 330-300 which is an earlier, less spacious and less comfortable airplane—definite bummer! I found my seat/lie-flat bed to be hard, poorly cushioned, and the foot space in the fully lie flat position inadequate to accommodate my size 13 feet. Nevertheless, 14 hours after take-off, we arrived in Buenos Aires.
Although I got very little sleep due to discomfort, I was excited to land in BA, go through customs, get my baggage and meet the Lodge representative who had transportation immediately available to us to take us to the FBO (General Aviation) side of the airport. There, we met our pilot and co-pilot for the two-hour flight to Entre Rios. We boarded a twin engine prop plane that carried us and all of our baggage to the Los Ombues runway where we touched down smoothly. During our flight, we could see many, many miles of wetlands, rivers, and sparsely populated countryside. Despite the fact that July in Argentina is wintertime, the terrain was stunningly beautiful and I couldn't wait to see more of it from the ground and the water.
The Lodge staff got us and our bags into our rooms and situated. At this point, it was about 5 p.m. so we were encouraged to meet in the lounge and have a cocktail or fine Argentinian wine before dinner at 6:30 p.m. We adjourned to the lounge as suggested, helped ourselves to the bar, and very quickly met four gentlemen from Louisiana with whom we traded introductions and hunting stories. We also met a young family from Charlotte, North Carolina. The dad was a dentist, the mom was a homemaker, and the kids were 13-year old twins, one boy and one girl. It turned out that they live six houses away from one of our group members, who is a long-term Charlotte resident. They had never met before but knew everything else about their neighbors and neighborhood. What a small world!
The fellow who is the Operations Manager for Los Ombues oversees everything and everyone all the time. He has a very busy job at which he is very, very good. He briefed us on the plan for the next day—in fact, every day is the same at Los Ombues. Duck hunting in the morning before breakfast, return to the Lodge for breakfast, break time until 10:30 a.m., go to a Perdiz hunt until 1:00 p.m., return to the Lodge for lunch, depart for dove hunting right after lunch, and shoot doves until exhaustion sets in. Below are some details on each of these events.
Ducks
Duck hunting in Entre Rios (Entre Rios means "between the rivers") is shooting ducks over water with two men in each water-based blind. Since there were four guys in our group, each day I was paired with someone else. This was so each of us got to spend hunting time with every other guy in our group—a great program. I was paired with my friend Art on day one. That day required a 45-minute high-speed boat trip down river to get to our blind. As it was about 45 degrees, dark—we left the Lodge at 5:30 a.m.—and we were flying along at about 35 to 40 miles per hour, it's fair to say that without a stout windbreaker, which I had on, one would freeze to death. We arrived at the blind wearing our warm wear, a beanie, high-quality chest waders provided by the lodge, and equipped with 20-gauge Beretta automatic shotguns. Our boat driver and an additional guide provided us with boxes of ammo and kept track of the ducks we shot as the limit is 20 ducks per day per person. The action began immediately with ducks flying in from every direction in groups of 2, 3, 5, and more. There were breaks in the action but considering that we arrived at our blind and were situated by 6:30 a.m., it is amazing that we limited out by 7:45 a.m. and headed back to the Lodge for breakfast. We were the first guys back of everyone who had gone out that morning.
The second day, my buddy Dwight and I went to a pond-side blind which was very well concealed from a very large pond situated a bit below us. As with the first day, the ducks began moving very soon following our arrival. You are required to wait until sunrise before doing any shooting in Entre Rios—the good news is that, although we arrived in the dark, sunrise was just before 6 a.m. and we were engaged in action very soon thereafter. As it was with the first day, the ducks were in abundance and we were limited out by 7:10 a.m. and back to the Lodge for breakfast. Same kind of ducks as the prior day—many different varieties of teal, rosy bills, pintails, and others of lesser frequency.
Day three was the final day of duck hunting and I was to go with JB who is also Dwight's older brother. I've been hunting with JB for quail and pheasant many times and looking forward to duck hunting together. We were initially going to go back to the river but at the last minute, the staff decided we should go to another pond area which turned out to be connected to and just off the Parana River. Our blind clearly had been unused for a long time so our guides chopped brush and rebuilt it in the dark as we were quite near the Lodge. This time, JB and I had to wait for about 20 minutes until it was legal to shoot. When it was time, the action was fast and furious. Group after group of ducks flew right in front of us, time and again. I could hear our guide with his hand-held clicker counter clicking away as we shot again and again. Between us, JB and I had 38 ducks accounted for in 35 minutes. Incredible! Then, we went completely silent with nary a duck to be seen for the next twenty minutes. At which time, a flight of three flying right at us and, bang, bang, bang! JB got one and I doubled to finish our limit. Our guides were as giddy as we were. An amazing morning! I should note that at the end of each duck hunting event, the guides clean up the expended shell casings, retrieve the ducks (which are donated to local food banks except for a few used at the Lodge), and pick up and stow any decoys which have been deployed. There aren't a lot of decoys placed—typically, ten or fewer. This is very different from the 200 to 250 decoys in a decoy field for land-based duck and goose hunting such as we have done in Saskatchewan, Canada. Back to the Lodge where we had breakfast an hour or more than the other guys and groups that had gone out at the same time as JB and me.
