doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Hunting in South America?

Totally agree with tw about taking your own guns. If you let the outfitter (personally I can only speak for Luis' people) handle the permit(s) you will have no problems. Don't buy into the argument that a semi-auto is necessary to "tame" recoil. On both trips I have been either the only one of eight, or one of two in a group of sixteen, who shot a 20 gauge o/u, the rest shooting autoloaders. Many of them had horrible recoil problems because of poor gun fit and poor mounting. I had zero recoil issues, even shooting some 1 oz. loads the last morning at some very high doves.

tw, the roost that Luis owns near the old La Paloma lodge, which I mentioned in an earlier post, is an amazing place. He asked me and one other friend if we'd like to see it in '03. We jumped at the chance, and he took us in it one morning just after first light. It was a surreal experience. He explained that he protects the roost very diligently and never allows shooters in there. Doves were fluttering around us much like butterflies. He has a biologist spend several days inspecting it each year, checking for possible disease problems, etc., and trying to get some kind of a number on the population, and whether it is increasing or decreasing. The last "census" taken had put the APPROXIMATE number at 25 million, and had shown an increase of around a million per year for several years. The doves there hatch five broods a year.

Luis protects the roost with a vengeance, and refers to it as his "money in the bank". Even though most of the doves shot in that area are leaving or returning to the roost, you are shooting far enough away from it that he feels it is no threat to the roost itself. If must not be, with the numbers increasing as they are.

He told me he has now leased another roost some distance away that holds twice that number.

Stan

If you go, please consider doing the combination trip, where you'll get all the dove shooting you'll want, plus some wonderful dog work on the quail like Perdiz, plus decoyed Pigeons, plus a little waterfowl. The dove only trip is the least expensive unless you go nuts shooting too many shells, but it is just too much of a good thing!...Geo

The $1000.00 a day figure is fairly close to use as a good average price point. But it may fall short when you do the math on all the little things which will surely be there.

I went to Argentina for my first time last year and had a ball. So much so that I'm all signed up and going again in June.

Here's the way things are lined up this year and the costs so far. I will be going on a six day shoot for doves & pigeons. The package price for the six day hunt will be $4050.00 excluding airfare. The package seems expensive on the surface compared to others that are avalible, until you break it down. In the price of this package is included 4000 rounds of 20ga ammunition. Then after you have used this up, additional 20ga will be $12.00 a box. From my experience last year I shot between 900 to 1200 rounds per day and felt very comfortable at these numbers. I could have shot more, but chose not. So this year I'm planning on the last two days of the shoot. The ammo costs will be on me. I'm budgeting another $1500.00 just for ammo above that supplied in the package.

You then need to figure in tip's to the field staff and the estancia staff @ another $300.00 to $500.00. Add this all up and the in country trip will be approximately $6000.00 for six days of shooting.

I've already bought my plane tickets to fly round trip from Denver to Cordoba via-Santiago & cost right at $1500.00 Now add this to the trip and the total is $7500.00 which works out to a $1250.00 per day cost for the actual time spent in Argentina.

The best advice I can offer is to make sure you know you can afford the trip. Don't just look at the outfitters package and then add airfare. Then justify in your mind "thats not to bad a price, I can do this". If you do you'll be short changing yourself when you get down there. As stated by others "The ammo is where the profit margin is for the outfitters". They know that the avreage guest will "AMP-Out" on the bird numbers and shoot away like crazy. I've talked to guy's that have had seven and eight thousand dollar ammunition bills on thier trips down there. Be sure to budget for the unexpected and keep in mind that the outfitter possibly may not take credit cards for these expenses. Ask about payment meathods before you go.

The other hidden costs are gun permits will be $100.00 for each gun you take. Last year Argentina added an entrance visa fee on Americans of $320.00 if I remember correctly & had to be paid when you go through customs. But this Visa is good for eight years, so it's a one time cost that will cover several trips.

Another cost to consider is gun cost. Most outfitters are now charging $50.00 to $75.00 a day to rent a gun that has seen one heck of a lot of ammo run through it. If you go this route figure the costs into your budget and be prepared to shoot thousands of rounds through a gun that might not fit you correctly and could beat the crap out of you. If you decide to take your own gun, you may want to purchase one just for doing this trip, if you don't already have one that can stand up to the task. If your thinking that my old trusty Remington 1100 will do just fine, you better think again. The 1100 is a great gun, but it more than likely will fail and let you down on an Argentina dove shoot. For auto-loaders the Benelli's & Beretta's hold their own, in O/U the Beretta's, Rizzini B's, & Guerini's will do the trick. The main thing is to shoot the gun a bunch before you go and make sure it fit's you correctly.

My take is this.

I put off doing an Argentina dove hunt for several years because I couldn't justify in my mind the costs of doing one. Now that I've done one. I recommend to anyone that loves wing shooting that they owe it to themself to do it at least once.

Life is a gift enjoy all the pleasures of life you can afford.

It's a short ride.

I have been to Argentina and Uraguay twice each. The other posts have covered costs and travel quite well. My expierence is that Argentina has better high volume dove hunting and waterfowl, but perdiz in Uruguay is excellent. Hector Sarosola is the outfitter that I went with in Uruguay and has a great operation with good mixed bag hunting.Enjoy it, for a wing shooter its paradise.

I'm looking at all of these outfitters and their web-sites, great stuff!!

Good post, dogon.

Regarding the total costs, each one must weigh whether it is justifiable or not. I'm not a rich old farmer, by any means, but I DO derive great enjoyment from dove shooting. Celebrated my 50th anniversary of shooting them last year. I continue to plant a field for doves each year for myself and my friends. When you tally up all the costs involved in taking a 25 acre field out of production, add in all the production costs for a field of high yielding sunflower, controlling the weeds and prepping it all for a good shoot, you have spent just as much as you would on a 4 day trip to Cordoba. And...... you MIGHT get couple of good shoots off it, if you're lucky.

No comparison in the amount of shooting for the dollars spent. If I didn't get so much enjoyment from hosting a dove shoot, I couldn't ever justify the expense.

Stan

I would like to ask Bill about the Dorado fishing in Argentina. Where in Argentina did you fish and how exciting was the fishing? I have been to the Cordoba area twice with J J Caciera for doves and pigeons and had an excellent trip in every respect. Are there Dorado in the Cordoba area? Can Dorado fishing be compared to trout or salmon fishing? How many fish can one reasonably catch in a day? When one shoots more doves and pigeons in one day in Cordoba than you might in years upon years in the US, one cannot help but wonder if the fishing meets that expectation as well?

Check out Uruguay if you want to fish for Dorado; not enough water around Cordoba...Geo

To set the tone, I don't really subscribe to the concept of the "numbers boards" at the Argentine lodges, but at El Cortijo, which is 45 minutes North of Cordoba, the name of the holder of the top daily tally has changed twice this year. For about 5 years, a Spainiard had held the top spot at approx. 4100 doves in a day. Then it was topped by a Canadian with approx. 4300 igniting approx. 7000 cartridges and now a vendor from Nebraska holds the top slot with approx 4500 doves with approx 5500 cartridges.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

Bill, how good is the Golden Dorado fishing?