EP 469. Beyond the Trigger Pulls in Nayarit Mexico

 

Mexico Hunting 150 Years Ago

Ramsey Russell: Welcome back to MOJO’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast, where today I am out in the field in Nayarit, Mexico new upcoming hunt. You all have heard some of the client perspectives and I tell you how I ended up here. I got invited by today’s guest, brother Jesus, to come down and visit last year and I did and I loved it. You fly in the Mazatlán, you drive 2 hours south and it is old school, dirt road, sleepy, authentic Mexico, like, I think of some of these areas we stay is like Mazatlán 150 years ago. Joining me today is my buddy Pocho, who I have been with for a month. Pocho, you ready for me to go home yet?

Pocho Kota: Oh, yeah. You can go anytime you want.

Ramsey Russell: Hey, I’ve been here a long time, but I’ve learned no matter how much I love a hunt, to ease into it, go through the motion slowly and last year, based on the visit, it just, it blew up. And I got home and for weeks after I got home, people were calling, wanting to come down here and explore this new hunt with me. So I booked 5 teams, about 2 dozen people and I remember pulling up, we had talked a little bit, got to know each other over the year and I pulled up and we were driving down from Mazatlán with the very first team and we were talking about the hunt and I said, yeah, it’s going to be awesome as long as Pocho done screw it up. That kind of became a running joke for about 2 or 3 groups till I realized it ain’t screwed up yet. I’ve been here a month and it has run just as smooth as silk and without a hitch, we get up in the morning, shoot ducks in the morning, lots of them. We do abide limits and then we regroup, go back to the lodge, have a nap. Here’s a typical day in Nayarit so far, we get up in the morning, eat breakfast, drive a short distance, go shoot a bunch of ducks, come back in the morning, greeted with margaritas, the best in the world, we’re going to talk about, eat a big bite, go take a nap, wake up, look at my watch and it’s about 11:15, that’s how the day rolls down here and now we’re out here about 2:00 in the afternoon. If you all hear some gunshots in the background, that’s guys is eating white winged doves as they come in and swarm this milo field, Pocho, we’ve had a lot, we’ve gotten to know each other a lot in the last year, but especially the last month. Talk a little bit about growing up, hunting like how did you, just talk a little bit about growing up. You’re from this area, you’re from the province of Nayarit?

Pocho Kota: No, I’m from Los Mochis, Sinaloa and well, I’ve been born doing this, because of my father. My father, when he was a little kid, he used to work for Billy Chapman Jr. in El Fuerte –

Ramsey Russell: A fishing fame.

Pocho Kota: Yeah, they were fishing and shooting dove in El Fuerte in Sinaloa, that’s very close to Los Mochis. So he used to work for him when he was a little kid and well, I guess he grew up and get more responsibilities and then it happened, I think he separate from Billy and he started doing his own business, hunting. And me and my brother, Jesus, we were raised, I mean, we were born doing this when we born, we don’t know nothing else to do.

Ramsey Russell: You were just raised into it, come by natural. Look, you sent me a picture last March. It’s a black and white picture, that’s you and your brother. How old would you and your brother have been right there?

Pocho Kota: I was like, right there, I was like 6 years old.

Ramsey Russell: 6 years old.

Pocho Kota: And Jesus, probably 10.

Ramsey Russell: That’s you and – so Jesus is the older brother?

Pocho Kota: Jesus is the older and the ugliest.

Ramsey Russell: That’s true and the quietest. So that’s you and your little brother at ages.

Pocho Kota: And my father.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. And your father, boy, he was a young man back then, wasn’t it? 30s maybe.

Pocho Kota: Yeah, that was back in the 80s.

Creating a Sinaloa Hunting Culture 

Your dad was in business, you and your brother working and another outfitter came and pushed you around, down around Mazatlán. 

Ramsey Russell: Now he was running white winged dove hunts and duck hunts.

Pocho Kota: Duck hunts and white wing.

Ramsey Russell: How did you all – and you all were hunting down around Los Mochis and those big lagoons, airboats and stuff like that?

Pocho Kota: Yes.

Ramsey Russell: And you and your brother actually helped your dad later in life doing that stuff, did you?

Pocho Kota: Oh, yeah, since we were little kids, we were always around him. I started like a bird boy, I remember all American hunters paying me, I was very happy every time they pay me $10.

Ramsey Russell: $10?

Pocho Kota: Yeah, every time we went out and I was just picking up birds, helping the guys, I was just a little kid, I remember all that. So I started very early and I started from down the bottom.

Ramsey Russell: How did you learn such good English?

Pocho Kota: Well, I guess because I’ve been around Americans since I was a little kid.

Ramsey Russell: Did you learn it? You’ve also worked in Arizona?

Pocho Kota: Yeah, I worked a little bit. I had a friend that he really wanted to go there and try it, go to the US and work. And finally, he convinced me and he took me, he had some family in Phoenix, Arizona, and he convinced me and we went. I stayed there, like, for about a year, but I was –

Ramsey Russell: What did you do there?

Pocho Kota: I was roofing in Arizona. It wasn’t the best thing to do.

Ramsey Russell: But it paid good, didn’t it?

Pocho Kota: But it paid good. Yeah. And well, I stayed there for one year, but I already could speak English before that, so English helped me a lot being in Arizona and bilingual, I started making more money than all the other Mexicans.

Ramsey Russell: So when they hired you, they said, man, this guy can speak English, let’s pay him more.

Pocho Kota: Just a little bit. Not much, but it was good.

Ramsey Russell: You told me a story about how when you moved back to Mexico, you met your wife in Arizona. She’s also Latino and then you moved back to Mexico and you talked about how being able to speak English helped you down here, too, with jobs.

Pocho Kota: Oh, yeah. Well, it’s helping me a lot, just because hunting, being around Americans, hunting. The best thing that could happen to me is learn English, I know how to read and write, I know how to speak. Maybe not 100%, but I try my best and well, it’s been helping me a lot. This is one of the things that don’t bother nobody to know how to speak English.

Ramsey Russell: You told me a story. I won’t say the outfitters name, but you told me a story one time. Your dad was in business, you and your brother working and another outfitter came and pushed you around, down around Mazatlán. What was that about? He’s like, I’m going to put you all out of business. And here you are, 20 years later, kicking off big time.

Pocho Kota: Oh, yeah. Well, things happen. We were just a small business, family owned and there’s a lot of big guys around, so I don’t know, maybe we were not big enough competition for him and well, some things happen, it could happen here or the US, whatever and that happened, but that did not stop me. I’m still doing this and I’ll do this till I die, for sure.

Ramsey Russell: How – Go ahead.

Pocho Kota: I’ve been working for other people too. I went to San Fernando Valley in Tamaulipas, South of Brownsville, Texas. I worked there for 5 years and I worked for 2 companies there, American owned, it was a good part of my life being in San Fernando. I learned a lot, I learned about quail hunting, I learned about geese cause back in Los Mochis, we don’t have that many geese or that many quail to do commercial hunting like over there in Tamaulipas, in San Fernando. So I learned a lot over there, I met a lot of people, made a lot of friends. So it was a nice part of my life doing that in San Fernando.

Ramsey Russell: Did you know even back in those days, that one day you and your brother wanted to start and have your own business like this? Like you have now?

Pocho Kota: Well, I’ve been thinking about this all my life.

Ramsey Russell: It’s all you done.

Pocho Kota: One day I’ll be on my own, one day I will do it. Now I’m doing it.

Ramsey Russell: Now you’re doing it.

Pocho Kota: Yeah. Thanks to a lot of people that has been helping me and well, I hope I won’t disappoint nobody. And I think we’re doing things very good here, we got something going.

Ramsey Russell: Talk a little bit, Pocho, about Nayarit, about the region, about the economy, about the people because you told me that, I can’t remember how many states you told me there are here in Mexico, but it is among the poorest. How many states are in Mexico and how does Nayarit fall into it?

