I have always been the type that likes the unusual and uncommon. So when work to me to deep south TX in the Rio Grande Valley it didn't take me long to realize I have a gamebird here that is somewhat unique, the Brown Chachalaca. You can only hunt them in deep south TX and even there they are only legal to hunt in 3 counties, one of which I currently live in.

So as soon as I got here I began researching them and found I had several public hunting areas near me that it was legal to hunt them on. I called the game warden for the area and sort of picked his brain and he recommended I concentrate on one of the unit of the Los Palomas WMA. The season opened on Oct 26 and I went but had no luck. Then I went last weekend and had no luck on birds but did pop a couple of cottontails with a Rossi 410 single shot.


But today was a different story. About 30 min after first light I was making my way along an overgrown path and heard some in a couple of big mesquites. These things are really loud and the game warden had told me I would probably hear them before seeing them. He was correct and fortunately I knew from the 2 weeks before that the path I was on would take me next to the mesquites. As I slipped in I saw a chachalaca on a bare limb and it took flight but a load of #7 1/2s stopped that as it crossed the path. About 7 or 8 other birds also took off and I managed to get another shell in the 410 and dropped the last bird in some really thick brush. The first bird was easy to recover since it fell next to the path but I ended up crawling on my belly to get the second bird.





These things are pretty cool. The back is sort of an olive green with a tan and white breast. Tail feathers are about 10 inches long with most of the feathers having a white tip. I'd guess them to be about half again the size on a big pigeon. I plucked them and will try roasting one and will break the other one down to fry. They had an incredible amount of yellow fat in the cavity and the crops were full of a purple berry. Now I know what food source to concentrate on.

On my way out I came to a big chilipetin bush and picked about 50 chilis to dry for later use. For those that haven't seen them they are very small but incredibly hot and make a great addition to chili or other dishes.


So how cool was that morning? It isn't every day you get to scratch one off the bucket list!

Cheers Y'All

Outstanding! Congratulations and thanks for sharing. If you eat them, let us know how they taste. But if I had shot those, I would have had to get both mounted. The couple times I inquired about hunting them on public down there, I was pretty much told to forget about it, not present on those places. So I know how big of an accomplishment taking one, much less two was.

Congratulations! I also would have at least one mounted.

That crawl thru the brush is why very few people hut chachalas.

Pretty snakey in that part of the country.

Very cool hunt and write up. Well done!