Dan Bonillas interview
Item
Title
eng
Dan Bonillas interview
Description
eng
Microsoft Word document, 7 pages
Creator
eng
Bonillas, Dan
eng
Montanez, Nathan
Relation
eng
Britto Club
Coverage
eng
Fresno, California
Date
eng
6/12/2015
Identifier
eng
SCMS_brto_00004
extracted text
>> Nathan Montanez: All right, could you give us your name and spell it?
>> Dan Bonillas: Dan Bonillas, B-O-N-I-L-L-A-S.
>> Nathan Montanez: How old are you, Dan?
>> Dan Bonillas: 68.
>> Nathan Montanez: Now how long have you been a part of the Britto Duck
Hunting Club?
>> Dan Bonillas: I've been a member for six years, but I've been actually
hunting out there as a guest since, let's see, '96. 5
>> Nathan Montanez: Now what other kind of involvement do you have with
the Britto Duck Hunting Club?
>> Dan Bonillas: Basically I'm just a member, you know, for whatever. I
give -- when we talk about things to do out at the club and stuff, you
know, I'll discuss different ideas and stuff. I've been -- you know, my
history is such that I grew up in Los Banos and duck hunting was my love,
you know, for -- if you go to Los Banos and you're not a hunter, you
haven't got anything to do, you know. And so I've been roaming around out
there in those grasslands for, you know, 60 years probably, not even, you
know.
>> Nathan Montanez: Can you explain to me how one becomes a member of this
club?
>> Dan Bonillas: Well, you have to be sponsored by a current member, okay,
and then you go onto a waiting list. And you know, this is a pecking
order. You sit there and wait until you get -- the people keep dropping
out. We have two different lists. One is a family list for members and
then as an open list and the family list always takes -- it takes
precedent over it, you know. They get first shot at it. That's the list we
operate off of first. Then if nobody goes from there, then it comes onto
the private list.
>> Nathan Montanez: Now you say you were a guest before you became a
member. Can you explain like the, the story of how you became a member?
>> Dan Bonillas: Well, what happened was I -- like I told you before, I've
been hunting forever, you know, around Los Banos and stuff. And this
gentleman, who was a member at that time went to high school with me,
graduated with me. And I was at one of my son's basketball games and we
started talking and stuff. And he asked me, he says, are you still hunting
ducks, aren't you? I said, yeah. He goes, I'd like to take you as a guest.
I just joined this club out here and I'd like to take you as a guest. I
said, sure. So we started hunting, you know, hunting together. Then he put
me on the list. And then his cabin mate -- usually you share a cabin with
somebody. The guy just got -- he got really old and he had to back out of
it and so I got in that way.
>>Nathan Montanez: What kind of things do you do at the club? Besides
hunting?
>> Dan Bonillas: Well, there's hunting and then there's the social side
with the barbecues and whatever. I know there's a lot of guys, most of
them, just about all of them from the Fresno area here, and I know they
use it in the summertime socially. They go out and have little barbecues,
do all that stuff. I live in Los Banos, so it's not a treat, you know. But
other than that, that's about it. Our hunting part of it. And the shoot
days are Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. So Tuesday night the guys will
go over and we'll have a little barbecue or feed or whatever and then
Friday night is the same way, you know, so.
>> Nathan Montanez: Now the other guys that were here told me that you
grew up in LB and that you're a good shot. You're actually a world-class
shooter.
>> Dan Bonillas: Trap shooter, yeah. That's what I've done for a living
since 1973.
>> Nathan Montanez: Can you go into a little bit of that and how that
factors you hunting ducks.
>> Dan Bonillas: Well, what happened was actually, you know, my hunting
was my whole thing, you know. I mean, I just I loved it. And I went to a
junior college at Taft, and when I came back, I was going to work and then
I go to Oregon State. They run a quarter system. So I had that lapse. I
was home for like seven weeks or something. And all my buddies that I
graduated with, who I went to school with, were shooting, trap shooting,
in this league, in a local league thing, and they wanted me to shoot with
them. And being a student without much money, you know, I told them, I
said, too expensive for me, you know, and no, we'll pay it, you know.
Okay. I'm in, you know. So I got started shooting in this trap shooting
like that and they just kept moving along. And then I ended up going to
San Jose State, work with the juvenile probation department there for a
couple of years and that helped me get going more money to go to these
tournaments and stuff. And then I think it was five years. I worked five
years and I pulled the plug. I got on the road and started shooting. I
connected with a gun company, that I'm still shooting their gun. It's 42
years or something, 43 years. And I went all over the world with them. It
was perfect, perfect marriage. That was it.
