OK I've got a few minutes free. We (wife and me) took a red stag hunt with Toby Griffith set up my mark young. This was on one of ted turners ranches. a 5 day hunt during the roar is really quite an experience. The roar is something to be experienced. The stags are the most aggressive animals I've seen. They do fight to the death, and fight almost constantly for days on end. We would see probably 50 plus stags a day, most having a point or 2 broken off from fighting, but several with their whole rack missing, broken off fighting. We were allowed one management stag and one trophy. Took a 7x8 for a trophy and a big 4x4 for management. In my opinion anyway, they should shoot some more management stags as there were lots around, and they were aggressive and breeding. We'd fish for a few hours in the afternoon, catching brown trout in the 16-22" class, small rainbows (8-12") and perch (they look just a walleye, but have smaller eyes.) Ted turner and a couple friends came down the river one afternoon on a flat trip, while we were fishing, so now I'm on a first name basis with Ted Turner. He calls "who are you" and I call him "sir". This is really a 1st class operation complete with guides imported from montana, so that we had english speaking guides. (very important, since there is little english spoken there). After this we went north of BA with Luis Sier to do some duck hunting and fishing. We were allowed 30 ducks per section per day (so like 60 per day, just in 2 different areas) Shooting 28 ga at ducks may seem light, but a 25 yard shot is a long shot, most taken at about 15 yds. I love to hunt ducks, but shooting that many in a day just seemed kind of wrong. We'd give them to the farm workers who seemed very appreciative of the meat. I realize that there are one hellova lot of ducks there, but here our limit of 4-6 a day sort of has you in that mindset, and 60 a day just was overkill in my mind. Dove shoots are more in the line for that, but my shoulder has a dislocated bone in it and won't take that kind of punishment. Anyway we also went fishing for dorado and pirahna. Catching about 30 or so of each a day. The waterfowl and wading birds are spectacular in this marshy area. This is a great county for not only hunting but to do some traveling about with the wife. Friendly wonderful people live there. My only complaints if you could call them that is that it does get a bit costly when you compare it to africa, and that it is for my tastes a bit civilized (for lack of a better term) since I'm a bit more used to wilder country.

Thanks for the really balanced report and congratulations on the great hunt.

I know that 'twinge' you get when you see a pile of game at the end of the day that is bigger than it 'should' be...

Would you say the duck hunting was challenging? Anything compared to the N American experience or more of a shooting session?

Hope to see some pics of those great stags!!

no the duck hunt was nothing like i am used to. Rather than waiting for some old mallard to circle for half an hour, these ducks would just make a pass and come straight in. The guides would call, but the decoys were 3 roboducks and the dead ones. I guess what really love about duckhunting is waiting out and fooling that old mallard and this was nowhere near that. it was a fun experience just to see and be in the middle of all those ducks and to have a hundred or so coming in all around you