It had been too long since I have been hunting in Mexico, so this past weekend I loaded my dogs and my gear in the truck and joined my buddy John Anderson in Carranza. It normally takes about 3 1/2 hours to make the trip there, but this time the border guards decided that John must have looked suspicious because they decided to search his truck and the utility trailer he was pulling. They also had to inspect his guns, ammunition and paperwork, so we spent an extra half hour while they satisfied their whims.
We grabbed a couple of tacos from a roadside vendor about a half an hour south of the border and then got to Carranza about 7:30. After putting the dogs in the kennels we laid out our gear for the morning shoot, watched a little T.V., and wandered off to bed.
On Friday we had a morning hunt and an afternoon hunt for doves. Rigo, our guide, had located a harvested maize field that had a lot of feed left in it and the doves were swarming to it. We probably saw four thousand doves that day. Between John and I we reduced the population by 200 birds which means that we shot around 500 shells.
Saturday morning we went to the lagoon where we hunt geese and ducks. It was a beautiful morning. We set up the goose decoys by the light of a very bright full moon and then watched a beautiful sun rise. We killed a few ducks at first light and then waited for the geese to arrive. We were able to call in about four small flights of snow geese and we downed four geese. This late in the season they are pretty suspicious and several groups wouldn't even take the time to examine our decoys. We were able to get a few more ducks after the geese stopped coming in, so we ended the morning with four snow geese and ten ducks. Not bad for a late season hunt.
We gave all of our doves and most of the waterfowl to the guides and their families. We grilled up half of a goose breast for lunch. It was very tasty.
It was good to be able to get down there again. I didn't do it very much this year for various reasons. As I sat in the blind watching the sun rise and listening to the sounds of the blackbirds and the coots as they awoke to the new day, I was reminded of the comments of a friend of mine who was an officer in the marines. We were enjoying a similar morning a few years ago, and as he observed the beauty around us he said, "We ought to do something like this for the enlisted men". On similar occasions, my Grandpa Dickson, who barely had two nickels to rub together, would often say, "I wonder what the poor people are doing today".
It's a privilege for me to be able to get out from time to time and have these kinds of trips. I know that I feel like a twenty year old when I am watching my dogs work and enjoying the outdoors. I'm looking forward to some trips with my grandsons if I can talk their moms into letting them go. The world is different now than when I grew up.