>> Nathan Montanez: Now there's a bunch of different things that the other
guys mention, that they enjoyed going out there. What did they do
specifically to enjoy about going out there?
>> Dan Bonillas: I just -- the same as all of them. It's not necessarily
maybe the Britto, but, I mean, being local I hunted a lot of different
duck clubs. You know, I was a guest, you know. And like, my best friend
from college has a really nice club on the north side of Los Banos. And I
think it's just the camaraderie and my dogs. I loved to hunt with my dogs.
I mean, that's -- it wouldn't be any fun without a dog, you know, so. But
the hunting is the main thing. I mean, it's good to go out and BS with the
guys, you know, and stuff like that but that gets a little old too, you
know, but unless they've got some other crazy story to tell us. But no,
that's -- I mean, I'd have to say that was the most of it. It's just the
hunting part of it and getting to share it because we get to take a guest.
My son's a member too and so we both get a guest. And then we have a
double-wide trailer out there, so we can entertain pretty good.
>> Nathan Montanez: Now you said that the club doesn't necessarily accept
women members but they do have women going out there to shoot every now
and again. Why do you think that is that they don't allow women out there?
>> Dan Bonillas: That's old school. That's what it is. I mean, I can't
imagine anything else. I mean, I've heard some of the older members make
comments about it, you know, that they feel like, you know, it's their
place, you know, and that, you know, if the women start coming in, they
won't have all the privacy that they have and blah, blah, blah. I think
originally what happened -- this goes back and this -— I wasn't here at
the time, but hearsay, these guys are bringing their girlfriends over
there and the wives didn't like that, you know, because these guys weren't
married and, you know, they felt like they were being imposed upon or
something. I don't know. I heard there was a lot of infighting. That's
just hearsay. I don't know for sure, but. So they cut that loose. And I
feel bad because there's a couple of guys that have daughters, you know,
and they don't have sons and they can't bring their daughters out to hunt.
I think they can come out like on Sunday afternoon after everybody goes
home, which is probably the absolute worst time in the world to hunt. So
you know, I’d like to see that part of it change but somebody will test
it.
>> Nathan Montanez: You're fairly a recent member. What do you know about
the history itself of the club?
>> Dan Bonillas: Well, you know, I hunted all the grasslands when I was
growing up. You know, it wasn't a big deal. Trespassing wasn't a quote,
you know, a major crime like it is right now, you know. There were no
fences, no nothing. So you know, the clubs shoot on Wednesdays, Saturday,
Sunday and after that they're vacant, you know, for those other four days.
That's -- we used to ride the roads and just shoot. We shot all the clubs.
So yeah, that's what I tell these guys all the time. Hell, I've been
hunting here for 50 years, you know. You guys haven't got anything on me.
So the base of my knowledge is of all the grasslands, I mean, all the way
from Gustine, Newman all the way down to Firebaugh. I mean, that was my
playground. You know, we just drove and hunted ducks, so. And you know,
and truthfully in the old days there wasn't a lot. They'd come out and
yell and scream at you. Hey, get the hell out here, you know. Blah blah—
there wasn’t calling a cop and getting a $650 fine for trespass. A couple
times that we did get -- you know, got busted for it. It was 25 bucks, you
know. It was -- you know, I used to tell the guys I only got -- I got the
cheapest duck club in the country. It's $25 a year. Hell, I can handle
that, you know, so.
>> Nathan Montanez: Now what do you see the future for you and the duck
club? Do you see it continuing? I know a few of them said that there's
always going to be water for the ducks and that they see it going on.
Water is a big issue. We might not be able to have shooting anymore.
You've been out there a while and you've got the lay of the land. What do
you see?
>> Dan Bonillas: Well, I mean, as far as the duck hunting I always want
to, you know, I want participate, you know, so as much as I can unless it
just gets unbearable where, you know, politics or whatever, you know. But
as far as the water situation, you know, with the -- with all the tree
huggers and the bird lovers and all this stuff, I think we get way too
much water now. Like I tell everybody, I am an avid, avid duck hunter. I
have been forever. I mean, shit, in school I'd cut school. I did
everything, you know. There will always be water for those ducks. And I
don't necessary agree with that right now just for the fact that these
farmers need water. You know, I'm sympathetic with them. They're making a
living. I'm out playing, you know, so. But the bird lovers, you know,
again, I can see where it would interrupt the migration of the ducks, you
know. Like, if we had a season with no water, with absolutely no water.
