Yeah....my bad. Thinking and typing instead of reading.....
Hunted it for 5 days. It was the only male on the property per the PH. I never got a good look at it. PH told me it was a big male. I took his word for it. I said I don't need a 30" one just a good one. One day at dusk we say it in bush and I didn't stare hard at is as we tried to sneak off the truck. Then it came out boardside of bush with just head and neck sticking out. I had it in the scope but could only see one side of horns and was focused on where the vitals would be if it stepped out. On the day I killed it it stepped into road at dusk and PH said shoot it. When I walked up to it I saw it was not symmetrical and closed together. PH got pissed when I asked why he didn't tell me. Said it wasn't his job to tell me. He then said fine you don't have to pay for it. Then when we got to camp he said I was paying for it. I called the head of Professional hunters association of South Africa and he said it was a trophy animal and to work something out with the PH. The PH then told me I had to pay the cull price of $1500 on it. This was after a incident of him shooting a giraffe I wounded without my consent and then shooting it 2 more times damaging the hide and skull. I will be writing the whole story up soon.
Yeah it sounds bad for sure and someone should have made it right. It sounds strange that you would need to go directly to PASHA without the outfitter and / or land owner stepping in, unless the PH was also one or all of those things....
Yep the PH was the outfitter and the landowner where it was shot. The hunt came from PHASA.
Gotcha. The pieces falling into place….
He wasn't carrying a rifle. He took the rifle I used to shoot it. We were on the back of the truck and he asked to hand it to him. I was thinking I was getting off the truck to stalk closer. He then proceeded to shoot it from the truck. Also he had me shoot it with a rifle he never had me shoot at the range. So no telling where it was hitting for me.
You certainly know by now that that is not a representative waterbuck—much less a trophy. Again, really odd that they would have you hunting on a property that had one male waterbuck. I personally cringe when I hear someone claim to be “verbally assaulted,” but it sounds like a Shiite show all around.
I respectfully disagree with your assessment Joe. This is a classic example of a sham being pulled off by a disreputable outfitter if the details given in this report are correct. To classify all South African hunts as being like this is kak as they say over there. I don't know how many times Jacques @JKO HUNTING SAFARIS has told me "No Phil, not the one we're looking for" in regards to I don't know how many species while hunting in South Africa. He did the same, while in Uganda, location was irrelevant. It was the same on my first hunt in RSA with a different PH.