Perdiz
Perdiz are Argentinian partridges. They are often reported to be the most exciting grassland-based bird to hunt as they are extremely reclusive, have to be flushed by a well-trained dog, are incredibly fast when they flush and no matter what, ALWAYS flush and fly away from wherever you may be. Your shotgun skills must be sharp and your reaction times fast to be a successful hunter of these wily birds. They are hunted in large open grassy fields, typically pasturage which is abundant in the Entre Rios province of Argentina. I developed an excruciating case of plantar fasciitis in my right foot during our trip but was determined to at least do one Perdiz hunt while in Argentina. I did that hunt on our first day out and was paired with my friend Art for the event. Our guide had a phenomenal dog who worked the field like the pro he was. Unlike the fast continuous action of duck and dove hunting, this required a lot of walking through grass tall enough to cause a lot of foot drag and effort to put one foot in front of the other. Moreover, you have to be very aware of the underlying terrain as there are plenty of holes and little hills hidden under the grass that can cause you to lose balance, stumble, and otherwise be irritated, especially when you have one agonizingly painful foot. In an hour and a half, our dog flushed two Perdiz and neither Art nor I bagged one. At that point, both of us agreed that our Perdiz hunting day was done and we returned to the Lodge, both of us definitely worse for the wear. When Dwight and JB returned for lunch, they just couldn't restrain themselves from regaling us with tales of their eight Perdiz in the bag and yada, yada, yada. Very irritating!
Doves
Doves have historically been overabundant in several provinces of Argentina. In a province neighboring Entre Rios, however, the dove population has been overhunted and the population has collapsed. The Los Ombues Lodge owner, Carlos Sanchez, is heavily involved in Argentina's regulation of hunting game birds in order to prevent overhunting and the ruination of the Lodge based hunting business which has been an important part of the non-urban business and commerce sector, especially in the rural river delta areas. Carlos wears a heavy mantle of responsibility for being a strong advocate and voice for conservation, wildlife, and land management. He is widely recognized nationally for his role and leadership. He is, in addition, a very interesting international businessman and it was a pleasure getting to know him. He is so quality of experience oriented and guest-centric that Los Ombues has been awarded for excellence by Orvis on multiple occasions.
We had three magnificent days of dove hunting while at Los Ombues. Each day, mid-afternoon, we drove about 20-30 minutes to a dove roosting area where there were areas carved out of the woods, maybe 60 yards wide to create an area for hunters to stand in a fixed station. Doves by the thousands, in waves flew from one side of the open area to the other which means from one wooded area to another. For the couple of seconds that you could see the birds, you had to track, swing, and shoot while the doves were spinning, changing direction, rising, falling, and diving. There is absolutely nothing like this I have ever seen or experienced. I've been dove hunting in California and Texas—Argentina is simply 100 percent different. It is super high speed and there are an unlimited number of targets. It is more than challenging. It requires you to have your best shotgunning game with you to have any degree of success.
For this type of hunting, I chose what is my favorite quail gun at home—a Beretta 28-gauge 686 Silver Pigeon. Mine is a Silver Pigeon III while the one supplied by the Lodge is a Silver Pigeon I. There is no functional difference between the two models—the III has higher quality wood for the stock and forend as well as more elaborate engraving. I understand why the Lodge would opt for the workhorse basic model—guests put literally tens of thousands of shells through each of their guns in a season. My guess is that the Lodge guns are retired annually due to wear and tear. Whatever, mine was in great shape and lock-up was fine. Each day, I expended a case and a half of 28-gauge shells. After the first day, I wore light shooting gloves as reloading that many shells cause a hot spot on my right index finger. The gloves mitigated that problem.
I achieved something like a 70 percent hit rate by the third day and, in fact, was the subject of very good-natured ribbing (due to my success) from both my friends and the fellows from Louisiana who also hunted doves with us, as did the dentist and family from Charlotte. One thing I found really funny was that both of the dentist family twins were dove hunters. The young man stuck with it for the approximately two hours per day of non-stop shooting as did his dad. The mom was an observer and photographer. The daughter was a pretty good shooter but would take a break every fifteen minutes or so. During her break times, she worked on a needlepoint project! At the end of the day, when all is said and done, boys will be boys and girls will be girls. Would that there were more families and kids like these. How delightful!
Leaving the Lodge and Argentina
Our final dinner was bittersweet. We were shot out but had such a good and exciting time getting to that point. All of my dreams and fantasies about hunting Argentina were fulfilled and I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to have the experience. I was almost unable to walk due to the pain in my foot but gladly suffered through it.
We packed up next morning, got transported to the grass runway, watched our little twin-engine plane come in to pick us up and were loaded up and on our way back to Buenos Aires in minutes. The return Delta flight was on the same aircraft model that we'd previously been on and was no more comfortable than before. Nevertheless, we returned to Atlanta where we cleared customs and immigration stations, said our good-byes and went our separate ways to our individual homes. I boarded a 5:30 a.m. flight to Dallas and was in my house again by 9:15 a.m. Literally transported from one world to another in less than 24 hours.
A truly incredible experience. Terrific other guests at the Lodge and all of us enjoyed meeting and interacting with one another. Great staff, guides, and cooks. Great friends together doing something fantastic together. I would not have missed this for anything, including the world-class experience of a private Mediterranean cruise!