Pocho Kota: There’s 32 states in Mexico and Nayarit is the number 5 poorest state in Mexico, so this is not a big state either, it’s just a small state and everything goes around agriculture here.

Ramsey Russell: I think that’s what it resonates with me. We say poor, but I’m from the Mississippi Delta, which is one of the most economically impoverished regions in America and it’s all about agriculture. It’s a lot of labor, it’s a lot of agricultural businesses and stuff like that, I think that’s why I so have this thing for Nayarit, I feel kind of at home here and it’s what so –

Pocho Kota: But being poor, it doesn’t mean it’s not good people around here. People here is very good, very nice with everybody.

Ramsey Russell: I’ve seen that.

Pocho Kota: Very nice with people from outside. Well, it’s 2 parts in Nayarit, we got the touristic part South of Nayarit, close to Vallarta, all the Riviera, all the way up to San Blas. There’s a lot of Americans and Canadians and Europeans living in there and then we got the north part, where we are in the north part, it’s only farming. Farming, fishing, raising cattle and it’s all good. Being poor, it don’t mean you’re not happy, you’re not living happily. There’s a lot of people here, they’re not millionaires or nothing, but they live very happy.

Ramsey Russell: It’s funny you say that, because you’re exactly right. The other day, we were coming through a little town for and the sun was setting. We had been hunting and it’s like 1950s America, small town, because everybody is out on the curb. There were kids playing stickball in the street, there’s music going on, there’s people coming in and out of red – This whole community is thriving, it’s almost like everybody knew each other.

Pocho Kota: That’s right.

Ramsey Russell: Somebody told me the other day, gosh, it may have been you, that there’s no homeless people in Mexico because their family bonds are so strong in America that somebody’s not going to let a family member live under an overpass.

Pocho Kota: That’s right. You can probably see something like that in the big cities, but not in the country. And even in the big cities, if you see something like that, it’s very, not many people live like that in Mexico, it’s very rare to find homeless people here.

Ramsey Russell: Everybody works here, it seems like and everybody wants to work. It’s like, man, we get up at 04:30, we leave at 05:00 sunrises at about 06:15, 06:30 and the whole drive out to the hunt, there’s people moving around, they’re out going to work, man and all day long you see people work. A couple of days ago, we were driving down the road and there was a, I believe it was a pinto bean field and there was an old man walking out with a hoe and he’s in a walker and that’s his field. He’s going out to work with a walk, using a walker. He’d hobble, he’d go a step and start to hoe and we saw him 2 days in a row. People just want to work here, don’t they?

Pocho Kota: Yeah. That’s the way it is. You work, you eat, you don’t work, you got nothing.

Ramsey Russell: There’s no social services, you either work and make a living or you go hungry.

Pocho Kota: That’s right. Well, people like to work here and they work very hard.

Ramsey Russell: And there’s a lot of job opportunities because of all this agriculture. Pocho, yesterday, we drove, I know, 20 minutes down a dirt road and we never left the same milo field that we started in, it was the biggest milo field, I’m going to say, on earth, that I’ve ever seen. And there were people, there were there go mini bike a little bit, there goes another mini bike, they’re all laboring. And in the end, there were cowboys, cattle and everybody had a job to keep the doves off the field. My favorite was a guy running around with a homemade sling like David threw at Goliath chunking dirt clods and that’s his job, isn’t it?

Pocho Kota: That’s his job.

Ramsey Russell: He was so proud to stop, let us film him and ask him about it. Man, he was 10ft tall, slinging them dirt claws out over that field.

Pocho Kota: His job is just scare all the birds off the field.

Ramsey Russell: And that’s all he does all day, every day. What does a guy like that make, would you guess?

Pocho Kota: He probably makes maybe $15 a day.

Ramsey Russell: $15 a day in pesos.

Pocho Kota: That’s all he makes.

Ramsey Russell: And he’s happy.

Pocho Kota: Well, you can tell.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, you can tell. Does everybody, you speak English, your brother speaks some English, some of your staff speaks some English, they understand more than they can speak. But it’s not really important that they speak English here, is it?

Pocho Kota: Well, like I said, if you go to the south of the state, you probably get a better job if you speak English because of all the Americans and Canadians living over there.

Ramsey Russell: Hospitality.

Pocho Kota: Hospitality, yeah, touristic businesses. But not here in the north. A lot of people from here goes to the US to work in fields and cattle and tractor operators in the fields and well, it’s all about agriculture here, so these people know how to work.

Ramsey Russell: And that’s what brings so many wildlife here like the ducks and the doves, it’s not just the agriculture, but I know just north of us here, we pass it coming and going to Mazatlán is one of the largest wetlands in Mexico. Talk a little bit about that ecosystem, we hunt the north side of it Mazatlán, now we’re hunting the south side of it.

Pocho Kota: Yeah, that’s right. Well, that’s the biggest, I think it’s – I don’t remember, I don’t know if it’s the biggest or the second biggest marsh in Mexico. It’s 320,000 acres big.

Ramsey Russell: Wow, that’s big.

Pocho Kota: And it comes from all the way from Mazatlán. I mean, from San Blas all the way up to almost Mazatlán goes all the way up to, what’s the name of the town? Escuinapa.

Ramsey Russell: Escuinapa?

Pocho Kota: Escuinapa, yeah.

Hunting in Nayarit: Leave the Waders at Home

So we get up to crack of dawn and go out there, we’re waiting on the ducks, but the ducks don’t really start pouring in until we’re limited out and gone, that’s when the sun is up, it’s starting to get hot and here come the ducks gangbusters.

Ramsey Russell: You all, we’re hunting thirsty ducks. Let’s transition real quick and talk a little bit about the duck hunting, because one thing I do love about this hunt is leave the waders at home, we’re hunting out of dry blinds. 1 or 2 times we go out to hunt whistling ducks and we have to walk in ankle deep water and you all have plenty of rubber boots for everybody. And of course, it’s a dry blind once we get there, but we’re hunting just small little stock tanks and ponds and dugouts and all these birds are coming off that big wetland that is brackish and saltwater.

Pocho Kota: That’s right. Right now, it’s the dry season for us here and as the rain quits, when in summer, when we got all this rain and all the rivers bringing fresh water from the mountains, all this marsh turns fresh water. But as we got dry, as the tide goes by, evaporates and all that fresh water go out to the sea and tide from the ocean brings salt water in, so as the time goes by, the water in the marsh is turning saltier every time.

Ramsey Russell: And that brings the ducks in droves, it’s interesting to me, I warn people, now you all duck hunt like I duck hunt, if you’re not early, you’re late. So we get up to crack of dawn and go out there, we’re waiting on the ducks, but the ducks don’t really start pouring in until we’re limited out and gone, that’s when the sun is up, it’s starting to get hot and here come the ducks gangbusters. Like this morning we shot 3 limits of ducks and we’re done by, I’m going to guess, quarter to 8, 08:00.

Pocho Kota: That’s right.

Ramsey Russell: And as we were leaving and packing up, char dog running around the bushes, picking up a few ducks, it was, I mean, the ducks were just piling and they were landing all around the blind as we were sitting there, walking around.

Pocho Kota: I think that time 08:00, 08:30, is the peak when they’re moving to get fresh water to drink. But that time we’re done, so it’s good because a lot of ducks won’t see us there, so that place is going to be good in –

Ramsey Russell: You make a good point. We go out there and shoot generous limits by American standards and by 08:00, 08:30, we’re gone and 100s more, if not 1000s more ducks are piling in that’s never heard a shot go off. The only people that knew a gun went off are hanging from the straps and they ain’t telling no other ducks that a gun went off.

Pocho Kota: That’s right. So we can use that blind next week if we want to.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, well, I’ve been here a month and we’ve hunted, not consecutively, but we’ve hunted one particular slew 2 or 3 times and it’s been productive every time we’ve hunted it and we’ve hunted the whistling ducks twice in a month and both times and it wasn’t even the same blinds. It was slightly different.

Pocho Kota: It was the same lagoon, but not the same blind.

