Kudu, Sable, Buffalo, and many more all get their just deserts while hunting, around the camp fire and in their placement at home in the trophy room. What are some opinions as to the most underated trophy animal that is hunted in Africa?

I think it's the hyena. If hunted by baiting, they're pretty challenging and the setup includes all the elements of a baited lion or leopard hunt.

Hunting brown hyena over bait was very exciting and I guess it´s sort of "poor mans DG", especially since we got to follow it up in the long grass (found it dead 50m from the bait but it was exciting).

Blue wildebeest are exciting to hunt as they are tough as nails!

Underated? If you mean by that the most difficult to hunt, my reply is without any doubt an impala queen.

Firstly you have to look at, well many, impala ewes to get a chance to see a queen, as they are 1 in 1000? Then you have to recognize her as a queen. Not too difficult if you are sitting by a waterhole and they all come to drink, but I'm talking about "hunting" and not "ambushing" one. Then, unlike a ram, they are always inn a herd, that means many eyes and ears to help being on guard.

No doubt, an ethically hunted impala queen is a trophy to be proud of. Very proud!

In good hunting.

Andrew McLaren

The Duikers...the Red and even the Gray. Very challenging to hunt and very very tough little critters....hard to get a good trophy.

quote:

Originally posted by Andrew McLaren:
Underated? If you mean by that the most difficult to hunt, my reply is without any doubt an impala queen.

Firstly you have to look at, well many, impala ewes to get a chance to see a queen, as they are 1 in 1000? Then you have to recognize her as a queen. Not too difficult if you are sitting by a waterhole and they all come to drink, but I'm talking about "hunting" and not "ambushing" one. Then, unlike a ram, they are always inn a herd, that means many eyes and ears to help being on guard.

No doubt, an ethically hunted impala queen is a trophy to be proud of. Very proud!

In good hunting.

Andrew McLaren

Facsinating. Other than just being larger, how does one accurately identify a queen? Does the herd react/interact differently with a queen? What is her function in a herd?

Thanks for any insight.

I like all the pigmy antelopes, I have three so far - Steenbok, Duiker and Klipspringer. And of course there is the baboon which I do not have yet.

Small antelopes like some of the the Duikers, stalked Bushbuck rams, Vaal Rhebok and bushpig on foot without hounds, at night with a flashlight in macadamia-nut orchids! (how I took my first one..)

quote:

Originally posted by Kamo Gari:

quote:

Originally posted by Andrew McLaren:
Underated? If you mean by that the most difficult to hunt, my reply is without any doubt an impala queen.

Firstly you have to look at, well many, impala ewes to get a chance to see a queen, as they are 1 in 1000? Then you have to recognize her as a queen. Not too difficult if you are sitting by a waterhole and they all come to drink, but I'm talking about "hunting" and not "ambushing" one. Then, unlike a ram, they are always inn a herd, that means many eyes and ears to help being on guard.

No doubt, an ethically hunted impala queen is a trophy to be proud of. Very proud!

In good hunting.

Andrew McLaren

Facsinating. Other than just being larger, how does one accurately identify a queen? Does the herd react/interact differently with a queen? What is her function in a herd?

Thanks for any insight.

This one is easy. She is the one with the crown.

One of my favorite hunts - if not the favorite, is my hyena hunt over bait. I shot a wart hog for bait, drug its gut sack to lay a scent trail, built a blind and waited. It was a really exciting hunt. I took a 198 lb. spotted hyena with one shot from my .375 H&H (nosler partition)straight through its right eye. It's face is all I could see peering through the brush. The bullet didn't exit. It went through the skull and lodged in the spine. Although considered vermin by most and a non-trophy at best by many, My hyena is one of my favorite trophies. It's a very cool rug with beautiful spots.

Texas she is a real Beauty. and big too. I think all small antelopes , warthogs and of course Baboons and monkeys are underrated.

