Many countries, including the United States, provide good waterfowl hunting opportunities.
Seasoned duck hunters often discuss their favorite duck hunting locations. The Chesapeake Bay and southern Louisiana top the list in the US, while to our north Canada most certainly is on the list. We can’t forget Mexico to our south. These locations indeed offer what is considered “Good” duck hunting.
Those who have had the opportunity to travel outside of North America will likely include New Zealand and perhaps even Uruguay.
In friendly discussions and even healthy debates, it would be difficult to argue that any of the locations mentioned are unsuitable for duck hunting.
What can’t be argued as Argentina’s number one location in the world for hunting ducks? Every hunting writer, shotgun sports publication, waterfowl magazine, and online media source unanimously agrees that Argentina is the duck hunting capital of the world.
Argentina is blessed to have two large rivers that run north to south along with the eastern provinces. The rivers are the Rio Parana and the Rio Uruguay. Both are massive rivers that begin in Brazil about 160 miles south of the capital city of Brasilia. The two rivers begin as one in Brazil and split apart at the border of Paraguay and Brazil. This fork creates the two rivers mentioned above. The Parana takes the western fork, and Uruguay takes the eastern fork, each running roughly 700 miles south before reconnecting just above the city of Buenos Aires at a point known as “Punta Gorda” or, in English, the Fat Point. Rio de la Plata is where the two rivers meet and become one again. There is much debate whether the Rio de la Plata is an actual river, a bay, or an estuary. If considered a river, it becomes the widest river in the world; if considered an estuary is 90 times the size of the Chesapeake Bay and more than 100 times larger than the Pamlico sound. Without entering the debate whether the confluence of the two rivers is an estuary or a river, what is known with certainty is that the two freshwater rivers meet in this area and meet with the southern Atlantic Ocean.
To come back to the best duck hunting in the world, ducks do not make these rivers home; however, the rivers create countless tributaries, marshes, ponds, and lagoons. This network of water systems is most commonly used; it irrigates the immense agriculture in the area but, importantly, creates the perfect habitat for massive populations of resident ducks.
The same water systems create the temporary homes of ducks used for breeding and nesting during the migration. The vast amount of agriculture coupled with the immense water system that creates the duck habitats make eastern Argentina the duck hunting capital of the world!