It's a big deal. You know, those birds [inaudible]. We've taken enough of
the migration away from them now by cutting off all the clubs from south
of us. So now instead of them going down, continuing from us and staying
right down and going to Mexico, most of them stop above Bakersfield, you
know. We see ducks now that we never used to see. I mean, I'm talking
kinds of ducks, you know, like Spoonbills and Widgeon. We never saw any of
those ducks until the end of the season, the end of the migration. Now
they're staying. They're nesting in our area, you know, in the refuges and
stuff. So I mean, yeah, we've upset it quite a bit, you know, enough now
that it's only going to get worse with people, you know, if we don't watch
it, so.
>> Nathan Montanez: I heard the other guys speak about the little routines
that they do going out there. I want to hear from your perspective,
someone who's world-class trap shooter?
>> Dan Bonillas: Well, you mean the routines? What they do to go hunting,
you mean? Something like that?
>> Nathan Montanez: The little things they do. Their little quirks.
>> Dan Bonillas: I mean, it's pretty much it's a pretty set deal. You
know, you get your time to get your stuff ready the night before and you
wake up your dog in the morning and you go out and the thing. And we have
a draw. I don't know if they told you. We have a draw and you have to be
there an hour and 20 minutes before shoot time, which is kind of -- you
know, it makes me getting up at 4 o'clock. That's ridiculous, you know.
But anyway, we go to the draw and we finish the draw. So we have that hour
and something, so we go back to the cabin and have a little bite to eat,
some coffee and stuff like that. Load it up. And we'll have a jeep that
stays at the compounds. We put everything in, load the dogs up and off we
go, you know. And then depending on where we shoot, what blind we've drawn
or something. Some of them need more camouflage than others. So we may
have to haul a boat out there with grass and stuff in it, so to prepare
it. That's about it. Come back in and clean your stuff if you're lucky.
>> Nathan Montanez: Now are you, uh, I would say, lucky?
very often? Or is it [inaudible]--
Are you lucky
>> Dan Bonillas: Pretty often. Yeah
>> Nathan Montanez: You have plenty of skill? You can ->> Dan Bonillas: No. We do well. My son and I do real well, and so
probably way above their average. So one thing about it, I mean, if you
can hit the duck, I mean, you know, there's enough. I mean, the limits
are, you know, they're okay. There are seven each, you know, but we get 14
pretty quick. I mean, we’ve killed 14 before the sun come up, you know.
Got out of the blind. I hear those guys yelling at me, you know. “Jesus,
you’re going in already?” “Oh, yeah, I'm done. We got better things to
do”, so.
>> Nathan Montanez: Now we've covered a lot of things. Is there anything
that you feel like we haven't covered that people should know about the
club that usually isn’t really uh, too reflected upon, touched upon?
>> Dan Bonillas: No. I mean, I think a club is a club. You know, I mean,
it is definitely one of the older clubs. It has more a lot of, say,
tradition I guess. But it's pretty symbolic that it's lasted as long as it
has, you know, without changing over. We're still using the same bylaws
and all that stuff that these guys started it with. And I don't know
exactly when it started. You guys might have that information, but it's an
old club. I remember it. Like I say, when I was running around, I started
driving, let's see, 50 some years ago. So I remember it from then, you
know, and being pretty established and stuff. Duck clubs are neat because
they don't have the nicest of facilities. You know, guys usually just an
old raggedy ass trailer or, you know, somewhere to get out, have their cup
of coffee in the morning and then come in when they get some bad weather,
to come in and get out of the weather. Now they've -- obviously they've
put a little bit more money in it. There's one thing I think that kind of
hurts our hunting thing is the money situation. The guys, just they're out
buying everybody, you know, and Joe blow, like, can't afford, you know, a
blind. A double blind right now is four to $6000 a year rent. You know, I
was paying $300. That's what I was paying when I was, you know, just out
in the thing, you know, and it really is four to six grand now. And four
to 6000, and these guys, like, from Fresno they come. Okay. So they come
Tuesday night. They come down and have dinner. Okay. A lot of -- half the
time they go to town. They have dinner, come back out, have a few drinks.
The next morning they have their breakfast, and with their gas and stuff
and go back home. All right. So then they come back Friday, do this thing
all over again. And shit, I mean, like I tell them, they talk about to me
about the expense of shells all the time, because I shoot really good
ammunition and it's expensive. Okay. But like I told them, I says you
know, shells are the cheapest thing in the whole damn thing. Think about
it. Goddamn. You know, we're paying four grand a year for the blind.
