Monday 28 August 2023

After meeting Sylvia at Auckland International Airport in the early evening, we boarded the 12.5 hour LATAM flight to Chile about 6:30pm. We arrived in Santiago for a short stop over before heading on to Buenos Aires, where we checked into the Sofitel Hotel at about 8pm on the Monday evening.

Tuesday 29 August 2023

After a night with very sleep, (probably the worst jet lag I’ve ever had – I thought by now I’d at least be well practiced) I headed back to the airport to catch the flight to Cordoba, leaving Sylvia in Buenos Aires to catch up with her team there. Cordoba is Argentina’s second largest city with a population of about 3 million people, situated approximately 700 kms northwest of Buenos Aires. It could be called the farming capital of Argentina as the eastern side of the country is basically flat and divided into thousands of fields. This area was originally known for its beef until some bright spark decided there would be more money in crops so they ripped out a lot of the fencing. Shortly after, the crops had several years of failure. At this point the farmers didn’t have the money to put the fences back in so nowadays cattle are mainly farmed in feedlots by large crop owners who use the grain to feed the cows to produce some of the world’s best beef.

A big problem in this part of the world are doves, of which there are a number of species, all of which wreak havoc with the crops. Many years ago farmers tried poisoning them but the side effect of that was that this poisoned the hawks, eagles, foxes and everything else that ate the doves. About 30-years ago dove hunting lodges started to be set up around the area, of which there are now around 30, catering for between 20 and 40 hunters each. People come from mainly the US, but many other parts of the world as well to help keep the population of the little buggers down. Sylvia shouted me this trip for my recent birthday.

At Cordoba I was met by one of the managers from the Sierra Brava Lodge, and driven about an hour northwest to the lodge. Arriving at the lodge, I put my kit in the room and was taken to the gun room by Jose, the armourer, where I selected two twenty-gauge Benelli semi-automatic shotguns and a Benelli under and over. I then joined Roy and Rodney, from Florida, for lunch. Soon we were in the vehicle heading out for the afternoon shoot. Thirty minutes later I was dropped off by a little hide, consisting of some dead bushes poked in the ground in a semi-circle up to about stomach height. 500 rounds of ammunition and a couple of guns were dropped off along with Raul, the loader, and we were into it.

Every time I fired a shot, or two, or three, or four, I’d turn the gun towards him and he shoved in some more rounds. The birds just kept coming. I’m not sure, but I think we arrived about 2:30 and suddenly it was 5:00, the birds quietened off and I looked down to see that I had gone through just under 500 rounds. During that time, the Benelli semi-auto started to have quite a few stoppages, the barrel getting extremely hot – I had to be really careful not to touch it – and in the latter part I switched to the under and over.

Back at the lodge, a drinks table and comfortable chairs were set up out the front of our rooms and Roy, Rodney and I sat and chewed the flat over a couple of drinks before dinner. They have been coming dove shooting for 13 years and have shot at many lodges around the country but this one is by far their favourite as it offers the best food, service and shooting. At 7:30 we moved into the dining room, joining Daniel, the manager, for dinner at a table that would easily cater for twenty people, which is the maximum that this lodge caters for.

Over dinner I gained a good insight into the history of dove hunting in the area, some of which I have already mentioned. Sierra Brava was set up about 15 years ago, by a couple of blokes who had been coming to the area dove hunting for years. The building itself is originally a Pony Express stop on the route from Buenos Aires to Bolivia, built in 1874. The owners found it in ruins and have put it back together. It is now a historic site.

Around the walls, both in the dining room and outside, are dozens of plaques with people’s names on them. They start with 1,000 birds shot in a day – both Roy and Rodney have their names on these – and they go 2, 3, 5, and 10,000, the 10,000 being the world record board, with seven names on it, two people shooting 10,000, one 11,000, two 12,000, one 13,000, all from Texas, with the world record holder Toby Thomas, also from Texas, shooting 14,066 doves in a day. Apparently he started shooting at first light, with five guns on the station, and continued shooting until last light – apparently firing something like 18,000 rounds. That’s a bloody good day out shooting.

After dinner we headed back out to the drinks table, where I enjoyed another short chat with Roy and Rodney, before they headed off to the airport for their 1am flight to Florida.