Ramsey Russell: And so it’s almost like hunting just new ducks. I mean, they never knew what hit them.

Pocho Kota: That’s right. We never shoot the same blind, the next day we shoot here today, we won’t come back the least a week. But we let all our places rest, at least for a week.

Ramsey Russell: How do you all find these places? I mean, you’re not flying drones, you’re not using landscape, aerial photograph. How in the world do you find all these places?

Pocho Kota: Well, we drive a lot and we know where to look. We’ve been doing this all our life, so we know what ducks do and what ducks need and everything about them. So when you know all that it’s kind of – it’s not easy, but you can find them better if you don’t know.

The Allure of Tuxpan Camp

But we’re in the south camp, Tuxpan camp and you’ve got this beautiful lodge sitting up on a hill that is absolute old school Mexico.

Ramsey Russell: One of my favorite places and it’s so interesting to me, you’ve got 2 camps we’re going to talk about in a little bit why and the differences in them. But we’re in the south camp, Tuxpan camp and you’ve got this beautiful lodge sitting up on a hill that is absolute old school Mexico. Drive through this sleepy little town, everybody’s friendly, just a little mile down this stone road, get to this hot overlooking a river, cattle drive every day at lunch and every day at 05:00, here comes the farmer pushing his cows on horseback, first he’ll go the river in the water, then he takes them back to his catch pen and then he goes back in the morning, I guess, while we’re out hunting and turns him loose again. But still, there’s a lot of seafood because we’re 50 minutes maybe from the Pacific Ocean from here, but still it’s a lot of seafood right here. I mean, I don’t know, we were talking about that at dinner the other night, it just surprised us that one day I was at your old lodge last year and little old man combined a moped with an ice chest full of crab legs, crab meat and oysters and shrimp and every other night here at the lodge, if the clients like it, they serve fish and shrimp and all kinds of good stuff. Is that a big part of this culture down here?

Pocho Kota: Oh, yeah. These people might be poor, but they’re not starving.

Ramsey Russell: They eat good.

Pocho Kota: They eat very good. We eat a lot of shrimp very often, a lot of fish very often, too. We got steaks, we got all you need.

Ramsey Russell: Got everything.

Pocho Kota: We got everything. We got fresh vegetables. We plant tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, all kinds of chilies. You can find –

Ramsey Russell: Fruit trees. You were saying here –

Pocho Kota: Under mango tree –

Ramsey Russell: Right under a mango tree, you were saying today at lunch that here, in about a month, 6 weeks, it’s going to smell so sweet walking through all these towns because everybody’s got a mango tree in the backyard, it’s really like it, people don’t even stop to pick them up, do they?

Pocho Kota: No. Maybe just the beginning, people eat all the mangoes, but after that, I think they’re all that tired of eating so many mangoes, so they just let them for the animals or whatever.

Ramsey Russell: The limes, the lemons everything, papaya, you got all this abundance of fruit and vegetables.

Pocho Kota: pineapples.

Ramsey Russell: You all don’t go, you all don’t eat any, you all don’t buy frozen vegetables, do you?

Pocho Kota: We don’t need to.

Ramsey Russell: Somebody’s growing it somewhere all the time.

Pocho Kota: Yeah, we don’t need to buy frozen, nothing.

Ramsey Russell: One of my favorite areas we’ve hunted is we get up in the morning and drive east, excuse me, west of here, I don’t know, 45 minutes and it’s called the beach. And we drive right out onto the beach, there’s the freaking waves hitting and there’s all these little freshwater bodies lining it all for miles either side, whether we go left or go right, they’re just north or south, there’s just all these little freshwater bodies. And I thought it was interesting the other day that some of them, you were telling me something about it’s all like there’s the Pacific Ocean behind me. There’s a massive brackish estuary out in front of me. But I’m hunting fresh water and those farmers have figured out if they dig, it’ll somehow fill up with fresh water.

Pocho Kota: Well –

Ramsey Russell: I want, I mean, that’s crazy to me. They dig down to the water table or something?

Pocho Kota: Yeah, they dig down. But we got so much rain here in summer that, this place that you were on the side of the ocean, it’s like island.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Pocho Kota: So the dirt is very sandy. So all the rain, all the fresh water from the rain is sucked down by this sand. But under the dirt, the water don’t mix. The fresh water stays fresh and the saltwater don’t eat this fresh water. And I heard somebody that that’s because of water density.

Ramsey Russell: Oh.

Pocho Kota: That’s why they don’t mix. So this fresh water stays down the dirt for a long time and that’s why in the dry season, like right now, these cattle owners, they just dig a hole and they know there’s going to be fresh water right there. And they don’t dig deep, you saw that.

Ramsey Russell: No, they don’t dig deep at all. I mean, char dog can run across it, but it stays full of fresh water and there’s cow tracks all around it, income the cattle of the wildlife, of course, the ducks coming in, doves come in and drink it some. I was surprised that there was so little beach development. There’s one house where we kind of turn to go find our hunting holes and else it’s just some palm covered, palm front coverings where the fishermen gather in the shade, like a park and you can tell where the children have been there playing, but there’s not many houses. And I found out why and you told me, you said, well, it’s because all these no-see-ums.

Pocho Kota: Yeah, no-see-ums. It’s in mosquitoes.

Ramsey Russell: And we don’t never leave, I’ve never been to a duck blind with you that there’s not 5 or 6 cans of off, but then we were hunting with Pinto the other day and old Pinto, he knew the secret for getting rid of bugs. And I’ve learned that all that bug spray is the best use for bug spray is starting to smudge fire. I smelled some smoke and when the smoke came out, he was burning cow patties. And once there was smoke, there wasn’t any bugs.

Pocho Kota: Oh, they went away.

Ramsey Russell: I am packing a big lighter now, baby. I tell you what, that’s the first thing I do when I get there to build me a smudge fire and I’ve learned that the fire ain’t important, the smoke is. And this morning, we had 3 of them going and there wasn’t a bug anywhere to be seen.

Pocho Kota: Yeah, that’s a good bug repellent and very natural.

The Ducks of Mexico

Some other places, we got green wings and cinnamons, we got a place just for cinnamon teals, that’s the only thing we shoot there is cinnamon teals.

Ramsey Russell: That and the wind. Either the fire or about a 10 mile hour wind and there’s no bugs. But I can’t remember which client it was, but we were talking about the no-see-ums before we hunted with Pinto, when he figured out that smoke and they were saying, I don’t care how many bugs there is, the duck hunting is just too good. I mean, really and truly, you’ll shoot as many ducks in the morning at great club to shoot in a week and it’s just these relaxed limits we’ve got down here but it’s been a lot of fun. It’s been a – hunting that beach is and it’s interesting to me how we go along the beach and there’s a lot of blue wings, a lot of shovelers, national bird of Mexico. But then we get into other little ponds like this morning, like and there’ll be some shovelers and a lot of cinnamon and a lot of green wings, the birds are real, they’re not all equally distributed among all the duck holes.

Pocho Kota: It’s like they don’t feed in the same places. They look for different things to feed on. So I guess that’s why some places, we got only blue winged teals. Some other places, we got green wings and cinnamons, we got a place just for cinnamon teals, that’s the only thing we shoot there is cinnamon teals.

Ramsey Russell: Well, we were here, I guess that place is dry, we were here last week and there were 4 clients really wanted to get their hands on cinnamon, I’m like, you’re in the right place. But now, in all fairness, cinnamon teal throughout all of Mexico this year have been scarce. I think it had to do with the drought up around the Great Salt Lake, they were just not as abundant as normal and all 4 of them clients, we saw 2 drake cinnamon teal as we pulled up to a duck hole, it was still kind of dark and those 2 boys waited for them cinnamon teal to come back, they never did, they shot a lot of blue wings instead. And we hit a new spot this morning over in the mountains, I actually shot it last year and to include hens and hatchery birds, we shot 22 cinnamon teal.

Pocho Kota: That’s right.

Ramsey Russell: It just, it happens.

