By Ben Neary
NMWF Conservation Director
Matthew Monjaras, a New Mexico hunter who’s spent years pursuing waterfowl around the state, now devotes much of his time to sharing his passion for the sport with veterans.
Monjaras will discuss waterfowl hunting tactics and techniques at the New Mexico Wildlife Federation’s November Wildlife Wednesday event. His online presentation will start at 5:30 p.m. Nov. 11. Participate in the meeting by clicking HERE.
As head of Impact Outdoors, a group he founded, Monjaras commonly takes veterans, first responders and youth into the field.
Monjaras, who’s finishing a degree in elementary education, said Impact Outdoors evolved from his years of work with the Youth Conservation Corps, hosting summer camps and other work in the outdoors
“I’ve always really been attached to the earth, and fishing,” Monjaras said. “When things have been bad for me, I go and I seek the outdoors. I know how powerful that can be. It kind of just morphed into this thing with the veterans.”
Monjaras and his wife recently had a baby, which he said has cut down on his ability to take veterans and others out in the field. However, he said he still works to get in at least one trip a week.
At his Wildlife Wednesday talk, Monjaras said he intends to address topics including how to arrange decoys in various wind and weather conditions as well as give suggestions for little-known places around the state to look for birds.
Monjaras said he started hunting on the Animas River and had a few older mentors at first. “I’ve pretty much been self-taught since 18, and so I’ve been waterfowling for just about 18 years now all over the state,” he said.
Monjaras went to New Mexico State University, where he learned to hunt ducks in the desert. He lives now in the Albuquerque area and said he has hunted the Middle Rio Grande and Elephant Butte areas extensively.
“I’ve hunted out east quite a bit, up on the Animas, the San Juan, “Really anywhere there are birds in the state is really an opportunity for what I like to seek out and chase and find new spots,” he said.
At his presentation, Monjaras said he intends to present information about things he wishes he had learned earlier in his waterfowling career.
“Like some of the etiquette, bird ID and also a focus on habitat and different species,” Monjaras said. “And how they’re feeding can change throughout the migration based off of like pairing up with their females and crustacean intake for their calcium and egg development.”
On a recent hunt, Monjaras said he and the veteran hunter he was with set up their decoys early in the day when there was minimal wind and ice on the pond. “And then, as the hunt went on, winds increased, ice melted, so there was a series of like three different decoy changes that needed to occur to have the birds kind of sit where we needed them to sit,” he said.
Monjaras said his talk also will address setting up decoy spreads, the importance of having multiple species in the spread, and also available places to hunt around the state.
“I see a lot of hunters that just stick in the middle Rio, and they’re like, ‘man, how did you get a canvasback?’ or ‘how did you get that redhead?’ or ‘I’ve only shot one diver,’” he said.
The Middle Rio Grande is becoming increasingly crowded as development and new restrictions close traditional hunting areas. Monjaras said he will speak about how the state offers other places to go for hunting.
Monjaras said he got inspired to work with veterans because many of his high school classmates headed off to war and he saw its effect on them when they returned.
“At one point, I probably had seven friends who were going or coming back from Iraq or Afghanistan, and I’ve had friends that have come back from their service that the only thing that I think has saved some of their lives is the opportunity to get outside and to talk to somebody who’s willing to listen,” Monjaras said.
On his hunting trips with veterans, Monjaras said he’s careful not to pry into their experiences.
“I kind of look at them as who they are, and their character, and if they want to talk about stuff, we talk about stuff,” Monjaras said. “But there is a real healing process that takes place when you’re listening to the earth wake up and you’re watching that sunrise, and you get your first opportunity on a flock of geese that comes in to the spread, or a set of green heads, or pin tails or whatever.”
Waterfowl hunting also is forgiving in that if a hunter misses on his first round of birds, chances are more will come along soon.
“The best thing about waterfowl is that we have an opportunity for success in the field,” Monjaras said. “And that’s like a big part of getting people hooked: how were you, how was your success in the field. So waterfowl gives you lots of chances, it gives you places that are so remote that you don’t see another individual and we get to create that experience together when we’re in the field, and that is something that I think is a big part of healing.”
For more information about Monjaras’s work with Impact Outdoors, visit the website at: https://www.impactoutdoorsnm.com. The group may be reached at impactoutdoors.nm@gmail.com.