Mexico - A Dove Hunter’s Paradise!
Wing-shooting in old Mexico has been a relatively well kept secret for years among die-hard Texas hunters. Most everyone has heard about the abundance of birds and wonderful habitat that are a natural extension of our South Texas region. What keeps many out, among other things, is the perceived hassle and cost of the undertaking itself. Fortunately, for those of us who know how to overcome the obstacles, it is a bird hunters dream and an annual sabbatical that we try to make every year.
This year’s trip was for Dove in the northern state of Tamaulipas, Mexico where local farmers work the grain fields in the lush San Fernando Valley. Our group of hunters were the guests of a private lodge maintained and operated by a small group of Texas outdoorsmen who have been doing this for over four decades. As a matter of fact, Texas artist John Cowan painted a picture of this same area in his picture Second Wave, and he describes it very well in the John P. Cowan, A Texas Treasure book. Cowan writes of the “Mexican Whitewings” and their migratory habits driven by food and weather. He describes the scene perfectly with his description of the fields, distant mountains and the “bird boys” who who turned out for us as well.
A dove hunt in Mexico has several unique attributes that are hard to duplicate back in the United States. The obvious one is the sheer abundance of birds and the generous limits of the Mexican government. The other is the ambiance of rural low lying mountain ranges sprawling out into farmlands that make the land uniquely beautiful. Finally, its the pleasure of hunting with the Mexican people who are amazingly resilient and extremely hard working. Something that serves them well when it comes to finding downed doves in the desert scrub of the area. The dove season here starts around August and runs through October for whitewing and February for mourning dove. Each hunter may purchase up to two permits for a limit of 210 birds per hunter. To bring your own gun, your permit must be completely filled out and include the exact serial numbers of each gun. It is not advised to take cartridges over the boarder but to purchase them at your destination.
A typical hunting trip here lasts several days with two hunts a day at various locations. Our hunts over three days ranged from hunting low-lying hills similar to those found in the Texas Hill Country to desert scrub along grain fields near the Rio Concho. We timed both our morning and afternoon hunts to arrive around an hour prior to the bird’s daily flight patterns. Like clockwork, they would start flying in the morning just as the sun peeked its rim above the earth’s and repeat the process in the late afternoon. A typical shoot yields the average shooter around thirty birds and, depending on the situation, can yield any combination of whitewing or mourning dove. Our hunt this year was almost exclusively whitewing and we had above average shooting since we missed the hurricanes that came through the area this season.
To hunt Mexico, it is advisable to work with a reputable outfitter who can help you with the planning and paperwork required of such a trip. Despite the process being somewhat tedious, the overall experience is one that just can not be ignored since it offers great hunting and is relatively easy to get to from our state. I have driven almost as much to shoot a twelve bird limit in South Texas. Now, we have hundreds of birds for the table the rest of the year.
