Is It Safe to Hunt in Mexico? (Part 1)

Last week an old friend called to tell me about his hunting season. That’s not unusual, but it was ironic in that most of what he had to saycentered on a great duck hunt he and some buddies had enjoyed in Mexico.  Ironic, because the next day I would head off to hunt in Mexico myself. My friend filled me in on how he’d collected 11 of the 14 different species available there—Mexico’s upper west coast—including all three teal, pintails, mallards, mottled ducks, wigeon, Pacific brant and more. He loved the hotel where they stayed, and felt perfectly comfortable with the town and locals he encountered. Everything was ideal and the group intends to return next year. “I felt perfectly safe the entire time, “ he concluded. “And you know me—I’m suspicious about everyone."

Indeed. Did I mention my friend is a retired state police investigator from New Jersey who cuffed some really bad guys from organized crime in the course of his long career?

Hunting in Mexico proved safe for his party, but would it be for me? That was the question I kept getting from family and friends in the run up to the hunt. With all the news of drug-cartel terrorism, including the murders of public officials, along with kidnappings of private citizens and foreign visitors, it was a fair question.

I was headed to a quail hunt in Yucatan organized by NRA Outdoors, some 2,000 mile distant from my friend’s fantastic waterfowl hunt. Would it be safe?

(Check back later this week to learn what happened.)