Pocho Kota: Well, it’s hunting.

Ramsey Russell: And there for the longest time, I didn’t think anything else was going to come in, they were just trickling in these little 1s and 2s and 3s of cinnamon teal and then here come the shovelers.

Pocho Kota: Yeah.

The Allure of the Cinnamon Teal

People love them, they are absolutely beautiful. 

Ramsey Russell: It’s crazy how that is probably the number one most requested species I get asked about are cinnamon teal. People love them, they are absolutely beautiful. But I describe them as, like on Christmas vacation as Chevy Chase’s crazy cousin Eddie, I mean, they are a bottom feeder, buddy. They’re a rung below in terms of what they eat and the habitats they use around here, it’s been my experience, they’re a rung below shovelers on the ladder of things. One of them, there was a couple of days we went to the beach and this is when, right, like the first day, I guess this month took a turn because what I love the ducks and the doves, which we’ll get into, that’s a given, but it’s everything else, we talked a lot about the people, we talked a lot about the food so far, but I think it was the first day I was here, you had told us to go ahead and packed for the day, we were going to stay out and we went out to one of those beach blinds and 4 of us were done with our limit by 08:00 in the morning. We sat for an hour watching waves come in, watching pelicans fly, we drank cokes and beers, you said, all right, now we can go to the restaurant and we went to this little restaurant. We parked in this little parking lot and got on a water taxi and went for about half a mile and this little one acre island was covered by a big open air restaurant, hardly anything else. The backyard was slapped full of, I’m against about 350 fighting roosters, I bet that restaurant gets lively on Saturday night and that was some of the most memorable meals and it was the boiled shrimp were just to die for. No Zatarains, no Cajun seasoning salt and these great big old jumbo prawns and shrimp pate, which just shrimp you put on a cracker, but then this little skiff pulls up. We walk out the back, out the patio restaurant and they got a little dock out there and up comes this little fisherman. He’s got his monofilament wrapped around a pop bottle and he’s been out in the mangroves hand lining and caught about 5 big snook.

Pocho Kota: Oh yeah.

Ramsey Russell: And I didn’t even know you ate snook, Pocho, I did not even know you ate snook.

Pocho Kota: That’s the most eaten fish in this region.

Ramsey Russell: Is that one of the most popular, would you say, one of the most popular fishes for meal?

Pocho Kota: One of the most popular fish to eat here in this part of Mexico.

Ramsey Russell: But I guess because we’re out on that island and out in that estuary and there’s nothing else growing, there’s no mesquite, I ain’t seen, I guess I see a few mesquite trees now to think about it. But out there ain’t no mesquite, there ain’t nothing but mangrove.

Pocho Kota: Mangrove.

Ramsey Russell: And they had a stack, a cord wood stack of chopped mangrove and seasoned and they put it in that pit and covered it with tin foil and smoked. They would take those, I say 5 or 6 pound, 10 pound snooks and gut them and split them, butterfly them, lay them out in a rack and smoke them, that was one of the most, one of the best, most memorable meals I’ve had in a month, the food’s been amazing, but I’m just saying, that was a treat.

Pocho Kota: Mangrove and snook is a very good damn combination.

Ramsey Russell: Very good combination.

Pocho Kota: Very good combination.

Ramsey Russell: And then of course we didn’t have anything to do till 02:00 so we drank beer. You bought a whole freaking metal pail full of grown old –

Pocho Kota: You drank it all.

Ramsey Russell: Well, I had to, to get primed up for that recliner right there that you had those beach seats in the shade, we go take a good nap.

Pocho Kota: For an hour.

Ramsey Russell: And we were there early, say 11:00 and usually we didn’t leave till 02:00, but about 01:00, where did all those people come from? I mean, there were dozens of people, that taxi, there were multiple taxis going out, lots of people coming, I mean were those just, where were those people coming from?

Pocho Kota: Well, they were all families. You remember –

Ramsey Russell: The swimming pool.

Pocho Kota: The swimming pool and the kids coming on the boats. A parent, the grandparents, the kids, big families coming to eat at that restaurant, it’s just families from around.

Ramsey Russell: Local families.

Pocho Kota: Local families.

Ramsey Russell: And you were telling me that a lot of the work hours down here, they’ll work some long days. But what were you telling me about some of the hours? Like the day starts at 05:00 a.m. and ends at 01:00 or 02:00.

Pocho Kota: Day starts in the fields, day start at 04:00, 05:00 in the morning but the day ends for them around 11:00, 12:00 the most.

Ramsey Russell: Because of the heat.

Pocho Kota: Because of the heat, that’s right.

Ramsey Russell: Right now, I’m going to say, sitting here watching those boys shoot these doves, it’s probably around, hovering around 900, but it’s dry, low humidity, doesn’t feel too bad at all. But how hot does it get here in the summertime?

Pocho Kota: Well, it gets around 1000, 1050. But humidity goes up like crazy, 90%, 95%.

Ramsey Russell: Like Mississippi.

Pocho Kota: Oh, I guess so. I never been in Mississippi but you’re from over there so you know.

Ramsey Russell: We’re hot humidity. And once you get that heat plus humidity, now you get what they call a heat index. So if it feels, if the thermometer reads 1050, it means it’s 1500, feels like 1500.

Pocho Kota: Feels terrible. But you get used to it.

Ramsey Russell: One of the most, I pick up a Spanish word or 2 every time I’m down here and one of the most important words I learned on this trip was Sombra, shade.

Pocho Kota: Sombra, yeah.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, and my guide, boy rides a motorcycle, he Panoche is what I call him or Pinocchio. But he knows Ramsey wants the shade.

Pocho Kota: Oh, yeah. He knows.

Ramsey Russell: Yesterday he found a wide fence post that had about a foot wide band of shade and he set my chair right there, he knew exactly where I wanted to go.

Pocho Kota: You’re being here for a month, so everybody knows you now, you’re very famous here and well, these boys they know what you like, so they’re willing to help all the time. So they know you like shade, so once they see you, they know they need to find a shade for you.

Ramsey Russell: That’s my afternoon and I’m going to say this, I have really enjoyed these afternoon dove hunts like, I did not think I would and I really have. It’s been some of the other hunts this time of year in Mexico, the way the birds are presented is just totally different. You’re stuck out in a mesquite take it, they’re just kind of flying, snapshotting all over, not here, buddy, we’re sitting around the edges of milo fields and when we get there, usually a lot of the doves are coming, going away from you, going out somewhere pretty high and when they come back, they’re lower and slower, full of grain, flying back this way and it really sitting around these grain fields and hunting like we’re doing, so reminds me, especially when I’m sitting under a shade tree, it so reminds me of hunting back home, dove hunting back home. And I have absolutely, as long as I got me a shade tree or a shady spot, I sit there and I pick my shots and wait on them doves to come through. Now, one day, last time we hunted this very field, in fact, you said them boys know me. They grabbed 2 boxes of shells, God, I’m just going to shoot 2 boxes, pick my shot, shoot 2 boxes, call it a day, I think I shot 5 that day.

Pocho Kota: Yeah, you shoot more than the 2.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, it was more doves than I would expect, a lot more doves than I was expecting. But what is the -You’re saying as good as the dove hunting is right now and it’s good for, we’ve had clients in the last month shoot 8 boxes in an afternoon, but you’re saying this is nothing?

Pocho Kota: Oh, no, this is the slowest time to shoot dove here.

Ramsey Russell: It doesn’t make sense because the doves are coming into milo north of here, like in Sonora and north in America, grows in our summertime, but you all don’t grow milo in the summertime, this stuff is just now starting to flag it, put scarecrows out and bring the hunters in, because you all don’t even grow. This is the milo crop of the year, late.

Pocho Kota: Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: So why is that? Why don’t you grow milo in the summertime when all the rest of North America does?

Pocho Kota: Well, it’s because we got this much rain in summer that all the fields get flooded by the river.

Ramsey Russell: Get flooded.

Pocho Kota: Or most of the fields get flooded.

