[Southpaw]

Mexico if you go to some parts of it years ago was and still maybe a great sportsmen paradise. Its just the corruption and drug cartels and justice system is so scary down there. In early 90s when I went I thought was bad, but now. This story gives me hope though.

A good family friend of in laws owned a lodge down there on Lake Guerrero which is near Gulf of Mexico side. Went there a few times on hunting and fishing trips. Lets just say after those trips it took me years before I could even smell tequila without feeling nauseous.

Bass fishing was out of this world and the dove and duck hunting were incredible. Only place where I have been hunting out of the US. My duck hunting experiences were so-so there since when I was there they had some bad droughts, but dove hunting was a whole different level and still have nothing to compare it to stateside.

I felt like the ugly American on my first dove hunt there. They gave me a case of shells, a case of 10 oz Carta Blanca beers in a big cooer to sit on with three bird boys and dropped me off on a side road about 5 miles from the main road from what appeared to be middle of nowhere and I was the last hunter they dropped off in our group. I figured I was a mile away from everyone else. The road I was on was leading to sorghum millet field that was essentially in the middle of a mesquite forest, if there is such a thing. I don't condone drinking and shooting at all, but at the time was just out of college so alcohol tolerance was about as high as it could have been and that was all put in the dang cooler except a few Cokes that I saved for the boys.

Just sat there in the hot sun for an hour drinking about 8 of those beers trying to communicate with the boys since I did not speak Spanish. They were a bit standoffish though as we just sat there, don't blame them. I thought man this is a bust so after the tenth beer one of the boys that supposedly could only speak Spanish, clearly said you better load the gun and get ready in broken English and gesturing. I have been on plenty of dove hunts in my time before this and know they come in flights, but this was not a flight it was an invasion and I was the first line of defense for the field. The amount of doves that I think I saw coming out of the mesquite was overwhelming it had to of been in the thousands.

I was using a lodge gun that was a 12 gauge Browning BPS, which is my favorite semi-automatic gun in the world. Once it started it was continuous shooting for 3 straight hours. Gun got so hot I had tear bottom of t shirt off and wrap around my hand working the pump so not to burn fingers on the barrel. I hardly ever saw the bird boys after than until one came up and tapped me on the back to please shoot the 4 foot rattlesnake boogieing its way straight at me from across the road.

All I know is that I was on fire temperature wise and shooting wise. At the end it looked like a redneck truck accident. There were empty beer bottles, hulls, shell boxes and pile of doves all over the road. Final count 240 doves, 1 snake, 24 beers so ten birds a beer, over a 3 hour time frame so averaged a dove every 45 seconds. Shot 10 boxes of shells so averaged 96% of shots to game retrieved (all time high for me shooting wise), I know those boys missed a few though and did not know how to score the snake. Was shooting a modified choke and I don't think most shots were further than 30 yards since I did not need to shoot at anything farther away.

Scary part is that I felt as sober a church mouse after all that, guess I just sweat it all out.

Also found out what the word pendajo meant when I got back to the lodge, I thought it meant bird down, at least that is what those boys were saying to me as I would point in which direction a bird fell in that mesquite that they would go after.