Anyone on our illustrious forum ever hunted Chachalaca?

Tough to get access to. South Texas is almost universally private.
In my travels chachalaca and elegant quail have eluded me.

If you make enough calls, and pay enough, the barriers could be mitigated.

How about Mexico, or further south?

Going to need to cross the river have a friend that has a ranch in old Mexico if interested .

Can’t say.
I focus my specimen collecting on those native to the US, excluding the exotics running around Hawaii as well.

Going after Harlequin ducks, Barrows Goldeneye, and Aleutian teal, this week as a matter-of-fact.

I hadn't heard or thought about the chachalaca in long time. One of my cousins is a bird hunter in Southeast Texas. I found this from Texas Parks and Wildlife site :https://tpwd.texas.gov/landwater/land/habitats/southtx_plain/upland_birds/chachalaca.phtml

Thanks!
Gives me another critter to chase.

A while back, I gave them a good go, the Rio Grande was visible, maybe a couple hundred yards away. I saw a few, but came up empty, for me it was very brief glimses. I hunted clumps of nasty, thick brush, basically impossible for any sort of decent dog work, for the areas I was in. Mesquite, great for wood charcoal, but much of it was thorny brush, it was no fun. It was just some very limited experiences, I'm sure other have had much better, but I don't know if I would be over tickled being in isolated brush that far south nowadays. Go get 'em Stan, maybe you can also pick up a whitewing if you haven't gotten one of those before. Best of luck.

I don't plan on trying to hunt them with the border situation as bad as it is now, illegals and all. My curiosity was piqued about them when I saw a short clip on a hunting channel on television yesterday afternoon. I had never heard of them and immediately looked them up and read about them. Not that they look alike but they remind me somewhat of a capercaillie in size, and habit. Every picture I saw of them showed them in a tree. Interesting bird.

Stan-- isn't this area you detailed in SW Texas much the same as shown in the Cormac McCarthy novel (and later-movie) "No Country For Old Men"?? RWTF?

A picture and a little about Chachalaca.



https://www.houstonchronicle.com/sp...reat-for-Texas-wingshooters-13393561.php
Pete

Not sure, Francis. May well be. Rough country according to CraigD and others.

sxsman1, thanks for the link but as soon as I click on it the newspaper company blocks it....... wants me to subscribe. Would like to read it, but not bad enough to subscribe.

You drinking Georgia moon shine again....

There are two islands in Georgia that are supposed to have some

Really? Where? Can you provide a link to some info about it?

Thanks, Stan

Yeah sign me up too for an island hunt

I think the only place I ever read about hunting chachalacas was in "Bird Hunting with Dalrymple", a 1986 book by Byron Dalrymple. He covers them in his final chapter: "The Wackiest Game Bird". None of the other writers who claim to cover all the upland bird species one can hunt in the US mention chachalaca hunting.

Stan, St.Catherine's Island has the bird. Island is in private hands and for years released exotics for preservation. It has dozens of ring-tailed lemurs as well. Gil

Sapelo island. Stan

Stan, my memory about the bird is iron clad. However, iron rusts in the coastal salt air. I find no reference to St. Catherine's Island having the bird. However, I found references for Blackbeard and Sapelo. Sapelo has 400 acres of private holdings with the rest being owned by the State. Blackbeard is Federal. Blackbeard and Sapelo are separated by a tidal creek, Blackbeard Creek. One wing pump or glide clears the creek. From Blackbeard to St. Catherine's is about 2 miles across Sapelo Sound. More useless info: Blackbeard Island was owned by the infant US Govt. for the harvesting of Live Oaks for shipbuilding sailing vessels. Nearby St. Simon's Island supplied the ribs and stem for Old Ironsides (USS Constitution) one of the 6 frigates (all had Ga. live oak) that fought the Royal Navy during the War of 1812. As a former member of the navy, you might find Ian Toll's Six Frigates interesting. It's the story of the formation of the US Navy and the infighting it took to build the navy's first purpose made ships, the six frigates. Gil

There were Chachalaca stocked on Jekyll at one time, but no one has seen one lately. I understand they are inedible and they look like big mockingbirds to me. How'ed they get on the gamebird list. I understand you can bait'em with orange slices???...Geo

That is fascinating, Gil. Thanks!

George, with that being true, that they are "inedible", I've lost all interest in them. And, indeed, I would wonder why, that being the case, they are legal to be hunted anywhere.

Then again ........ are rails edible? or, mergansers?

Or barn pigeons?? RWTF

Perhaps the guy drawing up the list owned some fruit farms?

Nix the mergansers, but marsh hens and soras are fine eating. Marsh hens must be eaten fresh. Freezing gives them a fishy taste. They dine on fiddler crabs in our marshes. There's plenty of meat on the breast, thighs and legs. The marsh hen is a good starter for youth shotgunners. Less difficult to hit than a party balloon. Marsh hen (clapper rails) hunting off Sea Island, GA, 1928. Gil

GLS .... ever been to visit Arbigland? No chachalaca there ...just founders !
oops ...singular ...Founder.