Ramsey Russell: Too wet.

Pocho Kota: Too wet to plant anything.

Ramsey Russell: Wow.

Pocho Kota: We got some rice in summer, but not marsh, the main crop here is milo.

Ramsey Russell: Well, I can tell. But it’s this time of year.

Pocho Kota: This time of year. Yeah.

Ramsey Russell: So in October, November, when you all have got the true high volume, like your granddaddy’s era before Cordova came along and got shot out, true high volume white winged dove hunting, takes place October, November. What is it that’s bringing them into the region then?

Pocho Kota: Well, I guess November, October, that’s when we plant the sorghum. Sorghum is like 2 inches tall in November, early November. What these doves eat in November, October, December is this wild seed we got here, we call it platineo.

Ramsey Russell: Platineo.

Pocho Kota: Platineo. And this thing grows everywhere where it gets fluid, it grows underwater.

Ramsey Russell: Really?

Pocho Kota: Yeah, it grows underwater and then comes up and this plant gives –

Ramsey Russell: And then the water recedes So it’s dry?

Pocho Kota: No, it grows on water.

Ramsey Russell: Really?

Pocho Kota: And this plant grows these little seeds, they look like sunflowers because they’re so oily, like sunflowers.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Pocho Kota: And dove just love them.

Ramsey Russell: I bet they do.

Pocho Kota: Wherever there is platineal. You’re going to find 1000s of doves here.

Ramsey Russell: All these doves around these milo fields I’ve shot have just both sacks and their crawl couldn’t fit another colonel of milo, I mean and I just got curious, I shot all my ammo and I got curious the other day and googled how much a white winged dove can eat. What I learned is this, a white winged dove averages about 6oz and he eats 10 to 20% his body weight daily. That means that each dove is eating about a half ounce of that farmer’s crop, every 20 doves is eating a pound. We’re talking, Jesus told me the other day it could take this farmer 2 to 3 weeks to get it equipped for its dry enough, he can get his gear mobilized, can get it harvested. So we’re talking 10,000 doves every 20 eating a pound of his grain for 2 or 3 weeks on end and the only thing that really saves him is there’s enough other milo turning ripe that maybe they’ll shift over to another field and take some of the pressure off of them. You told me about, you planted some milo one time for dove, how’d that turn out?

Pocho Kota: I didn’t plant it for dove, I planted to make some money. Well, I did a pretty good job of farming and this field looks so nice that all my neighbors and everybody that was driving and watching my field, they all were telling me, oh, fun, so you got at least 6000 kilos of milo per hectare here.

Ramsey Russell: Wow.

Pocho Kota: And everybody was happy because of me, because I had a good feel, I did it very good and it was nice and everything. So I got good production of seeds and then everybody started like, you got to be careful with the dove, they’re going to start eating your field anytime, so you got to be careful because they going to eat it all. So just like they say, dove started coming in into my field and then my brother came and said, we need to pay somebody to go scared birds out of because they’re going to finish all the seeds. And I went like, no, there’s no way they’re going to finish all, we just let them eat all they want because just like a payback of what we do every year to them, we going to pay them back with a lot of seeds. So we let them eat and the day I took the combine to my field, from 6000 kilos we had, I just got 1500 kilos.

Ramsey Russell: Wow.

Pocho Kota: They ate, like, how much? Like 60, 70% of my field in about a month.

Ramsey Russell: They ate it out.

Pocho Kota: They ate it out.

Ramsey Russell: In a month?

Pocho Kota: In a month.

Ramsey Russell: So that’s what they’re doing to these farms. That’s why they’ve got all like, I’ve seen all kinds of contraptions. I’ve seen flags, I’ve seen scarecrows, I’ve seen a guy run around with a sling, chunking and them dirt claws would whistle when he’d sling them.

Pocho Kota: They can finish you.

Ramsey Russell: And one or 2 fields we’ve gone by, they had buckets hanging full of rock with pull strings where somebody could hide in the shade and pull the string.

Pocho Kota: They make noises.

Ramsey Russell: They’re desperate to keep these doves out of their field. There’s no crop insurance, I’m guessing.

Pocho Kota: No, not many people do that here.

Ramsey Russell: It’s just between you and the dove and God.

Pocho Kota: You and the nature.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, you and nature on how much you make. Is that why you got out of farming?

Pocho Kota: That’s way I got out.

Ramsey Russell: You told me some interesting stories, something about the full moon. I made a note because you all got a lot of interesting lore and legend around the full moon. The chili peppers are hotter, the bugs are more, you only cut palm trees on full moon. Why is that?

Pocho Kota: I know those things –

Ramsey Russell: Is it true?

Pocho Kota: Well, it is true. You can tell with the chili, you’ve been here for a month.

Ramsey Russell: I have been here for a month.

Pocho Kota: So you can tell that chilies not being hot all the time. They are in full moon and in full moon, they get hotter.

Ramsey Russell: Well, now that you mentioned it, I bit into a serrano pepper, it was kind of dark on the patio and I was late to dinner and I grabbed one of them serrano peppers and loaded my taco with it and about 3 margaritas later, my tongue kind of, sort of thought about cooling off.

Pocho Kota: Yeah. Remember when you first got here, we ate all the snook.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Pocho Kota: First time we went to that restaurant.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Pocho Kota: Remember that chili, how hot it was?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Pocho Kota: And then we come back like a week later and it wasn’t that hot anymore.

Ramsey Russell: You’re right.

Pocho Kota: Can you tell that?

Ramsey Russell: And that was because of the moon.

Pocho Kota: That’s because of the moon.

Ramsey Russell: That sauce you’re talking about was a green chili sauce that is made of lime and serrano peppers and cucumbers blended up. And the first time we went, it lit us all up.

Pocho Kota: That’s right.

Ramsey Russell: And the second time we went, I thought they’d watered it down or something.

Pocho Kota: No, it was the same recipe.

Ramsey Russell: Same recipe, same everything.

Pocho Kota: And it wasn’t that hot anymore.

Ramsey Russell: Since I’ve been here, I’m just going to run down a real quick thing, I’ve eaten tacos, homemade guacamole, all kinds of fresh fruit, tuna ceviche, snook ceviche, shrimp ceviche, boiled shrimp, steak, fried shrimp, raw oysters, we’re going to talk about that, buddy. I got my filler chicken adobe, pineapple chicken, smoked snook, desserts, grilled tuna, crab meat, duck poppers, dove poppers, chicken wings, slaw, pork chops, arrachera, beef flank, shrimp kebabs, shrimp kebabs stuck in pineapple, grilled tuna, fried ice cream, soft poppers, jicama. How do you say it?

Pocho Kota: Jicama.

Ramsey Russell: Jicama, beef ribs, flying stuffed mushrooms. One day he made some ribs and he used pineapple and made like, a mashed potato with sweet pineapple, that was just absolutely to die for. How close is – And here’s something interesting for a hunting lodge Pocho, you all don’t have a set meal schedule. It’s not like Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, Thursday night, it’s not like the same old thing over and over. It’s been very organic, it’s been very spontaneous, it’s been something fresh just came in.

Pocho Kota: Yeah, we use whatever we find in the market.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. So that’s what’s driving it. You go to the market and they say, oh, they just got some snook in. Oh, they just got some more tuna in.

Pocho Kota: That’s right.

Ramsey Russell: Oh, they just got some fresh shrimp.

Pocho Kota: And then we find good, nice looking mangoes and we bring them to the house, we see pineapple.

Ramsey Russell: I’m going to tell you, the compliments on the menu have been foremost. And you’re feeding us 5 times a day. I know, it’s 3 meals if you want breakfast, plus 2 big appetizers and I’ve just said, well, it’s 5 meals a day. I warn people when we sit down, that’s not dinner, that’s your appetite.

Pocho Kota: If you’re in a diet, this is not your place.

Ramsey Russell: No, it’s not your place. But I’ve really appreciated the food. How closely does that menu reflect what you and your wife and children eat when it’s not hunting season? Is that, I mean, like, is that the same kind of food you all eat? It made it just real, it’s what all the locals are eating.

