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Rio Presidio Club de Caza
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Duck hunter flies south to Mexico A blast or warm air hit me as i steppeed out of the air-conditioned. Alaska air 737 onto the tarmac at the aeropuerto internacional de Mazatlan. This trip was starting out like no other duck hunt i had been on before. If this was a duck hunt, where was the rain and snow ? Big tony, the owner of Rio Presidio Hunting Club was waiting for me , having just returned from a morning hunt with my friends. Mazatlan gave us a glimpse of old Mexico: open-air markets on every street, vendors selling fruit and bread to passersby, fenced and gated adobe villas, and brick and corrugated tin shacks with chickens penned in the front yard. In the morning, we headed south, past the airport, through a dozen small villages. In the east, the sun was rising, and soon we could see the countryside. We crossed some low foothills, turned right in Escuinapa, and headed toward the coast. Rio Presidio (www.riopresidio.com) leases hunting rights more than 84,000 acres of lake, estuary, and ranch land for ducks and doves. We left the highway and follow a dirt track back through cactus and scrub, avoiding the brahma cattle that locked up from their breakfast... We would hunt from blinds, using a spread of assorted decoys and a Robo-duck. Tony brought six employees. We have our choiceof browning , beretta, benelli and remington shotguns. For the first morning, i shot an over/ under then swithced to a remingtin 1100. We took a boat to our blinds. Instead of oars or a motor., Fernando pushed the panga, sometimes a chest deep in the warm water. Ducks were all aroud us. Limits are liberal south of the border We hunted doves over a field of uncut sorghum. The birds came in waves of one to 20. By the end of the day, i had fired almost 200 rounds. We hunted ducks again in the morning on a different lake. I was still hoping for a chance at a black-bellied mexican tree ducks the locals call pichihuila. Here, we saw far more teal and pichihuilla. Bluewing teal and black-bellied tree ducks made up the majority of my bag, wich also included spoonbills and cinnamon teal. Sure enough, a flock of over a dozen Mexican tree ducks was coming straight for us out of the morning sun. But they turned and flew straight over Chuck and Polly's blind 60 yards away. Chuck and Polly stood to their feet and market their birds. Chuck swun g with a sixth bird, hit it and then hit it again, dropping it on dry land, back in the trees. In villla Union, we stopped for lunch at El cuchupetas. We ate shrimp and crab on tortillas with mayonesa, picante and lime salsa. For the second course , w ate stuffed crawfish with avocado and rice. the maon coirse was filleted snook, roasted with peppers and tomatoes. Duck hunting in Mexico runs from november through the frist week of march. Resident birds and migratory ducks can be found throughout the season. Many of the rules that we've learned about duck hunting don't apply in Mexico. shotguns need not be plugged, lead shot is legal, limits are liberal, and you don't have to be cold and wet to have a good time. I spun around th blind and saw ducks on the deck, headed straight for my blind. "Pick a bird", i told myself . They flashed into the sunlight, and i focused on a drake in the middle of the flock, and swung ahead of it, squeezing the trigger and watched it fold its wings as the other birds went on by. There were thousands of ducks on the lake -widgein, ruddy ducks , bluebill, lesser scaup, pintail, spoonbills, gadwall, canvasbacks, and teal passed in groups of two to 20. our barrels grew so hot you couldn't touch them. Once, chuck swung on a duck and coudn't shoot because he lost it in the heat wave coming off his barrel. |
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