My first trip to Argentina. JFK to Panama City to Cordoba. Both flights were about 5 hours on Copa. As a kid in NC, dove season was a given, but it was rare for us to limit out, much less have lots of opportunities for shots. Cordoba was unreal. The doves flew all day. I was conservative in my shooting yet shot 76 boxes of 20g Activ shells over 2.5 days. I forget what the gram weight of the payload was, but it worked out to about 0.9 ounces of shot. I was given a Benelli Montefeltro the first afternoon, but requested an OU for the rest of the time, which ended up being a Browning 525 with a straight grip. It fit much better than the Montefeltro, as I am lucky enough to have one fitted gun, and I fit out as a 15.5" LOP. A gel pad shirt from Filson was my recoil pad, and despite shooting 700 to 80 shots a day, I was not affected by the recoil in the face or on the shoulder. However, this was the first time I have ever shot a straight grip shotgun, and the way my hand fit around the stock ended up with the thumb on my right had getting beaten up. Not enough to not shoot, but it became noticeable on the last afternoon. The lodge was fantastic, as was the food and wine. My wife was with me as this was part of a 10th wedding anniversary trip, and she had no problem hanging at the lodge and reading, going for walks on the property, etc. The staff did bring her for lunch every day which we had in the field. If you like meat, this is the place to go, as we had Argentine beef and pork with salad at lunch, with wine and beer if you wanted to do that. Hammocks were set up if you needed a nap. While I am not sure if I would do a dove hunt again, I would have no problem recommending David Denies and the La Dormida Lodge and its staff as a fantastic organization. I want to go to South America again for bird hunting, but I think I would rather do waterfowl the second time around...

I hunted with David Denies at the Los Crestones lodge in June. Everything was top-notch although the hunting could have been better. We have booked for another hunt next July to see if later in the season helps the hunting a bit. We did one afternoon dove hunting and that was enough for me. We'll probably do it again next year but for me the duck hunting was way better. If you can book with Jacana lodge, I've heard that is one of the better duck lodges however Los Crestones is nice because it's single rooms. They were in a new local this year so hopefully by next year they will have it dialed in and the hunting will be better. As it was my father and I shot over 150 ducks in 6 hunts. Perdiz was also available and we did that one afternoon. Our field was not loaded with birds but we managed 5 in a short afternoon. As for guns, we had our choice of Browning Maxus, Benelli, or Beretta for duck hunting. Perdiz was with Beretta O/U 28 bore and doves were either 20 bore Beretta semis or the O/U.
NoCAL