Pigeon Shooting in Argentina

Welcome to Realtree Global Wing Shooting, the brand new series where we visit the finest game lodges in the world. During these epic adventures we experience some of the best wing shooting available. Episode Two - We join Realtree Chief of International Pro-Team Ian Harford, for an epic adventure, pigeon shooting in the Córdoba Province of Argentina at David Denies Montaraz Lodge with Ian Coley Sporting and Frontiers Travel. Decoyed Pigeons are the specialty at Montaraz, and Córdoba is considered one of the best pigeon shooting regions in South America. The 50 square mile area (80 km) surrounding the lodge is annually inhabited by more than 5 million pigeons. Wild pigeons are both large and fast, which makes calculating their speed for your lead a bit deceptive. Pigeons are also wary birds, and there is an element of hunting involved that makes the shooting closer to decoying ducks than shooting doves. Staying hidden and still in a good blind, is the key to success. Book your Argentinian shooting trip of a lifetime please visit: ****** Enjoy, like and subscribe for more Team Wild TV!

Its another beautiful morning here in the Córdoba Province of Argentina, we're at David Denies Montaraz Lodge with Ian Coley Sporting and Frontiers Travel and we're hunting pigeons. So it may seem a little strange to come all the way to Argentina to shoot pigeons, but I have to say it's a huge amount of fun. There's quite a lot of activity so far this morning. The decoys are out in front of us, a flapper on the left, an impromptu tree put in the middle of the field in front of us and so far it does seem to be bringing the birds in. The sport here, is exhilarating. Now this isn't the same kind of high pressure volume shooting you get with shooting Doves for example, here you've got to be very selective and pick your birds. They don't make it easy for you, There's a bag limit of 75 birds or 175 shots, whichever you reach first. Of course the decoys concentrate where they fly in to and often as the birds set their wings and drift down they're going pretty slowly, but in reality they've got a fair amount of speed and sometimes you've just got to anticipate where they're going rather than where they've been. Although the shots are very similar, they're also extremely different, changes of angle, changes of elevation, turning quickly in to the wind. curling and looping and of course, reacting to you addressing the target with the gun. These birds have incredibly good eye sight, they can see movement and they can sense danger. I'm normally a 12 bore shooter, and a 12 bore, side by side, over under, I'm not really used to shooting a semi-auto, but I can tell you, it's a huge amount of fun. The guns they shoot here are 20 bore, that's more than enough for the birds and the distances we're shooting at, which means we've got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 shots if you need them. Although it's handy having those additional shots, sometimes the problem with shooting a 5 shot semi-auto is you can get a little lazy in your shooting. When you take the first shot and you're a little bit behind, rather than re-addressing the target moving through and then taking your next shot, you find yourself almost emptying the magazine. However, the key to it is, forgetting you have 5 shots and then just focusing on each bird individually, I'll take that one, then re-address, move your feet, and get ready for the next bird. As the day went on, I didn't have it all my own way, just when I thought I was starting to get the measure of them, it all fell apart. 1, 2, 3 shots, no birds down and not even a feather in the sky. That can be slightly frustrating, you take a step back, you take a deep breath, re-evaluate your position and move forward again. That's the great thing about shooting here, there is no pressure, you don't have to take a particular bird, you don't have to shoot all your cartridges, it's an incredibly enjoyable and relaxed way of shooting and I can't wait to come back again.