ARGENTINA: Epic Argentina Hunt

[Red Leg]

Notice how tall and wide just the skull is...

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One hell of a buff. I'll get my opportunity early next year.

 

[Green Chile]

One hell of a buff. I'll get my opportunity early next year.

Where are you going? Will you rent a camp rifle? I have a lot of thoughts on that subject I will be posting here in the report.

 

[WAB]

Great hunt and fantastic trophies sir!

 

[Green Chile]

Ok, so from my perspective the hunt was over. I had accomplished my major goals and could have kept shooting trophies but that would have detracted from my main experience being the buffalo. It's not about quantity but about quality of the experience. The rest of the hunt I spent time with the skinners observing their processes, etc. to share with you here.

I was told by the camp manager that the most valuable employee was their head skinner. The man was amazing to watch in action. Here he is caping my buffalo in the field...

 

[Green Chile]

Here are some more photos of the skinner's work and a video of the last 2 weeks of stag trophies to give you a sense of the quality and consistency of this ranch's stag program.

 

[WAB]

Absolutely incredible!

 

[BourbonTrail]

That buffalo almost has Aussie sized horns. The hand in the picture really gives scale.

Oh, and yes +1 on stag trophy quality being incredible.

 

[Green Chile]

Yes I agree. I would say in some ways that my stag was one of the lesser ones taken that week if you consider score to be the main factor (I don't but some feel that way). The head guide estimated mine (based on 40 years experience) of being around 360. Many taken were 380+. I have a photo of one taken the week before us that was over 400"...free range! The high fence ones look ridiculous to me...like cartoon exaggerations. Take a look at our group photos just to get a sense of what is happening almost every day on this ranch.

 

[cls]

Thank you for a well written report. Well done on the stag and buffalo. Congratulations.

 

[Green Chile]

Thank you for the compliments. As usual in my hunt reports, I will be offering some thoughts on a few topics and observations that may help someone to have a good trip themselves.

Let's talk about the guides for a minute. They were all locals, Spanish speaking of course and most of them spoke very limited English. This was an area of general comment that I heard from the group of hunters. There was a definite language barrier for most of the hunters and there were moments of confusion/frustration in the field. Imagine a scenario where the guide is describing which animal to shoot...is that 2nd from the left...or the right...and the animals just moved again...which one is it? Each guide had a CB radio and some would call back to the lodge to get an interpretation for the hunter into English. That seemed clunky at best. I have enough Spanish to work out my hunting with no issues. Most hunters do not have that option. Consider learning some basic Spanish before you go to Argentina. Some used Google Translate but that only works if you have a signal.

There was evidence of the guides having some poor economic conditions...they wore a lot of clothing left behind by hunters and those that had nice Sitka or Kuiu clothing wore it with pride. One hunter left his new boots, Kuiu jacket and a good tip to his guide. I thought that was pretty awesome. Consider taking some gear to leave with the guides. You have more than you need already so give some to him and he will never forget that.

The guides were eager to hunt but there was a wide range of skills among them. Some had grown up on the ranch and knew every shortcut and honey hole for game. Some were inexperienced and didn't understand tracking or the use of wind in hunting. Some guides actually hunted the wind backwards and the client had to try and explain that to their guide. Most of the guides were good and a few were very inexperienced. The conclusion I made on this subject is that there is so much game of good quality here that if the guide gets it wrong, they just try again. This would have been a bigger issue if opportunities were less frequent on the ranch. Pros and cons to having such good quality on the ranch.

I laughed some at my guide as he would be walking in his rubber boots and they would scrape against a bush or something...he would then turn to me and say Shhhh. He was shushing me for his own noise. Pretty funny as I actually walk very quietly and often wasn't even moving when he would turn to me. Those are some of the things you remember that make a trip special.

 

[Green Chile]

Let's talk about guns for a minute. You will notice that I didn't bring a gun on this trip and neither did anyone else. It was recommended that we rent a camp gun/ammo. Unlike Africa, there are no VIP services for gun permitting. I think this is a HUGE opportunity for an enterprising business person who speaks Spanish and maybe has some govt connections in Argentina or at the airports. No one is bringing in guns to the country that has MORE hunters annually than all of Africa combined. Let that sink in...no typo, no exaggeration. We were told that you can fill out the permits but end up waiting hours for an official to show up and sign it. You might miss your flight or have trouble with your next leg of the journey waiting on someone to arrive. Some have waited 8 hours...some have waited over a day. There's no way to plan around that kind of randomness. We all missed our own guns and optics.

What about camp gun/ammo quality? Ehhh...that could definitely improve. All of the guns were well worn but operational. Scopes varied a lot from 2.5x to 6x to variable in totally random ways mixed with a variety of calibers...all different kinds of safeties and models of guns. Ammo was whatever was left over...3 of this type...5 of that type mixed together...different bullet weights for the same caliber...no ammo for the 375 and then oh wait, we found 3 rounds somewhere. You are also charged for ammo use and that is not clearly specified at all. There seemed to be a pattern of $5 per round fired but that wasn't consistent. I shot less than most of the group but paid a lot more. Was that because I shot one round of 375? Hard to say.

If there isn't someone to step up and run a VIP gun permit service for Argentina, I would like to see this outfitter buy some new guns/optics/ammo. Gun rental fees were $250 per hunter plus ammo costs. Let's say 10 hunters per week...that's $2500 in gun rentals for 1 week. Season is at least 6 weeks long, which is 15k in rental fees. Let's go buy 10 Savage rifles in .308 or 30-06 and 300 win mag. Let's get some basic Vortex or Leupold scopes for them...something like 2-10x. Let's get a couple 375's and set them up with 1-4x or something like that. Let's buy a quantity of ammo for those 3 calibers that is consistent. Maybe do that every 5 years or something like that. That would be a better experience for everyone.