Wine Down: South America Hunt {Argentina}

Today's blog post has absolutely nothing to do with me (for once). Don't worry, I didn't secretly go on vacation to South America without telling y'all. This post is all about my brother and my husband. I'm writing about it because I like the pictures and I just happen to think that this was a really cool experience worth sharing.

Warning: Many, many animals were harmed in the making of this blog post. Therefore, if you have a strong emotional or moral dilemma with the killing of animals then you should probably go ahead and click your way on out of here. It's just birds though. No puppies or kittens or anything on the endangered species list. However, the birds are not wasted and actually benefit the local community, I promise.

My brother, Chris, has probably the coolest man job ever. He takes people on international hunting and fishing trips. See, I told you it was cool. On a daily basis, he mostly organizes and sends people on the trips his company offers, but a few times throughout the year he does actually get to travel on some of the trips. His company sends people on trips all over the world, but my brother specializes in the South America trips. Even though you are going out to the middle of nowhere in South America to hunt or fish, the lodging and the experience is 1st class. So if you have a special sportsman in your life who you are in need of a gift idea for, my brother and his company, Trek International Safaris, can get you set up. My brother also does a lot of photography for the company, so you should go to their website and check out his pictures.

Ever since my brother started working for Trek, my husband has been dying to go on one of their trips. Earlier this year, Jared approached me with the idea. I figured that he might as well go now before we start a family and get bogged down with all that life stuff. So last month, Jared left me for 9 days and embarked on this South American adventure with my brother as his guide. If you know my brother well, you know that this was a rather terrifying pill for me to swallow. My parting words with the boys before they left for the airport, "Please don't get thrown into jail. I really don't want to have to wire money to the government in Argentina or Uruguay to get you back." Luckily, they made it back safely with plenty of stories to share.

My husband wrote down what they did each day of their trip (good to know I'm finally rubbing off on him after being together for 7 years), which makes writing this blog post a lot easier, but I will spare you from all the story-telling so we're not here forever. I am splitting this trip into two posts as well, one for each country they traveled to. Starting here with Argentina...

Chris and Jared took an overnight flight to Buenos Aires and didn't waste any time when they landed in Argentina. They drove straight to the first lodge in Monte Laguna for an afternoon duck hunt immediately after stepping off the plane.

This hour and twenty minute hunt resulted in 32 ducks with a mixture of speckled teal and white checked pintails. Not your average duck hunt back here in the states.

In Argentina, they do not use dogs to retrieve their ducks like we do here in the states. They walk around and pick them up themselves or they use the "bird boys". The bird boys are local young guys who work with you on your hunt. They are essentially like a golf caddy, but for hunting. They carry your shotgun shells and retrieve your birds for you. They do get paid for their work, but they also get paid in birds. Everything that is killed on these hunts is donated to the bird boys to take home to their families to either eat or sell in the market.

Jared in one of the hunting lodges in Argentina

The kill from one of their morning hunts...another 32 ducks in only 45 minutes. In case you weren't already aware of this fun fact, the seasons in the Southern hemisphere are backwards from what they are here in America. So even though the guys went on this trip in June, it was actually winter in Argentina.

My brother managed to kill these two ducks with one shot. When the ducks fly over the ponds in Argentina, they are in such a dense abundance that it is very common to kill a vast number in a short amount of time. It's not a matter of how many ducks are available to shoot, its a matter of how fast you can reload your gun.