Pocho Kota: Yeah. It’s the same ingredients, maybe we make it a little nicer for you but –

Ramsey Russell: Presentation wise.

Pocho Kota: Presentation probably.

Ramsey Russell: We may probably serve in portion size.

Pocho Kota: That’s right, isn’t it? But it’s the same thing we eat at home, like I say, we eat a lot of fish, we eat a lot of shrimp, we eat beef, we eat a lot of vegetables, a lot of fruit and everything fresh.

True Mexican Cuisine

Eating at your lodge is precisely, exactly why I don’t eat Mexican food “in Mississippi”, there’s one Hispanic grocery store about 45 minutes from my house and it’s where all the local labor comes in to eat lunch, that’s the only Mexican food I eat in town.

Ramsey Russell: The last month down here, eating at your lodge is precisely, exactly why I don’t eat Mexican food “in Mississippi”, there’s one Hispanic grocery store about 45 minutes from my house and it’s where all the local labor comes in to eat lunch, that’s the only Mexican food I eat in town, cause a lot of times I don’t even know what it is, Pocho, I just point, whatever I see all them boys leaving with, I point to it. I just get in line and point to it, too. That’s the only authentic, truly authentic Mexican we get. And it’s wide and that’s why because I come down here and eat real food, why the heck do I want to eat taco bell type stuff back home? The food has been absolutely amazing down here and I can’t not share how to make real margaritas. Absolutely, positively, you all make the best margaritas on earth.

Pocho Kota: That’s the easiest thing to do.

Ramsey Russell: I wrote down a recipe, I’ve watched it make it a million times. It is equal parts fresh squeezed lime, tequila and simple syrup, that’s it.

Pocho Kota: I see. That’s what you need and then ice.

Ramsey Russell: Put 4 shots in a blender, 4 shots of each in a blender. Add ice, blend it up, salt the rim, port, then, boys, we just had some clients leave, they were going to go to Mazatlán for a few days and they said, where’s the best margarita in Mazatlán? I said, now are you eating. You ain’t going to get nothing like this in that resort town, I promise you. But it has been absolutely amazing margaritas. I’m scared I’m going to be, like, have a bad habit when I get home, I’m going to need a margarita every night.

Pocho Kota: Now, you know the recipe, use lime, not lemon.

Ramsey Russell: Every time this suburban pulls up, Lebo’s sitting there waiting with margarita to go and every time I lay it down, it’s empty, he puts more in there. Talk about sleeping good, I have been sleeping good. You were telling me some stories, some of the local legends, like Indian gold mines and there was a Spanish and French port and talking about how when we got off of some of those villages, the color of the people changed and stuff like that. Talk about some of those local legends.

Pocho Kota: Well, we got a lot of history here. San Blas used to be the most important port in the Pacific for the Spanish back in 17 something, 16 something, that was the most prolific port in all American continent, I’m not talking about Mexico, I’m talking about the whole continent and well, a lot of commercial from Asia through sandblast back then. So it was very important and well, I think not just the Spanish, there’s stories that people tell that French used to be after the Spanish fighting for that port and then there’s a story that they had this little war between French and Spanish back then and the French got all these slaves in the ships and well, I think they ran out of supplies, so they let all these black people go and you can see that.

Ramsey Russell: You can see it. Some of your staff is very dark.

Pocho Kota: I think that’s a real story because you can tell when you see people here, not all the people, but people close to the coast, all these little towns close to the ocean, they got black people, how you say that?

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Black, African American.

Pocho Kota: African American. You can tell, you can see their hairs, that their bodies, they’re strong people and big people and their skin color and everything. And I think all these black people, this, the Spanish and the French let go back then, they mix with the Indians.

Ramsey Russell: Is there still French ancestry in Mexico?

Pocho Kota: Yes, there is. Up, down in Jalisco state. You don’t go very far, you just go to Guadalajara and you can tell, you can see a lot of white people from French descending blood.

Ramsey Russell: Because you’ve got Spanish Castilian and you’ve got a little bit of French. You’ve got some African descendants on some of the coastal areas and you’ve got local Indian heritage.

Pocho Kota: Yeah, that’s right.

Ramsey Russell: Wow. Like a little melting pot.

Pocho Kota: Yeah. We’re all mixed and then you can see. Well, we got all kinds of Mexican. We got White Mexicans, Mexican African, Mexican Indian with Spanish. It’s a lot of mixture and I think that’s a great thing about Mexico.

Ramsey Russell: Was that spot you were telling me about when they let all the African descendants go, was that the last war spot? Cause we were somewhere the other day and you said it was one of the last major wars. Was that –

Pocho Kota: Yeah, that was one of the last –

Ramsey Russell: That was it.

Pocho Kota: Yeah. Between the French and the Spanish and I think they say in that war, San Blas got deserted, no people anymore, like, for 50, 60 years.

Ramsey Russell: Wow.

Pocho Kota: 50, 60 years that took to the Spanish to come back.

Ramsey Russell: Unbelievable. We hunt two lodges, last year, we stayed in an old hotel that you all bought and turned into a, I thought, a very comfortable lodge, I’d love to have it in Mississippi for duck camp and you took me, you and Jesus took me to a hilltop, just a pasture out in the hilltop, over, I don’t know, about a mile away, I could see the little town and down below I could see the river. He said, this is going to where we build a new lodge and we show up this year, a month ago and we were the very first team to stay there and it’s magnificent. It’s unbelievable. First class, every, it’s as comfortable, it far exceeded my expectations of what you all were thinking about, especially as compared to the old hotel now, but it was unbelievable and just sitting there on that patio, you got a swimming pool right at our feet and we’re looking over that river, it’s just and the whistling ducks, in every evening, the whistling ducks come in. It’s amazing. But then sometimes we go, it takes an hour. I mean, I think it’s a duck fly that’s only about 35 miles from here, 40 miles. But to drive, it takes an hour and a half to get around to Riviera beach and it’s a beach house. And I mean, with a strong arm, you can throw it out and hit the Pacific Ocean, totally different change of pace, totally different. It’s actually like you were telling me that Riviera beach is actually where, like, the local locals come to vacation.

Pocho Kota: Yeah, that’s right.

Ramsey Russell: It’s like a miniature little vacation town. And why do you have 2 lodges?

Pocho Kota: Well, I got 2 lodges because that can help us not putting that much pressure on ducks and doves. So once in a while we move to the beach house, we come back to the tuxpan, to the hill.

Ramsey Russell: It’s too far to drive. I mean, it’s the same hunting area you’ve got, you were telling me one day how massive your UMA areas are. It’s a big chunk of landscape, but there’s a river that cuts through and there’s no way to cut across it or something.

Pocho Kota: Yeah, we got the Acaponeta river and San Pedro river.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Pocho Kota: These 2 rivers, they built all this marsh line we got in the middle.

Ramsey Russell: Oh.

Pocho Kota: So because of these 2 rivers, we got all this marsh, big marsh. So to hunt on one side and then to move to another one, you got to go all the way around the marsh. But if you go on a straight mile, in a straight line, it won’t take more than 30 miles, I guess, you go from one place to another.

Ramsey Russell: Because one day we were hunting the beach and I just got to looking at Google Earth and I’m like, crap, I’m 22 air miles up the beach, if we got on the sand and walked 22 miles, we’d have been at the beach house, it was right – But it take an hour and a half to get there.

Pocho Kota: See, yeah, that’s right.