They’re paying —- they are probably out-of-pocket 7,500-$8,000, you know,
to kill these ducks a year. And you're complaining about ammunition? I
mean, come on, shit. Tripping over a dollar to get the dime, you know, so.
I think—I think, I don't know what it is either, because a lot of people
they're further getting exposed to the hunting by refuges or whatever, but
I know like right now what's driving the price all of a sudden. You can't
blame the guy that like owns the ground. It's whatever traffic will bear,
you know, Goddamn. If he can get four or five grand for this whole -- why
should he let people have it for 500, you know? Do you know what I mean? I
mean, it's his property and it's his deal. But it's -- there's -- I guess
income is such that it's generated in the Bay Area. And I mean, it's just
like if there's an opening, they put it in the paper. It's gone. I mean,
and so the price keeps going. Gee. If I can get that much, I can get that
much more, you know. I know my neighbor just talked to me a couple of
weeks ago about it. He's got a little club he bought about two or three
years ago. The first year his rent was 1,250. The next year his rent was
1,800. This year 4,000 –
>> Nathan Montanez: Wow.
>> Dan Bonillas: -- because he can get it. He says hey, I've got a waiting
list, you know. I want to do a few things, you know, put a new roof on the
cabin and blah, blah, blah. And he's not out of line. He goes 4000. He
says, I'm not out of line. He goes, we have [inaudible] right in back of
me. He says he's getting six grand, he says, so, you know. And he says
across the street, the Santa Cruz Duck Club, a membership in that duck
club is 120 grand, a membership. Then you pay every year.
>> Colby Tibbet: They shoot birds, right?
>> Dan Bonillas: Yeah. 120 grand. And my buddy’s duck club, you know, two
barrels. It's what they call double blind; right? 40,000 a barrel. That's
just for that, period. So I mean, you know, you don't even get to shoot
who you want with. I mean, mostly they do. You know, they have guys that
they have hunted with for a long time. But I'm saying it's not like I
can't take a guest. If that guy doesn't want to let me have a guest, you
know, like I say, I'm not going to go this week. You can take somebody.
You never -- you can -- you don't have guest privileges. We have guest
privileges at our club, so you know, we get a double. We get our own
double. Yeah so, pretty good deal.
>> Nathan Montanez: Now, before we end this, just one thing I wanted to
cover. Have you had any experiences out there that's kind of come back to
you every time you think about the duck club? Something that always just
brings you back to things out there?
>> Dan Bonillas: No, not really. Not really. I can't say that I do. I
mean, it's -- no, no, un uh.
[ Inaudible ]
>> Nathan Montanez: Is there anything else you'd like to add?
>> Dan Bonillas: No, I'm good. I'm good. I think you did a good job. We've
talked about whatever. I don't know what you did with those guys but, you
know, what they had to say, or.
>> Nathan Montanez: Well, like, Point A to Point B. They said from the
very beginning, and like 1918. They just basically gave me the whole
history and then from there they said the newer members can probably talk
about the way it is now. And we talked about the way it is now, and the
way other clubs are.
>> Dan Bonillas: Yeah. You see, that's like, you know, with me I can talk
about it. I can say for a long time. I mean, a lot of those members out
there they’ve been members of the Britto for 20 years. I don't know. You
know, there are a lot of older members. But I mean, I actually -- I mean,
I hunted and I know I hunted it for 50 years. I mean, no problem, you
know. And like I say, there was no -- you see, you have to look at the
numbers too. Like, right now you have in defense of the people that are
kind of ticked off about the trespassing problem and all that stuff.
There's so many people out there right now just, you know, just -- and so
if it was -- if they relax about it like they were, you know, 40-50 years
ago, they'd be overrun. They would be overrun. It was just us local guys
at that time. And like, it was almost a joke who's going to get there the
earliest in the morning, you know, to get these ducks who were sitting by
the road and all this stuff. We had about six guys, seven guys who were
doing it, you know. All kids. Once in a while you run into an older guy,
you know, that was just out there knocking around didn't have a feed or
something, so he wanted to shoot ducks and so they'd run out. I mean, it
was so easy. You know, you go out and kill. The limit was 10 at that time.
You go out through town. I could leave town and be back in town in an hour
and have 10 duck, you know, because we shot them off the road. I mean, you
know, it's like it wasn't sitting there waiting for them to come. Hell,
no, you went to them, you know, and just kill our 10 ducks and back to
town, you know. So yeah, it was a different —- it was a different beast,
you know. I enjoy going out and sitting. Like, me and my son will go out
and sit in the binders. You could sit and talk and BS a little bit and run
your dogs. And the dogs —- the dogs are neat to have, so. Alright.
