Back in 2002 I made my first trip to Mexico. I would be hunting with one of the owners of an Outfitting service called Whitetail Adventures. His name was Bill and I had been on several hunting trips with him.

A little background Information to help this story:

Two weeks earlier we had been hunting in Saskatchewan for whitetail. We were hunting on an Indian Reservation so Bill had several tags he could use on this trip. The weather was very warm for October in Canada, it was in the mid 40s for highs. You just don’t get much deer movement when it is that warm. The next to the last afternoon we spotted an HUGE black bear in a cut oat field. I talked Bill into checking the bear out since we had a bear tag. The wind was perfect and we stalked to within 75 yards of the bear. 

Living in Eastern North Carolina I get to see plenty of world class Black Bears and this one was right up there with the ones we had back home so I tell Bill to get his rifle ready. I wanted to get some good, steady footage of the bear and then I wanted to get Bill to harvest the bear. Well, one problem, Bill didn’t want to harvest the bear. After a long drawn out conversation I could not get him to harvest the bear.

Long story short, when I got back to the lodge I showed the other owners of the outfitting business the footage of the bear Bill would not shoot and they were a little upset. One even told me if it happened again for me to grab the rifle and shoot the animal!!  By the way, the bear that Bill would not shoot ended up weighing 632 pounds and made Boone & Crockett. 

Back to the story in Mexico:

Like I said, it was my first trip to Mexico and it was our first afternoon to hunt. We were sitting in a couple of tower stands and had been watching several young bucks come in and out of the brush, when I looked up and all I could see were tines coming out of the brush! The deer came out at 325 yards and began to graze. 

Well as the old saying goes, you’ll know a good one when you see it!

I got Bill’s attention and he glassed the deer with his binoculars while I was getting some footage of the buck. The deer actually fed to within 80 yards of us while I was filming. Without looking at Bill, I told him “Shoot The Deer!” A few seconds went by there was no shot! Once again I said, “Shoot The Deer Bill!” Once again no shot!

I look over my shoulder to see Bill with his binoculars still in his hands! I asked, “Did you hear me Bill, SHOOT THE DEER!”  I was getting angry with him and I was raising my voice. I was scared we were going to scare the deer off, but once again Bill was not cooperating. 

He told me he wasn’t going to shoot the deer because he did not have any brow tines! Once he said that, I about blew a gasket. I told Bill that the chances of us seeing another deer that big on the trip was slim to none! Once again Bill said he won’t shooting the deer because he didn’t have any brow tines!

Finally I said, “Give me your rifle!”

Bill said, “Are you serious?”

I said, “Yes I’m serious, I will shoot that Buck in a NY second, GIVE ME THE RIFLE.”

Bill said, “Nope I’m going to shoot him.”

BANG!!!!!

Long story short, the deer scored 157″ as a 7 pointer and the next closest deer shot that year on the ranch scored 141″.  Bill told me he would have never guessed that deer would be that big! I told him he needed to take up picture taking, because he sure wasn’t a hunter!!!!

Here’s a photo of the deer Bill didn’t want to shoot!

I have not been on a hunt in Mexico since March 2004. Choppo was the cook at our camp down in Coahuila, Mexico. He was in his mid 80s and boy could he cook. I love Mexican food and when we were in camp in Mexico we got the authentic stuff all the way down to the Javelina and Rattlesnake meals!

Choppo could not speak English and we spoke very little Spanish, but we usually communicated by hand gestures. He was a jolly little fella and was always in a good mood.  We always tipped Choppo very good because he took very good care of us and we knew where he lived. I guess in Mexican standards he lived in a middle class house, but by my standards he lived in a shack. It was basically a tin house that was by no means water proof or wind proof, but atleast he had a roof over his head. He did not have running water or electricity, but who needs that when you didn’t grow up with it.

I spent New Years Eve in Mexico 3 years in a row. The second New Years Eve I was there, the outfitter go Choppo so drunk that he could not stand up. I asked him not to get Choppo drunk, but my plea fell on deaf ears. Choppo got so drunk that he did not come back to work the last week of our hunt. Fortunately they didn’t kill the little fella. He was back the next hunting season with that smile that he was known for.

Above is a picture of me and Choppo in December of 2003. Unfortunately I got word last week that the Ranch House that we stayed in (pictured in the Photo above) burned to the ground. That was my favorite place to hunt. A relaxing hunt and we always saw plenty of game!

We killed the rattlesnake above on New Years Eve of 2003. He was laying at the base of our tower stand! Of course Choppo prepared him for New Years lunch 2004!

I woke up this morning to a strange noise. Once I got my bearings I realized it was my 4-year-old getting sick. Poor fella! His mother and I tried to comfort him and tell him everything will be alright. I can tell he does not feel good, but he has not complained. I’ve had to wash bed sheets, towels and clean the carpet, the couch and a couple of chairs so far.

Now I’m getting nervous! My daughter was sick Thursday and now my son!!! I leave Tuesday for an 18 day Yukon moose hunt and I do not want to get sick!!!!

I have been lucky over the years. I have only been sick in one hunt camp. And sick I was!!! It was sooooo bad that I asked one of the hunters to shoot me and put me out of my misery.

It happened in Mexico back January of 2004. We were in our last 3 days of hunt camp. I woke up in the middle of the night with the worst feeling I have ever had. My stomach felt like it was going to turn inside out!!! I ran to the bathroom to take a seat on the toilet and realized I was in trouble. Not only did I need a toilet, I also needed a trash can.  I had lost control of all bodily functions.  I could not control my bowls. It was coming out both ends and I could not stop it. I sat on the toilet for 2 hours and then stumbled my way back to my bed!

When the outfitter came to wake me up and I told him about my early morning misfortune. The outfitter told me that out of the 7 people in camp, 4 of us had gotten sick overnight and had the exact same symptoms.

The 4 of us that got sick, stayed sick for 3 days!!!! I had even contemplated getting someone to shoot me in the head I felt so bad. I couldn’t keep anything on my stomach and it was coming out of both ends for 3 gut wrenching days!!! I was very weak and my stomach felt like Mike Tyson had been punching away at it the past few days!

The 4th morning we woke up and headed into San Antonio to catch the flight back home. I was very nervous about the trip because it was a 4 hour ride to the airport and not a lot of bathroom opportunities along the way. If an emergency were to pop up, I would more than likely have to go dashing into the mesquite for some relief!

Thank the good Lord I made it to the airport and finally back home without an accident! We traced our sickness back to the ice cubes that we used to put in our Cokes!!! They had run out of bagged ice at the ranch and used well water to make ice. The ones that didn’t get sick were drinking beer so they weren’t using the ice. That was hopefully the only case of Montezuma’s Revenge I will ever have. I don’t wish that stuff on my worst enemy!