Ramsey Russell: I really enjoyed, a lot of people, when we post up the stories of that beach house, people just blow up. I mean, they’re like, man I’m like, well, we don’t pick and choose, we go to one or the other, depending on the hunting quality and I got to tell you mate, we were talking about food a little while ago, I think it was 6 or 7 days straight, I ate oys -, you could eat oysters for $20. Those people walking up down that beach selling fresh oysters and they would shuck them. The second time or third time, I hit that old man with his oyster cart, he brought help and them 2 guys were shucking oysters quicker than I could shovel them down and they were so good Pocho, they didn’t need lime, they didn’t need hot sauce, they didn’t need nothing. They were just briny oysters that I could just eat just as quick as I could get them down and I was telling one of the boys from California, you can’t sit, you got to stand up because if you sit down, you can’t hold as many. You stand up, you can hold a lot more, standing up eating oysters. I ate so many, I made myself sick. What is it about that community? Is there any obvious differences? I mean, besides the fact we got a beach and we don’t? I mean, it’s still an agricultural community, isn’t it?

Pocho Kota: Yeah, it’s the same, it’s all farming in little towns that we are surrounded by these little towns and it’s all about farming and fishing and growing a little bit of cattle. So that’s what people do here and that’s what you’re going to see, we have no industry, we have no big companies. We don’t have big supermarkets, this is just real Mexico country lifestyle.

Ramsey Russell: It really is and I think that’s what’s so appealing to people, down here we’re shooting a lot of shovels, blue wings, green wings, we’ve shot some pintails, not a bunch, but earlier they move out with that full moon, they move out in mid to late February, some wigeons, whistling ducks. I did shoot the first week I was here, I shot the first pair of fulvous whistling ducks I’ve ever shot on the North American continent and we’ve seen them. What else we shot, cinnamon teal.

Pocho Kota: Blue winged teal.

Ramsey Russell: Blue winged teal, ruddy ducks, I shot a few ruddy ducks along the way.

Pocho Kota: Green winged teals, bluebills.

Ramsey Russell: Bluebills. I’ve just fixed to say you all have also got an area, it’s commercial shrimp ponds and that’s another major form of agriculture here that we didn’t talk about is there’s a lot of shrimp ponds here like those big jumbo white shrimp, we ate at the restaurant. You reckon they were caught in a shrimp boat or caught or grown?

Pocho Kota: I think it’s 50-50.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, just whatever’s in season.

Pocho Kota: Yeah, whatever the season is and that’s what you got. And right now, I think it’s 50-50. A lot of this shrimp from the shrimp ponds, they send it to the big cities, but a lot of them stay here, too and when we’re in season for wild shrimp, that’s what you get in the market. You just get wild shrimp, which is very good, too.

Ramsey Russell: I was surprised to learn you all do shoot banded ducks, banded bluebills, banded cinnamons. And the other day, Pinocchio was, he was checking all my white wings and I said something to him, I thought that’s what he was checking for, but he said, he tapped his arm and said, neo, you all do shoot banded white wings down here at times?

Pocho Kota: Yeah, sometimes get banded white wings.

Ramsey Russell: Where do they come from?

Pocho Kota: The ones with, we see we check on the Internet, they were coming from Southern California and Southern Arizona.

Ramsey Russell: Wow, that’s a long flight.

Pocho Kota: That’s a long flight.

Ramsey Russell: Unbelievable. Coming down here to get these milo fields. Isn’t that something? Your staff, to a person, to an absolute person, how big would you guess between the 2 camps, your field staff and your house staff, what would you guess your staff to be? I wouldn’t – 15, 20, 25 people.

Pocho Kota: Yeah. From 15 to 25 people.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Pocho Kota: That’s the people I got working for me.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah, that’s a lot of families.

Pocho Kota: Directly. Yeah, but undirectly, you can add another 30 more families, I guess.

Ramsey Russell: Your main staff, yourself. You run the lodge and the client portion, Jesus runs the field operations. We always, somewhere along the way, he’s either there already set up or we catch up with him and he leads in the way and he’s in charge of the field staff. But to an absolute person, I’ve hunted with a lot of your guides. They’re all pleasant to be around, they’re all hardworking. I mean, hunting this milo field is not easy, finding doves and I don’t know how they do it. Speaking of which, guy, tell this story, the other day I was with Kalimba and I didn’t know what Kalimba meant in Spanish and I’m on the phone shooting doves while I’m on the phone, I might add and one of the boys from the next blind, one of the guys came over and asked for my shotgun, Kapita. I handed it to him, like maybe that client gun broke or something, he went over to Kalimba, who was over in the bushes somewhere doing something, then he brought my gun back and handed it to me and I started knocking some doves down over there by there. And Kalimba like, no, he wouldn’t go over there again. I’m like, well, what’s the problem? And he started saying something about Kalimba, I’m like, I get it, Kalimba. You’re Kalimba and he started holding his arms way out and doing this, making all these hand motions. Kalimba, mucho Kalimba and he acted like he stepped on something, I’m like, well, kalimba means snake. And so he made the rattling motion and I don’t know, about 10 minutes later, he walked over there and he motioned me to come over and took the gun and killed about a 5 foot rattlesnake. That’s why he wasn’t going over there, he knew there was a rattlesnake, he said he had stepped on it and it was the prettiest thing, I hate to see snakes get shot like that. But, I mean, who am I to criticize these people living in the fields like this? I mean, we are a long way from a doctor’s office if a man gets bit, but it was the prettiest color I’d ever seen, it was like greenish yellow, it was a diamond bat, but it was almost the color of this white milo out here. One of the most beautiful snakes I’d ever seen. And you all see a lot of those out here.

Pocho Kota: Yeah, this is more tropical. This is not the desert anymore.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah,

Pocho Kota: So that, I guess that’s why these rattlesnakes get that color from the surrounding.

Ramsey Russell: Blend in with her right. I mean, I’ve never seen one that color.

Pocho Kota: We don’t have much brown or gray.

Ramsey Russell: He would blend right in with this grass right here, amazing. But I was talking about your staff and they’re amazing people and you were telling me a little bit about Lebo and PG. Talk a little bit about how you and Jesus found your staff and how long you’ve known some of these boys. Tell me a little bit about some of your key staff members.

Pocho Kota: The main guys for me is. Well, the guides, Kalimba is one of them, Floor, Kalimba’s brother and then we got Panoche, your guide.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Character –

Pocho Kota: And then we got Pinto, we got Lalo, we got Wango and then at the hotel we got Gilberto, we got Lebo, PG and we got the cook, Javier, the chef –

Ramsey Russell: Gilberto does a lot of cooking and he’s a good cook. It’s very local and regional food that he cooks. And I mean, was a great cook. But how did you come to know Lebo and PG?

Pocho Kota: Well, PG and Lebo, they’re my childhood friends.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Pocho Kota: I know them since we were little kids. I mean –

Ramsey Russell: Like grade school?

Pocho Kota: Yeah. 5 years, 4 years old, 6 years old and then PG is older than me one year. And Lebo is younger than me 3 years.

Ramsey Russell: You all kind of like 3 amigos, 3 brothers.

Pocho Kota: Yeah. And Lebo got the worst part all the time because he was younger, so he wanted to hang out with us all the time, so he was the one.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Pocho Kota: I think he’s the same in the US too.

Ramsey Russell: As you started to build this thing up. I mean, because Gilberto and Lebo were here last year. I don’t remember seeing PG, but you started, you were able to reach out to your childhood friends that you’ve still stayed in touch with and stayed friends. It’s important to have people you can trust and rely on, isn’t it?

Pocho Kota: Well, Jesus, PG, Lebo and me, we all from Los Mochis, so I brought him here. When I started, had this and I started doing this bigger, I needed people that I can trust, so I bring them here and they agreed to come, they were happy to come. And they know a little bit from before because they used to work for my father, too, like bird boys, just like me and Jesus started.

Ramsey Russell: They’ve been around a while.

Pocho Kota: So I bring him here and I really trust him and then I met Gilberto, like, 5 years ago and Kalimba and all the other guys I know him from – I got 24 years hunting Nayarit, so I met Kalimba and all the other guys, they were little kids picking up dove for the hunters.

Ramsey Russell: Really?

Is Outfitting a Hospitality Business?

Dead birds are part of the experience, but it is a people business first and foremost.

