Endless skies, relentless shooting

Dove season in Córdoba is open all year, with no daily limit, and the shooting can be spectacular on any date. Winter — June to September — brings dry, sunny skies and the most reliable conditions, and it happens to fall inside the UK close season. Autumn, March to June, overlaps the harvest, when doves flock from farm to farm and concentrations can be extraordinary.

No. Gun hire is included in our all-inclusive packages, along with gun cleaning and every permit you need. Most guests travel without their own guns for exactly that reason. If you would rather bring your own, you will need a temporary import permit for Argentina alongside the relevant UK paperwork.

Packages are built around 500 or 1,000 cartridges, and how you use them is entirely your business. The reason the numbers here are unlike anywhere else is the Macha roost, the largest and most populated of its kind in the world, a short drive from the lodge: the eared dove does not migrate, and in Córdoba it breeds four to six times a year against once in Europe. Local farmers lose a quarter to a third of their crops to them, which is why the province sets no season and no daily limit.

Everything from the moment you land: airport meet-and-greet, all ground transport, a deluxe double room with private bathroom, all meals, all drinks including Argentine wine and spirits, professional guides and a personal bird boy, your cartridge allowance, gun hire and cleaning, fishing tackle, every permit, WiFi, the pool and the jacuzzi, and all local taxes and field leases. International and domestic flights are not included, nor gratuities or laundry.

Yes — that is the combo itinerary at Río Bravo Lodge in Santa Fe: four full days and five nights, with a day on doves, a day on duck, a day after golden dorado and a fourth day of your choosing. Duck season there runs May to July. Guests who would rather fish for trout do six days on Patagonian water from Bravo Sur, between November and the end of May.

You fly into Córdoba International (COR) and we take it from there: we meet you at the airport and drive you to the lodge, a journey of an hour and a quarter, with drinks on the way. For Río Bravo the airport is Santa Fe (SFN) and the transfer is two hours; for Bravo Sur it is San Martín de los Andes, thirty minutes from Junín de los Andes. British and EU passport holders do not need a visa to visit Argentina as tourists. International and domestic flights are not included in the package.

Coffee at seven, Argentine breakfast at eight, then out to the field with your bird boy. Lunch is an asado in the field at half twelve — empanadas, sausage, tenderloin, ribs — followed by free time, and a hammock if you want one. The afternoon shoot starts at three. Back at the lodge there is a massage if you fancy it, drinks by the fire pit, and dinner at eight.

Nothing is wasted. Taking birds home is no longer permitted in Argentina, so the kitchen takes what it needs — dove appears through the week as pâté, brochettes and nuggets, alongside the beef. The rest goes to local families, cleaned and ready to take home, and to the farms’ pigs; what is left over is taken by foxes and eagles.

Yes — a good share of our guests travel as couples, and the lodge has a pool, a jacuzzi and massage on site.