>> Dan Bonillas: Dan Bonillas, B-O-N-I-L-L-A-S.
>> Nathan Montanez: How old are you, Dan?
>> Dan Bonillas: 68.
>> Nathan Montanez: Now how long have you been a part of the Britto Duck
Hunting Club?
>> Dan Bonillas: I've been a member for six years, but I've been actually
hunting out there as a guest since, let's see, '96. 5
>> Nathan Montanez: Now what other kind of involvement do you have with
the Britto Duck Hunting Club?
>> Dan Bonillas: Basically I'm just a member, you know, for whatever. I
give -- when we talk about things to do out at the club and stuff, you
know, I'll discuss different ideas and stuff. I've been -- you know, my
history is such that I grew up in Los Banos and duck hunting was my love,
you know, for -- if you go to Los Banos and you're not a hunter, you
haven't got anything to do, you know. And so I've been roaming around out
there in those grasslands for, you know, 60 years probably, not even, you
know.
>> Nathan Montanez: Can you explain to me how one becomes a member of this
club?
>> Dan Bonillas: Well, you have to be sponsored by a current member, okay,
and then you go onto a waiting list. And you know, this is a pecking
order. You sit there and wait until you get -- the people keep dropping
out. We have two different lists. One is a family list for members and
then as an open list and the family list always takes -- it takes
precedent over it, you know. They get first shot at it. That's the list we
operate off of first. Then if nobody goes from there, then it comes onto
the private list.
>> Nathan Montanez: Now you say you were a guest before you became a
member. Can you explain like the, the story of how you became a member?
>> Dan Bonillas: Well, what happened was I -- like I told you before, I've
been hunting forever, you know, around Los Banos and stuff. And this
gentleman, who was a member at that time went to high school with me,
graduated with me. And I was at one of my son's basketball games and we
started talking and stuff. And he asked me, he says, are you still hunting
ducks, aren't you? I said, yeah. He goes, I'd like to take you as a guest.
I just joined this club out here and I'd like to take you as a guest. I
said, sure. So we started hunting, you know, hunting together. Then he put
me on the list. And then his cabin mate -- usually you share a cabin with
somebody. The guy just got -- he got really old and he had to back out of
it and so I got in that way.
>>Nathan Montanez: What kind of things do you do at the club? Besides
hunting?
>> Dan Bonillas: Well, there's hunting and then there's the social side
with the barbecues and whatever. I know there's a lot of guys, most of
them, just about all of them from the Fresno area here, and I know they
use it in the summertime socially. They go out and have little barbecues,
do all that stuff. I live in Los Banos, so it's not a treat, you know. But
other than that, that's about it. Our hunting part of it. And the shoot
days are Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. So Tuesday night the guys will
go over and we'll have a little barbecue or feed or whatever and then
Friday night is the same way, you know, so.
>> Nathan Montanez: Now the other guys that were here told me that you
grew up in LB and that you're a good shot. You're actually a world-class
shooter.
>> Dan Bonillas: Trap shooter, yeah. That's what I've done for a living
since 1973.
>> Nathan Montanez: Can you go into a little bit of that and how that
factors you hunting ducks.
>> Dan Bonillas: Well, what happened was actually, you know, my hunting
was my whole thing, you know. I mean, I just I loved it. And I went to a
junior college at Taft, and when I came back, I was going to work and then
I go to Oregon State. They run a quarter system. So I had that lapse. I
was home for like seven weeks or something. And all my buddies that I
graduated with, who I went to school with, were shooting, trap shooting,
in this league, in a local league thing, and they wanted me to shoot with
them. And being a student without much money, you know, I told them, I
said, too expensive for me, you know, and no, we'll pay it, you know.
Okay. I'm in, you know. So I got started shooting in this trap shooting
like that and they just kept moving along. And then I ended up going to
San Jose State, work with the juvenile probation department there for a
couple of years and that helped me get going more money to go to these
tournaments and stuff. And then I think it was five years. I worked five
years and I pulled the plug. I got on the road and started shooting. I
connected with a gun company, that I'm still shooting their gun. It's 42
years or something, 43 years. And I went all over the world with them. It
was perfect, perfect marriage. That was it.
>> Nathan Montanez: Now there's a bunch of different things that the other
guys mention, that they enjoyed going out there. What did they do
specifically to enjoy about going out there?