I happened to be watching "Primal Survivor" on the "Discovery Channel" last night and as the main character was traveling across South America, he spent the night in a small village. While there he went Chachalaca hunting with two young boys one of which missed one of the birds with a rock, but the other boy killed one using a sling shot. In answer to the question of if they are edible, the boy's mother added it "to the pot" for the family's night meal.
Mike

Without beer Doves are pretty much inedible and we shoot them off buckets....

jOe, there’s an art to shooting off a bucket! It’s harder than it looks….

Cut him a little slack, buzz .......he's prActicing ..........



It's just that shooting something flying is such a far cry from ground sluicing 5 turkeys in one day. Takes a little time to larn.

Lose a little belly there, lardAss, and it'll be easier to swivel and swing on thAt stool.

Stanley is that a foe tin you be shoot'n in that photO ?

Ps....

Hey bub I wouldn't be talking about ground sluceing when you told us your grandpappy shot into coveys of quail sitting on the ground.

You have sluceing bred into yOu.

Doves might border on inedible the way a lot of people fix them, but they are a feast if properly prepared. Doves might be my favorite meal; it's certainly top 5. But my enjoyment of them goes back to when I was growing up in the 60s, and I understand that most people today are just not gonna get it. My mother always rationed the store bought meat; I could have 2 pieces of chicken and that was it. The only time I could eat as much as I wanted was when we had fish or game, and doves weren't rationed unless we just hadn't shot enough.

We always plucked doves, and left the legs attached, and then fried them. My wife was out of town a few weeks ago, so I cooked myself 8 of what I killed the previous Saturday. I got them nice and dry and seasoned with salt, pepper, and some chicken seasoning, then ran them through a mix of egg, oil, and milk. Then they got coated with flour and dropped into 350 degree cooking oil breast down for about 8 minutes. Then I flipped them on their back for about 5 minutes and they were perfectly brown and no hint of grease.

I ate them with rice and peas. You gotta start by removing the legs and eating all the meat off them. Then break the wings off and eat them, saving the breast for last. Then it's time for #2 and so on. Took about an hour to eat them all, but I don't ever feel stuffed because there is a lot of work involved. It's sort of like eating blue crabs in that you burn more calories than you get. Eating quail is more efficient. They can be cooked the same way as the doves and it only takes 4 of them to make a meal.

Need a good western on TV while you eat this meal, and it's best to eat alone. Can't talk and enjoy this correctly.

It's not for everyone.

I don't know anything about a Chachalaca, but I wouldn't care to hunt them if they aren't edible. I wouldn't try to fool myself into believing that hunting is a cost efficient means of acquiring food, but eating the kill has to be part of it.

Chachalaca meat is like turkey meat; it is perfectly edible and pretty good if you know how to cook it!

Best,

Jose

We keep coming back to that old country recipe for Rooks, Cormorant, Capercaillie etc.

1. Skin or pluck
2. Wrap in clean muslin
3. Bury in moist soil
4. Forget where you buried it.

Parabola,as a fellow Merciian that reminds me of the recipe for galahs in East Australia. Put a gallon of water in a pot, bring to the boil, throw in three rocks and plucked galahs, boil for two days, throw out the galahs, eat the rocks

I recommend: (1) No Country For Old Men (2) Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (3) Rio Bravo with Dos Equis cold -bottle or glass, your call. RWTF

Say whO.....

The Chachalaca country (habitat) is primarily in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, few hours South and easterly from the country in the Jones, old men movie, which was staged in the "Big Bend" country of far West Texas.
Two pretty diverse regions..... The Lower "Valley", running south east from Maverick County to the Gulf is a different vegetation, commonly called the Brasada, (brush country) is the dense scrub described elsewhere in this post.
Shortly after graduation from Texas Tech in '72, I took a position running a ranch operation down there for a well off older cousin who lived in Houston. This place entailed multiple large tracts on both sides of the Border. Ranching and Hunting operation .

The bird was locally referred to as "a Meskin Pheasant". Just incidental to Blue (scaled) quail hunts. I shot quite a few of them... Ran a lot, not anything particularly challenging on the wing in my opinion.
Stringy breast meat , much like a native Rio Grande Gobbler living in native feed (no deer corn). Other than counting coup on one to add to your list of harvested species, I don't know any reason to go on a Chachalaca Hunt.

I wouldn't really have cared if it was worse than old shoe, I would have eaten one or two if I could have bagged them for the experience and the picture. It really is a rare upland game bird for as far and wide the US extends.

Where's CZ. He said it wasn't for him, but the game classified, huntable exotics out in Hawaii are every bit as estabished as Ringnecks in the plains states. I bagged a few Francolin out in Hawaii, tasted just fine to me, but some day I'll go back for the trophy pictures of Kalij and other exotic pheasant and maybe quail/grouse.

Craig,
I believe CZ is on Kodiak island as we speak.
Karl

I was. Now I’m in Seattle.
I was stuck out on the boat in a sheltered cove while 70 knot gusts whipped the sea into a white froth.
2 days of 20 foot seas between me and Kodiak city.
It was weird.
The storm winds blow around the islands, and the huge tides make standing waves of significant size.
We couldn’t get around the end of the island. The swells in the straight were too big.

Made the best of it and caught a 50lb halibut while hiding from Davy Jones.
I’ll be making Cullen Skink when I get home.

One morning before the storm we had a Barrow’s Goldeneye beat down that resulted in a 4 man limit of all drakes.