More about "Blind Ambition" by Jorge Trucco.

It's been already more than 20 years since I fist became involved in the organization of duck or goose hunting operations in Argentina: from the early goose and duck hunts around the foothills of the Patagonian Andes, or the goose hunts on the Atlantic coast, to duck hunts in the semi-tropical rice fields of the north and more recently around the grain-growing area of the wet lowlands of Argentina.
Every one of these areas has its own idiosyncrasy and it took time to acquire enough knowledge of each one of them to be able to understand the way they performed, in order to accomplish hunting quality. Every single waterfowl environment has its own features, whether it is duck behavior, flight patterns, migration habits, feeding characteristics, or whether ducks are more or less sensitive to certain type of blinds or camouflage patterns or even decoy types, or if they are more or less likely to change unexpectedly. All these issues have been matter for hundreds of hours of intense reflection and analysis. If I had to sum it up in few words I would call it: "the search for consistency". For a duck hunting outfitter consistency (or the fear for the lack of it) is what probably best describes the main reason for most of his worries: how to keep himself from being "deceived by the ducks" -to put it in a gentle manner-.

My first visit to Chesapeake Bay was back in the early 80s, and over the years I've had the chance to go on attractive hunting trips to different places in the US and to visit various waterfowling camps as well as duck clubs. These trips were eye openers to me in the sense that I was able to understand valuable factors in the American waterfowling tradition: the meaning of the night before the hunt, the aesthetics involved in the hunting methods, the importance of being able to make the ducks come to your blind and to have them decoy properly, the conditions involved in trying to accomplish having permanent dry blinds, the importance of good decoy spreads and duck calls, as well as the appreciation for certain perceptions that are invaluable to most waterfowl hunters such as the sounds of the marsh and the long silences.

Through all these years the challenge has been to recreate many of these concepts within a totally different reality, that is the wild environment that surrounds the marshes and potholes of Argentina. Of all the different areas we experienced through the years it was the grainfields and marshes of the wet lowlands  that enabled us to approach consistency and predictability in a higher degree. This is pothole country which may very well remind North Americans of the Great Plains, where winters can be cold and landscape may be more familiar to what duck hunting areas are supposed to look like.

Argentina is known for its rich bird life, hence waterfowl is also rich and interesting.  
The country has its own native duck species, which are very numerous and different in most cases from those in the Northern Hemisphere. Our teals behave very much like those in the Northern Hemisphere. Speckled Teals are very abundant. They fly low and fast and you often see them in pairs.

The speckled teal (Anas flavirostris) is one of our  most abundant ducks  and colorwise it looks almost like a mini version of the yellow-billed pintail (but sans the pointed tail). You can see speckled teals in small flocks as well as in singles and pairs and they decoy well and respond to duck calls readily, and what's more they really love grain. 

 To some people the prevalent yellow-billed pintail (Anas georgica), also known as brown pintail, may be the king of the show. It is a strong flying prairie duck, brownish in color with a beak that's bright yellow and has a black line along the top, and that likes to fly in pairs as well as in big flocks. It has a distinct whistle-like call and really loves corn and sunflower fields. "Yellowbills" like to fly fast and dive into the decoys from high altitude, they readily respond to duck calls, and as they are so abundant and take on grain so well they really play an important role in our waterfowling experience.

There are three species of whistling-ducks in Argentina (also known as "tree-ducks", or as "pato sirirí" by locals), and two are very common in the central lowlands. That may not have been the case three decades ago, but with the habitat change (due to substantial rainfall increase), and the many grain-fields, these long necked ducks are now seen everywhere by the thousands. Unmistakable from the distance, whistling ducks can be recognized in flight by their larger wings and the way they extend their legs back underneath their tails, as well as by their very distinct and loud whistling call. The white-faced whistling-duck (Dendrocygna viduata) is very abundant."Whitefaces" are handsome ducks with their chestnut breasts and the white spot covering face and throat. They are commonly seen in many places in central and northern Argentina, they will usually fly in huge flocks and you will often see them resting on land, standing high -sort of like geese do-, at the edges of potholes and ponds. Despite the fact that grain is compelling to them to the point that they'll take on it with voracious determination, in our experience "whitefaces" won't decoy quite as readily as other species, they'll always tend to be high-flying challenging ducks.

Another notable duck that inhabits the central lowland pampas area is the red shoveler (Anas platalea). Shovelers are very attractive ducks in their cinnamon chestnut plumage covered with black dots, they are very abundant and as they will also decoy well they have become a very important factor of our waterfowling show.

Then we come to what in my personal experience is the king of all ducks and waterfowl in general: the rosy-billed pochard (Netta peposaca). The "rosybill" is a robust duck in a black costume with purple-gloss, with finely barred silver flanks and a bright pink beak that features a flaming red fleshy caruncle that matches its also flaming red eyes. The rosybill, as a pochard, is genetically related to the canvasback so much so that the hens in both species look very much alike. "Rosybills" are strong, super fast and exciting ducks, and you'll see them in small groups as well as in large flocks. Their flight is very distinguishable from the distance due to their classic V formations, and they will attack decoy spreads decisively and take over corn and soy fields like there's no tomorrow.

One of the main reasons why Argentine duck populations are so abundant and hunting is so satisfying is the fact that hunting pressure, for all practical purposes, is almost non-existent. This said, it is important to point out that Argentina is one of the few countries in the world where people are legally allowed to own and bear guns and, much like the U.S., that has a lot to do with the very history of the country, its vast territories and the way they were colonized and settled. So, owning guns is not a foreign matter to Argentines. 

This would necessarily lead to the thought that Argentines should also be hunters, and indeed they are. However, unlike the U.S., duck hunting has not been in their tradition as much as upland bird hunting (various types of perdiz), small game (hares and vizcachas), and big game (red stags, various deer, antelope, sheep, feral hogs, wild boars, water buffalo and what not). For example, Argentines will never shoot doves or geese for the sport and very few of them will shoot ducks. In northern Argentina you may find ducks being taken by locals either by pass shooting near rice fields or jump shooting the smaller ponds, anyway all duck hunting, if any, is mainly for the pot. In central Argentina duck-hunting pressure from local Argentines is virtually non-existent. Therefore the only hunting pressure there is comes from visiting hunters. And this means that actual overall duck hunting pressure in Argentina is, by any standards, very low.

Finally, as explained before, consistency is the Holy Grail in duck hunting and I have always taken my crusade very seriously. As we progressed in our organization we could see how much importance grain fields acquired in any form of hunting success or consistency, whether it is corn, sunflower, soybeans, flooded fields or just any kind of stubble. We learnt how to work with that concept and we also learnt that no matter what we do we need to make sure that the grain is always where it has to be.