Puerto Rico 2025 iguana smack down

My son Josh and I finally made it back. We went in 2021 thinking to make it an annual thing. Life comes at you fast and it just didn't happen. I'd sold a motorcycle to a fellow from Australia that wanted to couple ride every year with a friend and their wives. Came did the ride and had no where to put the bikes until the next year. I agreed to store them. 14 years later they never had returned. Best laid plans I guess. So I understand time going by fast.

I'm 70 and told my son this is the year. Never know what the future will hold and with aging it's seldom pleasant. I love to travel with my son because the roles have reversed. He sets everything up. Rentals, reservations, drives, navigates while I blissfully follow him around. Often won't let me use my credit card either, another perk. 😉 

We use these guys for our guides: https://www.puertoricoxtremeoutdoors.com/about-us

Wonderful people to be with and a keen eye for the iguanas. I like to bring my own guns but they have excellent guns to use if needed.

I chose to bring a Leshiy II and a AirMaks Krate both .22. Both fun guns but mainly they don't have a valve in the air bottle. Airlines are hit and miss but I've always been requested to see in the bottle. The other reason being the compact size to use a smaller gun case. I bought a thick case to be able to double stack them.

Leshiy on the bottom Krate on top. I also but a large bottle on the Krate for higher shot count.

The first shooting day did not disappoint. Our first tree had 14 iguanas in it. It takes an untrained eye some time to be able to spot them. The guides were great about pointing them out. With time I could spot my own but they always found them faster and ones I don't think I would have seen.

You are so focused trying to see them that I thought a light drizzle had started and just kept shooting. My son had run off. I thought maybe to get air or reload. Turns out the iguanas that had not dropped out of the tree were dripping blood and the wind made it like a mist. I'm just standing in it getting blood splattered.  Duh.

Had to clean my glasses and optics. Wash the clothes later. He had a good laugh over it.

As most know iguanas are a pest. No natural enemies on the island and the locals have zero love for them. Eat crops, gardens and burrow. You can see a white home just on the right of this photo.

The owner saw us and came out with fresh lemonade. It was made from her own lemon tree and it was GOOD!

Here is one of our guides Robert enjoying it with me.

From there we went across the street and had more of a walk about to different trees.

There was a flat barren ground area and when it got a bit later the iguanas would come down to feed. The Leshiy is a semi-auto and I could rapid fire on them as they ran.

They mostly ran and then stopped so my son got some ground ones too. We then went more into the thicker brush area where the larger iguana are.

Great first day of activity! Speaking of activity, here is what was left of a fresh 500 count tin. A .22 works fine but you get impatient waiting for them to drop out of the tree and very often put multiple shots in them. sometimes a leg will be holding on and hit there will drop it. They are durable! Body shots just seem to annoy them but can get them to move enough to offer a head shot. I had packed three tins and had maybe 150 shots left on the last day. Both guns performed well other than losing a breech seal on the Krate. Simple fix. I have a couple Leshiy IIs and sometimes cycling can be an issue. Not one miss cycle. The downside is an 8 shot magazine. Semis tempt you to shoot more than is needed. So a lot of reloading. I have speed loaders so not as bad as it could be.

On the second day we were to shoot with a family group. I'm always a bit nervous of vacation groups that seem to add iguana hunting as something fun to do. You never know skill levels or gun safety experience. They new nothing of PCP guns but some seemed to own guns. the patriarchs of the family were celebrating there 40 wedding anniversary. Both with military backgrounds. All was going well and there were plenty of iguanas for everyone to have shooting opportunities. I had distanced myself from the larger group with my son. When we came back it turns out the husband had tripped in a hole and as he fell shot his wife point blank in the leg. It went all the way through her leg and had a front exit. .25 caliber.

I couldn't believe how cool she was about it. Told the group to keep shooting and not to worry about her. What!? She was so tough! When we went to return to the cars she wasn't going to ride in the support vehicle for fear of getting blood on their seat. The plan was to go prepare iguana for lunch.  She put a band-aid on the entry and exit wounds and stayed while they prepared lunch. Amazing. I would check in on her and ask if she was doing okay, her response was "5th generation military, better be able to take a hit".

Speaking of eat what you kill. they grabbed a few iguana started to butcher them. I don't think the US health department would approve but when in Puerto Rico do as Puerto Rico.

I didn't get to try it the fist time we went. They call it "Chicken of the trees". Seems like chickens are the base comparison for everything. My son would not try it. I found it like eating a buffalo wing. Tasty but bones to eat around.

The group had headed off to shoot while lunch was being prepared. My son had a business call so I went across the street to shoot starlings. I think they call them Changas.

Our last day shooting was the best! One of the guides for the group shoot told us we had to go to this farm and go to a certain tree. Robert and our other guide Juan agreed to meet there. They sent us coordinates. It was a large farm with a variety of produce. Farmer hate iguanas. This is why. You can see their tracks on the protective covering. The iguanas come down from sunning and just eat whatever they please. 

We shot around the perimeter a little and then went to the tree we were told about. Turned out to be two trees at the irrigation pump house. I don't know where they kept coming from. I was surrounded by open fields. Yet we shot over 50 iguanas just from those two trees. No jungle walking just stand round the trees and keep shooting them. Just when you thought they were gone 5 more would appear.

When the well finally looked dry we went to the edge of the field for more. This is how close we were to the road. There was an ice cream truck on the other side. We were dying of the heat and humidity so that was a welcome break.

Spoils of the day.

Hopefully going back next year!