Who was at fault, me or the PH?

[TOBY458]

If it were me, I would’ve looked for more animals with damaged horns. Buy one get one free is hard to beat! LOL!

 

[gearguywb]

Mistakes do happen, its more an issue of how it gets sorted out later.

I believe in trusting a PH/Guide. If you are focused on a making a clean, well executed shot, the last thing you should be doing is looking at the head (horns) of the animal then attempting to get back onto target to make a good shot.

It needs to be a partnership (IMHO), and as others have said, communication is key

 

[luger6]

@luger6, if I may ask why?

I’m not trying to be critical here, purely trying to understand. For example if you were made to believe the 53” bull was 56” or the Eastern Cape bull was over 50” and you were disappointed.

As a South African hunter that lives in an area where we are fortunate to have affordable kudu with very good genetics, I typically try to hunt mature animals with various shapes of horns, in other words, narrow, wide, deep curls, shallow etc, not bothering to much about the inches.

I do realise it is different for travelling sports hunters, and I always discuss that with a hunter beforehand, ie if he wants age, inches, symmetry, will he be interested in a malformed or broken horn and so forth.

A good Kudu in my book is over 55" with symmetrical horns and a good Estern should be pretty close to 50". 46" was apparently the average for trophy bulls in the area I hunted. I have no room for mediocre trophies on my walls. I was close to leaving my Buffalo Skull too as it was less than what I had paid for but when I got the price reduced took it home.

 

[Pablo]

No offense, but a 53” and a 46” would be trophies for 95% of hunters, me included.

 

[sestoppelman]

I had a similar thing happen to me many years ago, my 3 rd trip over. Was hunting sable, and PH spotted one, I was scoping him, moving and I remember he told me "one horn is shorter than the other",
to which I paid no mind as most often one horn is shorter than the other on all game animals. So I shot it and we got it down and it turns out one horn was broken off about 4 inches shorter than the other, not quite what I had envisioned.
As it didnt quite measure up to SCI or trophy size anyway, I decided to not make it an issue and had the taxidermist at home do some magic and make them the same length as it would have started out that way, being it was broken and not just malformed.

 

[gillettehunter]

I have had this problem several times..... Some my fault for pulling the trigger and some the PH's. On my first trip to Africa I was in Namibia and was hunting a red Hartebeest. In the evening and my PH had me kill one in a herd. I shot the one he told me to shoot and it was a cow. He kept saying, "its all my fault". Wound up as a N/C animal.
A few years ago in Zambia I was hunting hartebeest again. The PH got me on a "bachelor" herd and had me shoot one. It was a cow. He thought I killed the wrong one. We found the herd again 40 minutes later and he had me kill another one. It too was a cow. Then another of the remaining 2 perhaps 40 minutes later and it also was a cow............ All were N/C... PH error. Later I got a bull on another property. I have 1 cow and the bull horns as a Euro in my trophy room. Good for a laugh.
Perhaps my 3rd hunt in Africa in the East cape I shot a doink of a springbuck. The PH told me to shoot the 4th in line. One was behind a bush and I got the wrong one. I paid for that one......
Crap happens. After a couple of times you get a bit more cautious and make sure you and the PH are on the same page.
Bruce