>> Dan Bonillas: I just -- the same as all of them. It's not necessarily
maybe the Britto, but, I mean, being local I hunted a lot of different
duck clubs. You know, I was a guest, you know. And like, my best friend
from college has a really nice club on the north side of Los Banos. And I
think it's just the camaraderie and my dogs. I loved to hunt with my dogs.
I mean, that's -- it wouldn't be any fun without a dog, you know, so. But
the hunting is the main thing. I mean, it's good to go out and BS with the
guys, you know, and stuff like that but that gets a little old too, you
know, but unless they've got some other crazy story to tell us. But no,
that's -- I mean, I'd have to say that was the most of it. It's just the
hunting part of it and getting to share it because we get to take a guest.
My son's a member too and so we both get a guest. And then we have a
double-wide trailer out there, so we can entertain pretty good.
>> Nathan Montanez: Now you said that the club doesn't necessarily accept
women members but they do have women going out there to shoot every now
and again. Why do you think that is that they don't allow women out there?
>> Dan Bonillas: That's old school. That's what it is. I mean, I can't
imagine anything else. I mean, I've heard some of the older members make
comments about it, you know, that they feel like, you know, it's their
place, you know, and that, you know, if the women start coming in, they
won't have all the privacy that they have and blah, blah, blah. I think
originally what happened -- this goes back and this -— I wasn't here at
the time, but hearsay, these guys are bringing their girlfriends over
there and the wives didn't like that, you know, because these guys weren't
married and, you know, they felt like they were being imposed upon or
something. I don't know. I heard there was a lot of infighting. That's
just hearsay. I don't know for sure, but. So they cut that loose. And I
feel bad because there's a couple of guys that have daughters, you know,
and they don't have sons and they can't bring their daughters out to hunt.
I think they can come out like on Sunday afternoon after everybody goes
home, which is probably the absolute worst time in the world to hunt. So
you know, I’d like to see that part of it change but somebody will test
it.
>> Nathan Montanez: You're fairly a recent member. What do you know about
the history itself of the club?
>> Dan Bonillas: Well, you know, I hunted all the grasslands when I was
growing up. You know, it wasn't a big deal. Trespassing wasn't a quote,
you know, a major crime like it is right now, you know. There were no
fences, no nothing. So you know, the clubs shoot on Wednesdays, Saturday,
Sunday and after that they're vacant, you know, for those other four days.
That's -- we used to ride the roads and just shoot. We shot all the clubs.
So yeah, that's what I tell these guys all the time. Hell, I've been
hunting here for 50 years, you know. You guys haven't got anything on me.
So the base of my knowledge is of all the grasslands, I mean, all the way
from Gustine, Newman all the way down to Firebaugh. I mean, that was my
playground. You know, we just drove and hunted ducks, so. And you know,
and truthfully in the old days there wasn't a lot. They'd come out and
yell and scream at you. Hey, get the hell out here, you know. Blah blah—
there wasn’t calling a cop and getting a $650 fine for trespass. A couple
times that we did get -- you know, got busted for it. It was 25 bucks, you
know. It was -- you know, I used to tell the guys I only got -- I got the
cheapest duck club in the country. It's $25 a year. Hell, I can handle
that, you know, so.
>> Nathan Montanez: Now what do you see the future for you and the duck
club? Do you see it continuing? I know a few of them said that there's
always going to be water for the ducks and that they see it going on.
Water is a big issue. We might not be able to have shooting anymore.
You've been out there a while and you've got the lay of the land. What do
you see?
>> Dan Bonillas: Well, I mean, as far as the duck hunting I always want
to, you know, I want participate, you know, so as much as I can unless it
just gets unbearable where, you know, politics or whatever, you know. But
as far as the water situation, you know, with the -- with all the tree
huggers and the bird lovers and all this stuff, I think we get way too
much water now. Like I tell everybody, I am an avid, avid duck hunter. I
have been forever. I mean, shit, in school I'd cut school. I did
everything, you know. There will always be water for those ducks. And I
don't necessary agree with that right now just for the fact that these
farmers need water. You know, I'm sympathetic with them. They're making a
living. I'm out playing, you know, so. But the bird lovers, you know,
again, I can see where it would interrupt the migration of the ducks, you
know. Like, if we had a season with no water, with absolutely no water.
