In Uruguay...Once Again

The author and Ray Cato

Once again I am having the opportunity to hunt in Uruguay with JP Cacerias (jpdacosta@netgate.com.uy), and this afternoon my friend Ray Cato and I hunted perdiz (Nothura maculosa).

We had a most enjoyable afternoon, and besides watching some excellent dog work, we also got some birds and sent many more off with “two-gun” salutes.

The perdiz is the princess of the upland birds, and they occur in very high numbers in Uruguay, even this late in the hunting season, while the queen (at least in South America) is the much larger, but very similar in appearance, Martineta or Perdigão (Rhynchotus rufescens), but the later bird is protect in Uruguay and unhappily cannot be hunted.

Today I used a Stoeger/Boito/ERA 28-gauge side-by-side, and shot Spanish made ¾ ounces 7 ½ shells to shoot a 10 bird limit on perdiz, and for an inexpensive Brazilian made shotgun, it performed amazingly well. All birds that I hit fell hard, and the many that I missed were entirely my fault.

Hunting perdiz with a side-by-side 28 gauge shotgun is almost a soul searching experience, as this is what my father used to do. I probably will never come close to his 82% hit ratio, but just being able to enjoy the same bird with what is my opinion the best balanced gauge for upland hunting is a great reward.

By the way, JP Cacerias offers some of the greatest and most affordable upland bird hunting anywhere in the world, even if you include the airfare to come down to Uruguay. This trip was a last minute arrangement and I will only be here for three days, but the afternoon was so pleasant that it was worth coming.

The day could not have been prettier, and tomorrow morning we will go after doves and we will let you know how we did.

Just a Fine Evening

Young and Stupid

Yesterday evening I arrived home after a long drive from Guelph, Canada, and as my family is way and my dog in the cannel, there was no reason to be home alone, so I got my gear and drove go the Southern Michigan Gun Club, just minutes away.

To my surprise the clubhouse, skeet and trap fields were closed, and only the Mattawan scholastic group was present at the Five-Stand, so I left the club and drove to On Target Guns & Gunsmithing (www.ontargetgunstore.com), a place where I can always get some good conversation.

Within minutes of my arrival Eric Weeldreyer, one of the owners, invited me to have dinner at this home with his family. The venison “Sloppy Joes” were fantastic!

After dinner Eric took me around his property, where he grew up, and showed me some of the stands where he collected quite an impressive collection of whitetail deer.

Eventually I had to leave to go on some errands, and in my way home I had a very pleasant surprise. Just before getting to my subdivision, coming from Almena Drive, we need to cross a small “Whisky Run Creek”, and I generally slow down, as this is a very used deer crossing.

As I came down the hill there were two young whitetail bucks with their small antlers covered in velvet, not ten feet from the road. I stopped the car, turned on my emergency lights, and took several pictures. Then I asked the deer to get away from the road so they would cause no accidents.

It was almost as if I was not there. They just ignored me and continued grazing on the lush riverine plants. Finally I lost my patience and showed them away, with about the same success as Meryl Streep’s character in “Out of Africa”, and it was just in time as other cars were coming.

The popular saying is that “bucks don’t grow old and big by being stupid”, which is something that these two youngsters have not learned yet.

Anyhow, I hope that these young bucks are a good omen for a good 2012 deer season in "the land of the free".


Have a nice Independence Day!

Old Ways Die Hard

Almost twins

Since 2004 I had the privilege and pleasure to work with a great engineer and greater human being, that I have the honor to call a friend, Tom Riley. Probably his major fault is that while living in Michigan he supports “The Ohio State University” football team.

Over the course of the “Orion Program” (named by me after the mythical hunter) Tom and I traveled extensively to China and especially Brazil. As I have family in Brazil I would travel on Fridays to be able to visit them on some weekends, and for many times Tom joined me.

We survived together the rigors of my sister’s children’s birthday party, enjoyed some good conversation over long hours driving, some moderate amount of libations (just “two fingers” measured in a rather lose way), shared great meals, and had a good time generally.

