I always see people talking about how safe it is to hunt in Mexico and thought I would share this story I saw today.

Mexico: Hunting party of 8 killed in Oaxaca state

OAXACA, Mexico – Attackers shot eight men to death and piled their bodies in a pickup truck in the southern state of Oaxaca, and gunmen kidnapped the mayor of a city on the outskirts of the northern industrial hub of Monterrey, Mexican authorities said Monday.

It was unclear whether Mexico's drug gangs were responsible for the Oaxaca killings or the kidnapping of Mayor Edelmiro Cavazos of the city of Santiago, in the northern border state of Nuevo Leon.

But Nuevo Leon state prosecutor Alejandro Garza described the abducted mayor as "leading the front and showing his face in the fight against organized crime." He said no ransom demand had yet been received.

Garza said the mayor was taken from his home around midnight by men wearing uniforms from a police agency that was dissolved years ago. A security guard for the mayor who was released shortly after the abduction reported the crime.

The area around Monterrey has been wracked by bloody drug gang turf battles, and attacks on political figures by drug gangs — once extremely rare — have become more commonplace.

In June, gunmen believed linked to a drug cartel assassinated the front-running candidate for governor of the border state of Tamaulipas, and a month earlier gunmen killed a candidate for mayor of a Tamaulipas town.

Police said the Oaxaca victims were apparently on a hunting trip in a rural part of Oaxaca near the Gulf coast when they were attacked. The state prosecutors' office said they were shot in the head and found Sunday. One was 15 years old.

The motive was under investigation, but the region has been wracked by drug violence, land disputes and other feuds.

In the border city of Ciudad Juarez, meanwhile, at least nine people were killed in attacks by gunmen on two parties Sunday.

Five men were slain when gunmen burst into a house in a low-income neighborhood where a birthday party was being held and opened fire. Dozens of shells from the type of assault rifle favored by drug gangs were found at the scene.

Prosecutors said that in the other attack Sunday evening, gunmen killed three women and a man at another party. Prosecutor's spokesman Arturo Sandoval said the gunmen arrived in three vehicles, blocked off the street where the pool party was being held, and opened fire with assault rifles on a group of about 15 people.

Elsewhere in Ciudad Juarez, the bound, bullet-ridden bodies of four men were found dumped on a roadside.

Drug violence has taken more than 1,400 lives in Ciudad Juarez — and 28,000 nationwide — since the government stepped up its offensive against drug cartels in late 2006.

On Sunday, Proceso magazine published the first death-scene photos to emerge of one of the higher-profile victims: drug lord Ignacio Coronel, killed in a clash with soldiers on July 29.

The photos — Proceso did not say where it got them — show Coronel fully clothed, lying in a pool of blood and near what appears to be a pistol.

The military has been cautious about the release of such images since pictures showing drug lord Arturo Beltran Leyva with his pants down and blood-soaked money scattered over his chest emerged shortly after he was killed in a shootout with marines in December.

In weekend violence, assailants threw grenades at offices of the Televisa network in Monterrey and the border city of Matamoros. Nobody was hurt.

In the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, police reported Sunday they found the bound, burned remains of a body with a federal police badge.

Veracruz detective Ricardo Carrillo Almeida said the victim appeared to have been tortured, and authorities were working to identify him. A federal police officer was reported missing in the area several days earlier.

(This version CORRECTS location of grenade attack)

Here's link to article
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No damn way am I ever going to consider hunting Mexico. I will go to Africa first.

I will keep me and mine here in the good old U.S.A. I do enjoy hunting, but prefer to not be the hunted.

Anyone thats tell a hunter(person) it is Ok to hunt Mexico is full of I don't care if its an outfitter a lease mgr whatever.............death comes in many ways, avoid this one.

x2

If I go hunting across the border it wont be for fun and games...

I do think we need to have an open season down there, but not for the four legged variety of game.

Is Texas hunting near the border safe these days? I don't want to be glassing for critters and banditos...

you may see some illegals in the bush. it's typical in south texas. me and my hunting buddy have gone to his leases multiple times and found illegals in the bunkhouse. it aint pleasant.

but he also hunts just south of the border on the shores of amistad and there were no comlications (last season)

I went last year with no problems at all. But I will not be going back this year. It's really to bad, lots of great hunting in Mexico. Got a 142 9 point out of the camp house. I was down there helping a buddy with his guided hunters and was able to get my 9 point on the next to the last day...