It's a big deal. You know, those birds [inaudible]. We've taken enough of
the migration away from them now by cutting off all the clubs from south
of us. So now instead of them going down, continuing from us and staying
right down and going to Mexico, most of them stop above Bakersfield, you
know. We see ducks now that we never used to see. I mean, I'm talking
kinds of ducks, you know, like Spoonbills and Widgeon. We never saw any of
those ducks until the end of the season, the end of the migration. Now
they're staying. They're nesting in our area, you know, in the refuges and
stuff. So I mean, yeah, we've upset it quite a bit, you know, enough now
that it's only going to get worse with people, you know, if we don't watch
it, so.
>> Nathan Montanez: I heard the other guys speak about the little routines
that they do going out there. I want to hear from your perspective,
someone who's world-class trap shooter?
>> Dan Bonillas: Well, you mean the routines? What they do to go hunting,
you mean? Something like that?
>> Nathan Montanez: The little things they do. Their little quirks.
>> Dan Bonillas: I mean, it's pretty much it's a pretty set deal. You
know, you get your time to get your stuff ready the night before and you
wake up your dog in the morning and you go out and the thing. And we have
a draw. I don't know if they told you. We have a draw and you have to be
there an hour and 20 minutes before shoot time, which is kind of -- you
know, it makes me getting up at 4 o'clock. That's ridiculous, you know.
But anyway, we go to the draw and we finish the draw. So we have that hour
and something, so we go back to the cabin and have a little bite to eat,
some coffee and stuff like that. Load it up. And we'll have a jeep that
stays at the compounds. We put everything in, load the dogs up and off we
go, you know. And then depending on where we shoot, what blind we've drawn
or something. Some of them need more camouflage than others. So we may
have to haul a boat out there with grass and stuff in it, so to prepare
it. That's about it. Come back in and clean your stuff if you're lucky.
>> Nathan Montanez: Now are you, uh, I would say, lucky?
very often? Or is it [inaudible]--
Are you lucky
>> Dan Bonillas: Pretty often. Yeah
>> Nathan Montanez: You have plenty of skill? You can ->> Dan Bonillas: No. We do well. My son and I do real well, and so
probably way above their average. So one thing about it, I mean, if you
can hit the duck, I mean, you know, there's enough. I mean, the limits
are, you know, they're okay. There are seven each, you know, but we get 14
pretty quick. I mean, we’ve killed 14 before the sun come up, you know.
Got out of the blind. I hear those guys yelling at me, you know. “Jesus,
you’re going in already?” “Oh, yeah, I'm done. We got better things to
do”, so.
>> Nathan Montanez: Now we've covered a lot of things. Is there anything
that you feel like we haven't covered that people should know about the
club that usually isn’t really uh, too reflected upon, touched upon?
>> Dan Bonillas: No. I mean, I think a club is a club. You know, I mean,
it is definitely one of the older clubs. It has more a lot of, say,
tradition I guess. But it's pretty symbolic that it's lasted as long as it
has, you know, without changing over. We're still using the same bylaws
and all that stuff that these guys started it with. And I don't know
exactly when it started. You guys might have that information, but it's an
old club. I remember it. Like I say, when I was running around, I started
driving, let's see, 50 some years ago. So I remember it from then, you
know, and being pretty established and stuff. Duck clubs are neat because
they don't have the nicest of facilities. You know, guys usually just an
old raggedy ass trailer or, you know, somewhere to get out, have their cup
of coffee in the morning and then come in when they get some bad weather,
to come in and get out of the weather. Now they've -- obviously they've
put a little bit more money in it. There's one thing I think that kind of
hurts our hunting thing is the money situation. The guys, just they're out
buying everybody, you know, and Joe blow, like, can't afford, you know, a
blind. A double blind right now is four to $6000 a year rent. You know, I
was paying $300. That's what I was paying when I was, you know, just out
in the thing, you know, and it really is four to six grand now. And four
to 6000, and these guys, like, from Fresno they come. Okay. So they come
Tuesday night. They come down and have dinner. Okay. A lot of -- half the
time they go to town. They have dinner, come back out, have a few drinks.
The next morning they have their breakfast, and with their gas and stuff
and go back home. All right. So then they come back Friday, do this thing
all over again. And shit, I mean, like I tell them, they talk about to me
about the expense of shells all the time, because I shoot really good
ammunition and it's expensive. Okay. But like I told them, I says you
know, shells are the cheapest thing in the whole damn thing. Think about
it. Goddamn. You know, we're paying four grand a year for the blind.
They’re paying —- they are probably out-of-pocket 7,500-$8,000, you know,
to kill these ducks a year. And you're complaining about ammunition? I
mean, come on, shit. Tripping over a dollar to get the dime, you know, so.