But two occasions stand apart. We went to a barbeque (or grill) at my sister-in-law Angela and her husband Mauro and something that I had never paid attention to, was suddenly clear to everyone in the party. Tom and my brother-in-law Dito (short for Benedito) look almost like twins.

You can notice the less than generous hair, grey mustache and glasses. I let you figure out who is who.

The other event happened when I took Tom to visit the farm where I grew up, Fazenda Taboa, about 25 kilometers from Orlândia.

Tom served in Vietnam about the same time that I was born (or a bit before that), and he is one of those persons that can talk about that time with a unique perspective and even some humor.

Apparently his main problem with the US Army was that when he landed in Vietnam he was not issued a personal weapon, as he was considered to be “support troop”. No long after that he had to scavenge a rifle and dug himself a foxhole to defend his base when it was attacked by either the Vietcong (or the NVA, I am not sure).

Tom told me that his position was about to be overrun when an army truck backed up to it, the tailgate dropped and a “Meat Chopper” opened fire. The “Meat Chopper” consists of four fifty-caliber Browning M2 machine guns mounted in an anti-aircraft support, but widely used as an antipersonnel weapon.

Tom tells that he was deaf for a couple weeks, but was terribly happy to be in that condition and alive.

To make a long story short, I decided that Tom should have the opportunity to shoot a couple white winged pigeons, one of my all time favorite game bird. I got my old 12 gauge CBC trap gun, a handful of shells and we started to wander around the house looking for the pigeons.

When Tom held that shotgun he changed. He held it at port all the time, started looking around very carefully, kept himself to the very center of the pathway, and walked very carefully, like stepping on eggs.

That situation surprised me a bit and I started joking with him, and then Tom told that this was the first time he held a firearm since he came back from Vietnam. Almost forty years late he was looking for potential ambush, booby traps or land mines.

Suddenly a pigeon flew from one of the very large mango trees and came straight towards us (a very uncommon thing for a weary pigeon to do). Tom shouldered the shotgun, aimed at the bird and fired. The small problem is that rather than hit the pigeon, he hit the high voltage electric wires overhead, and we had a brief, but unique, pyrotechnical show, almost like a miniature white phosphorus grenade.

Tom was fast enough to point out that his intention was to scare the hell out of the attacking pigeon so he could tell all his companions how dangerous and well armed we were, and therefore avoid any big engagement.

There is no doubt that old ways die hard.

I hope that Tom has enjoyed our relationship as much as I did. I know that he holds a grudge against me for introducing him to Brazilian pizza (at BRAZ, in Campinas) and creating a lower appreciation for the US variety. But, how could I tell he would enjoy it so much?

Short Traveling Notes

Piazza Solferino, Torino

I am back in Europe, hunting new business, but I am never very far away from real hunting.

I brought two books in the trip. Kuki Gallman’s “Sognavo L’Africa” (I Dreamed of Africa), which I finished yesterday, and Bob Munger’s “Trailing a Bear”, that describes his many trips and adventures with Fred Bear. I already had watched the movie “I Dreamed of Africa” and read the book in English, but I picked the Italian version on a street market some weeks ago in order to help me improve my Italian grammar and vocabulary.

On Thursday we traveled from Baden-Baden to Frankfurt by car and besides the ever presented elevated hunting stands (in a small field I counted five!), I saw a beautiful colorful rooster pheasant at the corner of a plowed field, and not ten minutes later a saw a Roe buck with nice antlers walking across a field parallel to the tree line.

On Friday, coming back from Tczew to the Gdansk airport I spotted a larger deer, probably a red stag hind still wearing its grey winter coat not too far from the highway.

Finally, today I had lunch at the Cantina Barbaroux in Torino. In their menu they say that this is longest continuously operated cantina in Torino, established in 1902. The main dish was “arrosto di cinghiale con polenta” (roasted wild boar with polenta), and it was good enough to lick the plate, or almost. I used some bread to savor the last drop of sauce and juice.