I was offered to set up some stands and feeders down near Eagle Pass by a friend of mine that own property. After thinking about it for a while and hearing about how bad it is that close to the border I'll just stick to hunting in Freer til the dust settles further down south.

It's a war zone as far as I'm concerned and their government can't get a handle on it, so I wouldn't spend one cent of American money over there.

It's like someone posted before, that those cartels know where the Americans are hunting, and they know exactly who has ranches that they are leasing to Americans, and it's their turf, so you are at their mercy if you are going to be safe or not.

To believe otherwise is naive!

For me, it's just not worth it. Was always hoping to get to hunt Mexico before I kick the bucket but it ain't worth dyin' early for.

Here is another point of view. The cartel's aren't stupid either and they do know if they want the US armed forces to get involved to mess with US citizens down there. I don't honestly think they are going to be targeting Americans. I think odds are if you don't make eye contact and just do what you are there to do and that is hunt then you would be fine.

I'm not going down there to hunt because I don't have any place to go but I would say getting to and from would be your biggest concern.

Stinks it has come to this...

The last time I hunted in Mexico we had to pay major bribes to the Federales to keep them from taking our guns. Never went back. If you are going to Mexico to hunt take an AR platform rifle. Shoot a good deer a few Mexicans then run for the border.

When Mexico's president can come over here and tell us how we should govern, and with this administration, and president that goes around apologizing to anyone he can bow down to, do you really think the cartels are afraid of us?

When an outfitter / guide makes that statement, well, I would say "stay north of the border". Those guys don't care who you are, or what you are, They'll slit your throat in a New York minute.

I know a few guys going this deer season. I'll let y'all know how it works out for them...

I probably would go if my buddy needed my help again but he doesn't this year. I've been there probably 10 times in the past few years with zero problems...But, you never know and it just takes once. We always go thru town in the middle of the day during the week and get out of town. Once we get to the ranch, we never leave until time to head home...Man, really great place to hunt, to bad it came to this.

If I were to go I would prepare just as if I were going over seas to war.

Get some good life insurance, and have all your legal and personal matters in order just in case.

People go to war and some do return, so if it's important to you and the family is OK with it, and you feel the need to put yourself in harms way, then more power to you!

I don't know why all of a sudden its bad to go to Mexico.
Aint nothing really new.
Mexico has always been corrupt. except now the drug gangs run everything, no longer the cops.

I also dont think the drug gangs would target "innocent americans", but getting caught in the crossfire is my concern.

If you get caught in that crossfire, you will be painted as being involved with drugs. Thats how the mexican govt. deals with issues it would rather not admit. Paint the victims as being drug dealers.

Also who gives 2 turds if someone gets killed in Monterrey or some other town not "on the border"?? Killings happen everyday all over the US.
It irks me to see violence in cities in Mexico 100s of miles from the border and the news paints it as border violence.
Show me some documented instances of violence on the US side that is directly tied to drug violence. Not just crime in border cities. Shoot, there has always been crime along the border. Nothings new with that.

I went deer hunting in 2008 and bird hunting early 2009 at a place called Rio Grande Ranch. You cross over in Eagle Pass and then drive East for a while. It's pretty much halfway between Eagle Pass and Laredo, but on the Mexican side of the river. Beautiful ranch with 30,000 acres or something like that. They had people drive us across the border and with us all the time. Once we were there, we didn't leave the ranch. Had all our meals and everything right there. We didn't have a single problem.

That being said, it's a little different atmosphere down there now. I would definitely think twice about heading down there.

I agree Longhorn.

Jimbo, it's not that bad man. I would say you have a much better chance of coming back from Mexico than from a war. I know where your coming from but I have a friend that lives on his hunting ranch 2 months during season and is at the border every week to pick up hunters. In 20 years he's never had any major trouble. Just the standard local cop $20 every now and then.
He also goes about once every couple of months during off season just to check on things. In fact, I know a lot of people that cross the border to hunt and can't recall anything bad. It could happen but IMO I think it's sensationalized quite a bit..

The thing about it is not all of the times that it works out, it is the one time that things do not work out and you do not come back that worries me.

Don't get me wrong. I havent gone over in a long time, and have no desire to.
Not because of the violence, my problem is you have virtually zero rights over there. If you get caught up in the wrong place, you are quilty until proven innocent. Corrupt government.
Same government that loved the drug kingpins when they were getting paid off, but know the drug kingpins dont pay and have more power than the govt.
That's the dangerous part for me.