April 2009 Dove Hunt with Rancho Salvaje

First let me stress the importantance of finding your passport at least 2 weeks prior to traveling internationally. Do not assume it is where you remember leaving it. If you do discover that it is missing the day you are to leave, drive immediately to your regional passport office. They close at 3:30.

If you fail at all of this call your Senator's office and hope you remebered to send a check. If you did not you will still get help but the supporting them is always a good idea.

The hunt was great, accomodation and hospitality up to Rancho Salvaje's normal high standard. The shooting was very good as well, but it was very dry in La Pampa. The birds were having to go much farther to get water.

We still had average hunts of 300 birds or more. A few of us really were fired up and got 600 per hunt.

The photo above is from our last day. We are showing our support for our favorite nature conservancy, People Eating Tasty Animals, or PETA for short.

The guy 3rd from the left is my buddy Ric. He passed away since this photo was taken, but we were lucky to share these memories with him before he left us.

Duck and Goose Hunting the Texas Coast

Well the duck and goose season has been one of the better ones this year. To some part that is due to the fact that I have been hunting at two of the best duck and goose clubs on the Texas Gulf Coast, Halls Bayou Ranch and The Bucksnag. Both have are equally great in their own right.

Bucksnag is a really nice lodge set up for gentleman's hunting. The 'Snag feeds you all meals, has nice accommodations and a wonderful staff. The food is awesome, really stunning South Texas German / bohemian fare. These folks have the hospitality side of things down to an art. I am accustomed to being well cared for, hell catered to and pampered and these folks do not miss a lick. That is saying something, because I am hard to please, demanding and perfectionist. Mind you it is not the Four Seasons, it is a duck lodge but I really like the place.

Beyond that the goose hunting is awesome, stunning, and not the ball breaker that goose hunting normally is. It is a seasonal thing so come end of duck season they shut down until the opener of teal season the next year.

Halls Bayou Ranch is a great place, just 40 minutes from downtown is 13,000 acres of prime duck hunting, fishing, hog hunting, and general outdoorsmanship. It is a very special place, an endangered species that looks back 50 years to what everyone used to be excited about here on the 3rd coast. It is not the service organization that Bucksnag is, but they do a great job of providing guides, building habitat, and managing the resource. There is a lodge and they cook a breakfast to feed Lee's Army, but most of the cooking and goings on are put on by the members entertaining and just passing a good time.

I have some great friends there and that is much of the fun. Now we solved the problem of not having accommodations up to standard by moving in a 5 bedroom 3 bath house, referred to as "The Palace" by our hunting buddies. Not that what they have is bad, but it frees me up to just be able to show up and not have to take lodge space out of play for other folks. And the dog can sit on the couch, hell sleep in bed for that matter.