Pocho Kota: Yeah. So that’s the way it is. They started and they’re very, they with me all the time working with me all the time. And they start learning and I started teaching them and this and that and they got it all right. And they like to do it. That’s the main thing, they like to do it and they like to help people. If you’re that kind of people that you don’t like to help others, this is not your place.

Ramsey Russell: It’s a people business.

Pocho Kota: People business.

Ramsey Russell: The doves, we sell experiences, not dead birds. Dead birds are part of the experience, but it is a people business first and foremost.

Pocho Kota: That’s right.

Ramsey Russell: You’ve got to work together, you’ve got to work with Americans. Everybody’s got a different ambition. It is a people business.

Pocho Kota: And you got to like helping others to get what they need and that’s the main things I see in people to get them here with me to work in this project.

Ramsey Russell: What – does hunting season done run year round? What do those guys do when it’s not hunting season?

Pocho Kota: Well, Kalimba just told me today, he had this call today, somebody call him and say you’re ready to go back to the USA.

Ramsey Russell: Really?

Pocho Kota: Yeah. And these boys, they go to the US working for 6 months with a working visa and everything legal. And they happy to do it, they very happy to do it. I never hear nobody that is going to the USA saying, I’m going to the USA and I’m going to stay there, nobody says that. Everybody says, I’m going to the US, work for some time and I’m going to come back to where I’m from and this projects, this government, how do you say that? This government deal, bringing people to work for 6 months, it’s really good for everybody.

Ramsey Russell: I see. Well, I am saying this because I would like to invite a whole lot more of you because nobody back home wants to work. My son’s running a landscape business, can’t find good help, nobody can. Everybody’s struggling to find good help and we’ve got a country right down there across the border full of folks like this that want freaking jobs, just want to come up there and work to feed their families and make a living.

Pocho Kota: So, this is perfect for us because when we’re done hunting, they go to the US, they finish over there, they go to pick up apples, pears and cherries and this and that. They go to work on tobacco fields, sweet potatoes and by the time all this work end in the US, because the cold fronts and the snow and this and that, they’re finished over there and they come back and that’s when we started hunting here. So they never stopped, this is –

Ramsey Russell: It’s good. It jives seasonally with their work demands.

Pocho Kota: Yeah, this government programs from the US government is really helping and it’s doing good for people down here. And I guess it’s doing good for people over there, too.

Ramsey Russell: I guarantee you can get them.

Pocho Kota: These big farmers over there, they’re happy to have people that willing to work.

Ramsey Russell: I guarantee you they are. Every business in America is glad to have people to work. Change the subjects, how hard is it to get ammo down here in Mexico?

Pocho Kota: Well –

Ramsey Russell: Cause you all have done a great job. You all have got plenty of ammo, I’m just saying, I know from working with other outfitters, it ain’t just like running to Walmart and buying ammo. I mean, it’s kind of a big deal internationally right now, there’s a powder shortage, rates going up, but it’s hard to get that stuff.

Pocho Kota: Well, it’s not like in the US. Buying guns, buying gun parts, buying ammo, it’s very difficult in Mexico.

Ramsey Russell: You have to go through your military for all that.

Pocho Kota: Well, yeah, we got people that supply ammo, but to buy guns and gun parts, you got to go through government to the military to get all that, it’s not very good thing to do. If you do it, you’re not willing to do it again, it takes too much effort and calling and I got to have this paper and then they ask you for something else. And it’s hard to get guns and gun parts here.

Ramsey Russell: It’s very regulated, that’s what’s so wild is –

Pocho Kota: Yeah. But ammunition, it wasn’t that hard, like, from 3 years ago and then I think when all these war stuff in Ukraine started, that’s when we started getting trouble to get ammunition for hunting.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah.

Pocho Kota: And well, it’s been getting worse every year. But we do some politics and we know good people and that they’re willing to help us, we know people and we know where to go and who to ask to get ammunition. So we did, we have ammunition and we’re going to be safe for the rest of the season and I think we’re going to be okay for next season, too.

Ramsey Russell: You all are shooting 12 gauge, 7 and a halfs almost exclusively, we’re hunting small water bodies. I grew up in Mississippi shooting 7.5 at ducks. When I was a child, pre still shot days, I shot 20 gauge shooting 7 and a half and out here at doves, we’re shooting 7, 8 ounce loads, very light. And for ducks, we’re shooting ounce and an 8th, ounce and a quarter and it’s just absolutely perfect for these small ducks coming into these small water bodies, I would wish for nothing bigger, nothing more. But I knew it was difficult and took a year round commitment and plan to reliably ensure that there was ammo available for folks. Last thing I want to ask you about, Pocho and I hear from a lot of clients, not just at this location, but other locations in Mexico that they really enjoy the scenery, the landscape and driving around because we do a lot of driving here, but going through the small villages again, it’s just seeing how other people live, differently than I might live back home. And it’s just simple, happy, hardworking people. And here comes an outfitter that’s got a lot of gringos coming in, paying money, you’re buying UMAS, you’re doing this stuff, a business comes in to hunt under government control, this wildlife. But I know, too, that beyond the government permit to hunt this geographic area that you go in, you and Jesus go in and build working relationships with the communities that really beyond what I’m paying you for, ammo and tips and lodging and whatnot. I mean, what we’re doing here is extending way into these communities.

Pocho Kota: That’s right.

Ramsey Russell: Can you elaborate on that just a little bit?

Pocho Kota: A good part of this money you live here goes to communities and this money helps a lot, I do agreements, I do contracts with communities and landowners. So whatever I pay to community, that money goes to help everybody, that money goes to fix something that is going to be good for the whole community.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. Like a park or lights or –

Pocho Kota: Or lights or a water pump or fans for the community room where they do meetings and to paint the school, to put glasses on the school windows and that money helps a lot. Maybe you don’t see that, but some big part of the money you leave here goes to communities and to land owners. Yeah, landowners is a big thing for me. Wherever I go, first thing I do is when we found a good dove field or a duck field that we can shoot, first thing we do is go look for the owner, we ask permission, we make them feel like what they are, they’re the owners. So we go, we ask permission to them, we don’t just go and get in whatever we want, we ask permission to everybody and then we help with some money.

Ramsey Russell: It’s got to benefit everybody, it benefits the – That’s my whole point is you were talking about earlier, you’ve got a staff, extended staff of about 30 people, that’s 30 families.

Pocho Kota: That’s right.

Ramsey Russell: 30 families that are being fed and living off of this one little business here. But then it’s going deeper into the community now, school children are benefiting, the whole community can sit under a fan, which may sound, it may sound like a simple little thing to a lot of people, oftentimes, I think we Americans take little, simple life pleasures for granted. But to a little cobblestone community out in Mexico City, it’s something as simple as a fan to sit in front of is kind of a big effing deal, let alone having lights around their soccer park or a water pump where the community can get fresh water.

Pocho Kota: That’s right.

Ramsey Russell: That’s unbelievable, isn’t it?

Pocho Kota: Yeah. That’s what all hunting do. Hunting do all that for people. And if it wasn’t for hunting, well, maybe that money won’t be here.

Ramsey Russell: Yeah. That’s a good note to end on. Folks, you all been listening to my buddy Pocho Kota down here in Nayarit. Him and his brother Jesus are running, they operate, they’re the head knockers down here at the new Nayarit Mexico duck dove combo anybody’s been watching social media has been seeing me down here, posting my phone, my inbox, my emails are blowing up about it. Details will be on getducks.com at least by mid to late April. Meanwhile, we are accepting bookings, text or call me if you want to hear more about this amazing hunt. The best way to culturally describe this, hunt is good, old school, real deal, laid back, low key, relaxed Mexico. You spend 3 days hunting down here morning, ducks in the morning, doves in the afternoon, afternoons on the patio, probably sitting in one of them hammocks, swinging, overlooking the river. You’re so relaxed, they can pour you in a tequito glass because you’re going to be drinking a lot of margarita down here, I’m going to tell you that. Anyway, thank you all for listening this episode of MOJO’s Duck Season Somewhere podcast from Nayarit Mexico. See you next time.