I think—I think, I don't know what it is either, because a lot of people
they're further getting exposed to the hunting by refuges or whatever, but
I know like right now what's driving the price all of a sudden. You can't
blame the guy that like owns the ground. It's whatever traffic will bear,
you know, Goddamn. If he can get four or five grand for this whole -- why
should he let people have it for 500, you know? Do you know what I mean? I
mean, it's his property and it's his deal. But it's -- there's -- I guess
income is such that it's generated in the Bay Area. And I mean, it's just
like if there's an opening, they put it in the paper. It's gone. I mean,
and so the price keeps going. Gee. If I can get that much, I can get that
much more, you know. I know my neighbor just talked to me a couple of
weeks ago about it. He's got a little club he bought about two or three
years ago. The first year his rent was 1,250. The next year his rent was
1,800. This year 4,000 –
>> Nathan Montanez: Wow.
>> Dan Bonillas: -- because he can get it. He says hey, I've got a waiting
list, you know. I want to do a few things, you know, put a new roof on the
cabin and blah, blah, blah. And he's not out of line. He goes 4000. He
says, I'm not out of line. He goes, we have [inaudible] right in back of
me. He says he's getting six grand, he says, so, you know. And he says
across the street, the Santa Cruz Duck Club, a membership in that duck
club is 120 grand, a membership. Then you pay every year.
>> Colby Tibbet: They shoot birds, right?
>> Dan Bonillas: Yeah. 120 grand. And my buddy’s duck club, you know, two
barrels. It's what they call double blind; right? 40,000 a barrel. That's
just for that, period. So I mean, you know, you don't even get to shoot
who you want with. I mean, mostly they do. You know, they have guys that
they have hunted with for a long time. But I'm saying it's not like I
can't take a guest. If that guy doesn't want to let me have a guest, you
know, like I say, I'm not going to go this week. You can take somebody.
You never -- you can -- you don't have guest privileges. We have guest
privileges at our club, so you know, we get a double. We get our own
double. Yeah so, pretty good deal.
>> Nathan Montanez: Now, before we end this, just one thing I wanted to
cover. Have you had any experiences out there that's kind of come back to
you every time you think about the duck club? Something that always just
brings you back to things out there?
>> Dan Bonillas: No, not really. Not really. I can't say that I do. I
mean, it's -- no, no, un uh.
[ Inaudible ]
>> Nathan Montanez: Is there anything else you'd like to add?
>> Dan Bonillas: No, I'm good. I'm good. I think you did a good job. We've
talked about whatever. I don't know what you did with those guys but, you
know, what they had to say, or.
>> Nathan Montanez: Well, like, Point A to Point B. They said from the
very beginning, and like 1918. They just basically gave me the whole
history and then from there they said the newer members can probably talk
about the way it is now. And we talked about the way it is now, and the
way other clubs are.
>> Dan Bonillas: Yeah. You see, that's like, you know, with me I can talk
about it. I can say for a long time. I mean, a lot of those members out
there they’ve been members of the Britto for 20 years. I don't know. You
know, there are a lot of older members. But I mean, I actually -- I mean,
I hunted and I know I hunted it for 50 years. I mean, no problem, you
know. And like I say, there was no -- you see, you have to look at the
numbers too. Like, right now you have in defense of the people that are
kind of ticked off about the trespassing problem and all that stuff.
There's so many people out there right now just, you know, just -- and so
if it was -- if they relax about it like they were, you know, 40-50 years
ago, they'd be overrun. They would be overrun. It was just us local guys
at that time. And like, it was almost a joke who's going to get there the
earliest in the morning, you know, to get these ducks who were sitting by
the road and all this stuff. We had about six guys, seven guys who were
doing it, you know. All kids. Once in a while you run into an older guy,
you know, that was just out there knocking around didn't have a feed or
something, so he wanted to shoot ducks and so they'd run out. I mean, it
was so easy. You know, you go out and kill. The limit was 10 at that time.
You go out through town. I could leave town and be back in town in an hour
and have 10 duck, you know, because we shot them off the road. I mean, you
know, it's like it wasn't sitting there waiting for them to come. Hell,
no, you went to them, you know, and just kill our 10 ducks and back to
town, you know. So yeah, it was a different —- it was a different beast,
you know. I enjoy going out and sitting. Like, me and my son will go out
and sit in the binders. You could sit and talk and BS a little bit and run
your dogs. And the dogs —- the dogs are neat to have, so. Alright.