In January 2013 I traveled to Chihuahua to hunt mule deer and Coues deer with maybe not the most reputable outfit. I could go on and on about different occurrences during the trip, but the incident relevant to this thread happened on our last night in Chihuahua City before heading home.
I and the other hunter on the trip, "Bob", were dropped off by the outfitter at a hotel in Chihuahua City the night before our departing flights. Bob was from Pennsylvania and didn't have a lot of experience traveling by plane for hunting trips. He had traveled west once before and had taken a small mule deer buck. I was aware of the strict protocols for getting deer antlers and capes across the border, which for me would be at Customs in DFW. When we picked up our capes on our way to the hotel, I knew we had a problem.
Capes are supposed to be turned, salt-dried, and tick-free. When I opened up the cape bags there was literally moisture on the inside of the bag. The hair was wet. The outfitter said it would be fine, that he had never had a problem before, etc. We were dropped off at the hotel to wait for the outfitter to return the next morning and shuttle us to the airport.
I told Bob that there was no way our capes were getting through Customs in their current condition. Neither of us spoke Spanish well enough to communicate, so I started searching on Google for a source of salt. I found what appeared to be a small store located a few blocks from the hotel, so I set off on foot (well after sunset) through the city to find it. It turned out to be a small convenience store that had 3-4 small bags of salt. I purchased everything they had and headed back to the hotel, with little hope that it was going to be nearly enough to get the job done in the few hours we had left.
Bob and I spread the capes out on every flat surface in the bathroom and applied what salt we had. We spent the rest of the evening cleaning and scraping the skull plates of our deer to ensure they would make it through Customs.
We got up early the next morning to check on the capes and were a little shocked at what we found in the bathroom. The salt on the capes was mostly wet, but the capes were pretty dry. However, there were ticks. There were ticks on the floor. There were ticks on the walls. There were ticks on the ceiling. I'm sure there were ticks in places I didn't look at. And we had 10 pounds of bloody red, wet salt to dispose of.
I had the brilliant idea that we would just wash it down the tub drain. We dumped all the salt into the tub and started running water. But the salt was too thick and the drain immediately plugged. We soon had a tub full of pink brine that was only draining very slowly.
We hung up the capes to facilitate drying for as long as we could, and then carefully bagged them back up, making an effort to expose the driest parts of the capes. By the time we left the hotel room the tub had finished draining, but there was still a large amount of bloody salt in the bottom that we didn't dare try to wash down again.
When I arrived at Customs in DFW I was immediately pulled aside for closer inspection of my capes. It was clear this guy didn't want to let them go through. He seemed like he must be on about hour 12 of an 8-hour shift of dealing with monkeys like me, and wasn't amused. But I knew all of the rules and kept pointing out how I had followed them, while avoiding actually unfolding the capes more than I had to. I knew that if he pulled them all the way out and opened them up I was sunk.
He finally called a supervisor over to make the final determination. I made my pitch again, and the supervisor was an easier sell. He gave me a pass and stern instructions on how to do it properly the next time (as if). So, my capes and antlers miraculously made it home with me. I heard from Bob later that day that he had sailed right through Customs with hardly a second glance.
I still wonder what happened when housekeeping showed up to clean our room that day.
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