Wednesday 30 August 2023

At 8:00 I joined Daniel for breakfast. By 8:30 we were on the road heading for today’s shooting stand. Hitting the main road, we turned left, headed to Jesus Marie, where we turned east and headed about 10kms down a dirt road to a recently harvested cornfield. There a little stand had been set up backing onto some trees in the middle of the paddock. I continued with the under and over, which I had shot much better with in the latter part of yesterday. The birds just kept coming and I just kept shooting. About 10:00 the numbers quietened down a bit. By that stage we had been joined by a number of hawks and eagles, which glided above us, oblivious to the lead flying through the air. I was really careful not to undergo the embarrassment of hitting one. At one stage Raul handed me a coffee, laced with Baileys. I thought he had said “would you like some milk?” I get zero points for Spanish.

All of a sudden it was noon and I had shot just under 300 birds. It was time to head back to Jesus Marie to the Parilla de Pipi restaurant to feast on beef and barbecued pork and some vegetables for lunch. Over lunch, Jose explained that most people on their first-time dove experience have a hit rate of about 30% so I felt a bit better about what I thought was my poor shooting yesterday at just under 50%. The lodge goes through between 1.5million and 2 million rounds of ammunition per year for around a million birds.

After lunch we headed back to the field where they put me in a hide in the same patch of bush but facing south instead of west. Jose suggested I use the Winchester semi-automatic 5-shot they had with them, jokingly saying I could get to 1,000 birds for the day. Having only shot 278 in the morning, to me, that looked highly unlikely.

As the afternoon drifted along the birds kept coming and I kept shooting and by about 3:30 I had used the 1,000 rounds we started with in the morning, and had shot 850 birds. Raul got on the radio to Jose, who soon arrived with some more ammunition and then stuck around to watch me shoot the last 150-odd birds. These things fly really fast and some of the shots were requiring a couple of metres of lead; others came in really close and only required a bird-length. By that time of the day I was often getting 5 out of 5 shots before presenting the gun to Raul for reloading. He was a busy man, not only reloading, but also keeping count of the birds with a manual counter hanging around his neck. All of a sudden Raul showed me the counter – 1,016. I looked at the cartridges remaining in the box and had fired 1,238 rounds for the day. I had taken the advice of Roy and Rodney, who had recommended I use a shoulder pad, so I had purchased one last night as after yesterday’s 500 rounds I could feel the shoulder a little.

We packed up and headed back to the lodge, leaving the dead birds for the hawks and eagles to feast on as they had already made a good start on most of them. Often the birds are picked up by the birders, as they are called, and given to the locals or fed to local pigs. I had seen a fox snooping around yesterday and, at one stage, a large rat ran across the field. They certainly get a good, easy feed around here.

Back at the lodge I enjoyed a pre-dinner drink before heading into the dining room, where Daniel again joined me for dinner. Over dinner Daniel explained how over Covid the company had kept everyone employed and looked after their employees really well, most of whom have been here for many years. He also went on to explain how, over the last couple of years, the companies that manufacture ammunition in Argentina have had great difficulty sourcing powder so there has been quite a shortage of shotgun ammunition. As most people come for three full days the allocated ammunition has to be rationed out over the three days. Daniel explained that it had been more than a couple of years since anyone had shot 1,000 birds in a day so I got lucky in more ways than one. At that point he presented me with a 1,000 bird cap.

Thursday 31 August 2023

After a leisurely breakfast and a walk around the property to take some photographs, Jose ran me to Cordoba airport. Arriving early as the traffic had been pretty light, I checked in and headed through security to the gate lounge. I had just finished enjoying some lunch wen I heard my name called over the PA and headed up to the counter to be told I had to go down through the exit and back to the check-in where the police wanted to see me. On arrival at the counter I was escorted out the back where my bag, which I normally carry on, but had to check in this time, was sitting alone in a big shed and needed t be searched. It turned out that a jar of vitamin pills had caught their attention in the x-ray as something suspicious. And people tell you vitamins are supposed to be good for you! Luckily the flight was running a bit late so I had plenty of time to get back through security and board the flight back to Buenos Aires.

Landing in Buenos Aires I checked in on line and headed to the departure area, where a polite young lady informed me that I was in the wrong airport and told me there was a bus available to take me to the right one. Luckily I had plenty f time to take the two-hour bus ride from Jorge Newberry to Ezeiza. Eventually Sylvia and her colleagues turned up and we boarded or it France flight to Paris and on to Marseille.