Was just thinking about the plane ride last summer and also African reports on various hunting boards and it seem that every other hunter you hear from claims to have the new #4 this or the new #2 that. It seems impossible to me that the top few spots for each animal are re-shot each year. Are these clients just taking the ph's word for it and the ph quoting bigger measurements on purpose to get a bigger tip knowing that the client will not measure for himself until 6 months later?

I'm sure there is some validity to what you say in some cases, then some clients have a habit of doing the same thing...I normaly just cut the first 4 inches of my tape and let it go at that

A lot of boyhood jokes on the topic of length come to mind.....
Peter.

If you look in the SCI book you will see it is "easy" to get other than a new #1. There maybe 6 #2 and 7 #3 etc. Remember the score is only in inches and the first to take a specific measurement does not own that position, but will share it with any other trophy of the same measurment.

Ray - You say that in jest, but a well known PH out of the Hilton area did exactly that. Until he was discovered by SCI, many of his client's heads were in the top 10 in the record book. He is now banned from SCI.

There are two types of hunters - those who love to hunt, and those who love the record book.

LMAO at Ray. Is that the same tape you use for the women in you life? No wonder they can't just distance very well.

Fred

There is some incentive for them to measure your trophy with an eye toward getting a bigger tip, but you should be familiar with the scoring methods and record book standings of all the animals you hunt, IF that matters to you.

Shooting a top 10 animal usually involves more luck than skill, so I would just consider it a fortunate accident.

George

I wonder how many hunter's that were told by their PH that they had a 58" Kudu or 25" Impala ever take the time to measure for themselves once they get home? I know I don't, at that point it really doesn't matter. If I did though and a 52" Kudu ended up being 48", I would not be happy. It wouldn't be the size but the fact that the PH felt the need to mislead me.

I just got some hippo tusks back from last years hunt. We never measured them in Africa but the taxidermist said they are the biggest he has ever seen. So we measured them - 29 long by 9 1/2 and 28.5 by 9. I think this makes them score fairly high in the record book, but not sure. I am told I need to get an SCI official measurer to score them and then pay 30 bucks to enter them. All the PH told me at the time was that it was a big hippo. I guess I owe him a bigger tip next time.

I just go for the fun, luck brings the trophies sometimes.

BigB

[ 02-14-2003, 04:15: Message edited by: BigB ]

One point I can also add is that not all hunters were interested in the record books but more of them are these days. Also with proper game managemnet these days the trophy quality of animals have improved sure your won't easily get a new #1 but that is where all the other top ones come from.

This is only related to plainsgame as I doubt it if you would easily find a top ten ranking elephant anywhere in Africa. Also you must remeber that there are diffrent criterias in the books like for bowhunting and handgun hunting and with these not being very popular but growing more and more new records are taken for those compared to rifle hunting.

I personally don't enter the record books but I do get my animals measured before they are loaded into the bakkie. The reason? People have lied before and said an animal was such and such big and it wasn't. I have also had a set of 28 inch nyala horns magically turn into 24 inch horns when they got to dip and pack and I ain't going for shrinkage on that.

So it is a good idea to get the measurements to protect your own interest whether you go for the book or not. Most PH's are honest and most will hand you the tape to double check them. Most PH's want to show you they got you to a good trophy head too.

In the case of my nyala issue that outfitter has agreed to allow me to replace my animal as I would expect.