375Fox
AH legend
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2020
- Messages
- 3,588
- Reaction score
- 11,605
- Location
- Pennsylvania
- Media
- 157
- Hunted
- Zambia, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Cameroon
If hunting animals with ear tags doesn’t bother you I don’t know how to argue back. I cannot understand being proud of a trophy that was raised and handled as livestock previously. You are also trying to compare eastern cape to Limpopo where the degree and intensity of game farming is very different.Who cares about ear tags? My first safari the PH lined me up to hunt springbuck on a high school chum's large property. He has quite a large herd and some very nice rams. I shot a fine one after a couple hours cat and mouse stalk. Then we had the rest of the day to kill. The property owner asked if I might be interested in hunting a gemsbuck bull that had escaped into a sheep section. This guy got out five years earlier and for whatever reason simply was not interested in getting back with the herd. He probably was also not interested in breeding. So may as well get rid of him. My PH had been trying but to no avail. Several clients had tried and failed. That old bull was cagey. "Pat, he has a tag in his ear. Is that going to bother you?" No, not really. If he's hard to get, sounds like my kind of hunt. That's what matters. We chased that bull round and round in the thick stuff with lookouts on the hills and still no one ever saw him. Finally, we gave up and went to the farm for lunch. Afterwards, as we were just on the highway leaving PH told me about a pair of cows that had also escaped onto another section. A client shot one two months earlier. I suggested if the other one is still there we may as well go give it a shot. We're already there with the rest of the day to kill. That animal is only wasting range where it is (and range was a precious commodity during a seven year drought!). We eventually did find her on a very rugged section and I had to shoot to kill or get run over ... or worse. Not sure if it was a charge or we were just in her way. VERY close shooting. I can't ask for a more memorable hunt than that.
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