NEWS & REPORTS
Our Friends from England are Back
The 7th of February of 2017 we welcome Derek Shepherd (father), Damian Shepherd (son) and two friends, Colin and Michael from England. They arrived at Cordoba at 13.25, we picked them up and drove them straight to the lodge to have lunch and get in the right clothes for hunting.
Our friends have chosen to stay in La Loma Lodge, our ideal accommodation for families, groups of friends and exclusive guests. This lodge is a beautiful traditional Estancia that was renovated in 2014. It was built by one of the wealthiest families of Argentina in 1908. Situated next to the biggest dove roost in Argentina, the rides to the fields are a convenient 10 to 40 minutes. La Loma’s staff, the delicious Argentine meals, as well as copious amounts of doves combine to make this a very memorable dove-shooting trip.
After our guests had lunch and were into the right clothes, we started our way along Route 60 to the area of Los Pozos. Even though the day was short given its late beginning and the amount of birds was not impressive, the hunting was good quality because our guests aim at high flying doves.
The second day of the trip started with English punctuality at 8 am after a delicious breakfasts that features local and typical goodies. Our guests request was to hunt a differt dove species, the Torcaza. For that reason, we chose a different destination: San Pedro Toyo, located to the south of the city of Dean Funes, 18 km on a gravel road. We spent the entire day there, Colin and Derek were hunting all day long while Michael and Demian, who are not as enthusiastic about this hunt, decided to hunt in the morning and relax after lunch. Miched did hunt for some time in the afternoon, though. At about 5 pm we started our way back to the lodge because we had a long way to go.
The third day was completely different. Our guests this time are close friends to us and they wanted to experience another activity, so we planned a fly fishing trout outing for them in Sierras de Cordoba, the highlands of our province.
For this reason we started the day earlier, we left the lodge at 7 am and we started making our way to La Quebrada del Condorito. It was a three hour journey till we got to our fishing destination. The two guides that were with us this time were from the city of Jesus Maria, nearby the lodge. Once we were in the river, we set our equipment, mostly number 6 rods with floating lines, and nymphs as dry flies. We had two hours of intense fishing and fun. Even though our guests were having fun, their inexperience in the fly fishing area made it difficult to get the fish after they had taken the fly. We had our lunch break earlier than expected because a quite serious storm started. After 40 minutes the rain and the lightening didn’t let up. Unfortunately, it was impossible to continue the fishing with those weather conditions so we had to start our way back to the lodge. It was definitely not a great day, but the unexpectedness of the weather cannot be controlled.
On the third day our friends went back to dove hunting. This group enjoys high flying doves, so we chose the location for the day based on that. We went towards the north of the province along route 9. The day was overcast with some drizzles, but it was bliss compared with the storm we had to weather the day before! Derek, Demian, Colin and Michael got a really good number of birds shot down. From our wide variety of guns, they used our over and under guns, caliber 20, to get a closer shot with longer reach. Lunch was in a cabin in the field we were that day.
Overall, the day was really nice and the experience was just what they wanted: good high flying bird quality. In this way, the day made up for the unexpected drawbacks of the day before.
The 11th of February we went to the same area as the day before, but a different field. The day was sunny and way nicer than the days before making the birds fly lower. The volume of birds shot down was really good but the flying quality wasn’t that much because our friends preferred high flying doves. We decided to call it a day at about 6 pm and we started our way back to the hotel.
For the last day our friends were in for a new challenge. They wanted to try the American shot, which is short flying doves. Demian Shpeher was who enjoyed it the most and even though it was his first time in this type of hunting he got better results than the previous day and better results than the rest of the group, too!
At 1pm we started our way back to the airport, our friends’ flight was at 4.30 pm. We hope our guests enjoyed their experience as much as we did. We love what we do!
We hope to see them around soon!
You should be the next one!
Federico Silva
Hunting Guide