My son and I had talked about going to Puerto Rico to do the iguana hunt. Covid put a damper to the idea last year and it didn't come up again. I get a text from my son that he has found a great deal on air fair and booked a tour with Abner and Raphael with Iguana Hunters of Puerto Rico. That was a nice surprise. 😀 Â
My son, Josh, had arranged everything. All I had to do was show up. My kind of traveling. The decision was whether to bring our own guns or not. One year, returning from EBR, we had a horrible experience at the airport. We had checked before hand on flying with airguns restrictions and checked all the boxes. Turns out individual airports and flight agents have their own opinion and it can change quickly on you. While waiting for our flight I'm paged to go back to check in. Very long story that involves the literal bomb squad being called in. That's a whole other thread in itself. Fast forward to Puerto Rico and my son decides he's not going to go through that again. I had just gotten a new Leishy II and really thought it would be the perfect size for a tramp though the jungle iguana eliminator. The big plus is the bottle can screw off with out a valve on top. That was an issue in the Arizona airport at EBR. They wanted the bottle valve off to see into the bottle.Â
So it ended up he took his scope with the camera on it and I took the Leshiy. I told them at check in there was an airgun in the case. The agent asked another agent who said no problem "Check it through". History repeats itself and after literally just sitting down after a 15 minute walk to the gate I'm paged over the airport intercom. Requested to go back to the check-in desk. Deja-vu. Turns out they wanted the bottle off the gun. Lucky we had time at the gate to jump though their hoops.
Okay, next day and we are off to meet the guides. Iguana Hunters came highly recommended. I can see why. They were on time, ready with air, cold drinks and know how to spot iguanas. To the untrained eye they are hard to see. Blend in with everything. Sometimes I felt a little dumb, They are not 20 yards away in a tree right in front of me with a guide pointing them out and I can't see them. You do get better with time figuring it out but these guides saw stuff I never would have.
We started at an active banana farm. Level ground pretty much in the open with trees around the perimeter loaded with iguanas. There was also a family group so one guide went with them and Josh and I had the other guide to ourselves. We had Abner the first day. They provided my son a FX Dreamline with a 500cc bottle. Allowed him to put his scope in it and sight it in. Nice gun, but my son would find out not the lightest thing to carry all morning. I had brought a sling for the Leshiy and was able to just let it hang off my side.Â
The side of the island we were shooting on is the dry side. It goes from tropical to dry really fast.
The tree right where we parked had my first iguana kill.
I didn't know what we were in for so I was happy just to hit one and so early in the day. Head shots are the definite preferred hit zone. These things are durable! Later in the hunt when I couldn't see the head I could empty an 8 shot magazine in the body and it would still be alive. The thud of a body shot hitting is louder than the gun report. You know when you've hit one.
They say to wear long pants. This is why.Â
 Burr plants were all over the place. My pants and shirt were kind of a nylon material so I could get them off easy.Â
You shoot until about one o clock. My son had brought a drone and I had a video camera on my scope. We spent some time dicking around with the set up and still had a high body count. The camcorder on the scope didn't work well for me. Too hard to see the screen in the light and impossible for me to find the iguana in the camera screen.Â
Spent the rest of the morning chatting with Abner and adding to the body count. My son with Abner. Sometimes, most times, they land in an area that is too hard to recover the body. I'd say we had about a 40% recovery rate on the first day. They will also get stuck in the tree.Â
You lose track of time and body count and don't realize the dent you are trying to put in the population until they lay them out for you.
The next day was amazing! I didn't ask, but I think because it was just my son and I and they knew we didn't need our hands held around the guns we went more jungle dense on the hunting grounds. We had Raphael for the guide that day. His English is good, but not as easy to understand as Abner. But he can spot iguanas! Took us to a couple different spots that we were told iguanas love. They like to be near water and this area had it.
I can't say it's remote because we were never far from roads. But once you are in the dense part you can't see anything but trees and iguanas. This section had monster size stuff! I guess because it would be difficult to keep novice shooters together and provide enough air and drinks they don't take larger groups into the forest. So the iguanas have time to grow. And grow they did!Â
We were so surprised how much larger they mostly were. When you see that thing up in a tree you kind of gasp.
Most were shooting .25 caliber. My Leshiy is a .22. It was fine and I felt the ultimate field gun. The low magazine capacity was a little hassle but not bad. I'd just keep it loaded while looking for the next "Tree chicken". If it would have not have had the higher capacity air tank that would have been a pain. I was getting 64 shots a fill so total shot count was acceptable. Raphael had put a 30 minute tank in his back pack and we all needed it!
We're going back! Loved it and the beaches are fantastic.