How do you recognize a queen? With great difficulty! The confirmed queens that I've killed were: (i) Larger, sure. But not so much larger that it is easy to see when scanning a herd in the bush. (ii) Fatter, significantly fatter, but even if significantly fatter it is not easy to pick the fatter one from the herd. (iii) On post mortem examination there were absolutely no, and here the vets or medicos can help to give the proper word, 'scar of implantation' visible on the uterous - thus confirming that she has never had a lamb, and can indeed be called a queen, and not only a big fat ewe.

Queens are very rare indeed. I do not know what the actual incidence is, but a guess at 1:1000 or even 1:10000 would not be very wrong. They, to the best of my knowledge play no particular role in the herd at all. Just a 'normal' female with hormone or behaviour deviation to never get pregnant.

I first learnt about a queen when I became involved in a culling operation in which 7000 impala were shot. The meat was destined for export and there was a vet to inspect and give a 'clean bill of healt' for each carcass. When one load was brought in to the slaughtering truck he looked at them and said "Ah! A queen" about one particularly big and fat ewe. He then showed me, on the queen and other ewes, how to do the uterous inspection to see the 'scar' where each previous lamb's foetus was attached to the uterous. Quite easy to see if an ewe had one, two three or how many previous lambs! Queens have no 'scars' [dammed if my old brain can remember the word now to refer to the 'scar'!] on the uterous, and if by teeth wear and growth, particularly the lenght of the face, the female is at least 3 or more years old AND have no scars on the uterous, then you can confidently say she was a queen. I think the fatter, and tastier, condition is only due to the queen not being 'tapped' by having to produce a lamb and milk.

In all my hunting I've only ever seen queens in impala, despite having shot many springbok and other antelope females. Input and knowledge aobut this phenomenon gladly heard.

But as far as difficulty to hunt is concerned at most 'farms' where I take clients to I can with confidence say: "We are going to hunt and get a Roland Ward impala today." At the same farm I will not even say: "I bet I'll get a queen this year!" This is one 'trophy' for which you have to have luck, and perhaps a bit of skill, on your side.

In good hunting.

Andrew McLaren

For me I would have to say a spot and stalk hunt for an Alpha Male Baboon. No bait, no blind: just spot and stalk hunting. Next, I would go with pygmy antelopes. I'm going to try spot and stalk next month in Zim and this spring in RSA. If that fails...I'll try again this summer. I like the .22 calibers for that work.

it's the bushbuck for me

Bushbuck and Hyena.
ozhunter

walk and stalk on bushbuck male must be one of the most challenging

The other challenge is a walk and stalk on pushpig

A baboon for sure! They are about impossible to stalk, and they are hard to bait. But of course after I´ve been trying for several years and have this thought in my mind, somebody is surely going to write that they shoot a lot, and spoil it for me!

But man oh man, when I finally do get one of those stinky §$%&/´s I´m going to have a full body mount and put it right in the living room!

Here's a piece of drivel that I wrote last September for my local bowhunting club's newsletter.

Has anybody out there ever heard of a ‘klipspringer’? I didn’t think so. Hardly anybody has ever heard of them. I believe that their scientific classification is ‘obscure little African antelope that nobody has ever heard of’’. They don’t even hang out with the other antelopes. Klippys live exclusively in inaccessible, rocky, mountainous areas (known as ‘kopjes’ throughout Africa), and in other similarly unfriendly terrain. They are a rather odd looking critter, sporting quill-like hair that protects them from falls and pointed hooves that are rather rubbery to the touch, for traction no doubt. The horns, on a real MONSTER might go a five whole whopping inches long. That same monster could go as high as forty pounds in rare instances. So, why would anybody go out of their way to hunt a klipspringer? Beats the heck out of me. I guess that I ought to ask my wife sometime because it was she who decided that her hunt (or was it her life) just wouldn’t be complete unless she got a chance to hunt the dreaded klipspringer during our recent safari in Zambia. And so to that end, up we get one morning, at the hideous hour of 2:30 in the AM, pile into the old land cruiser along with our guide/professional hunter Dale Beatty (who thinks that we are crazy) and our tracker Alex (who probably thinks we are crazy too, but is too polite to say so) to go a-hunting klipspringer. An incredibly bone-jarring three hours later, we arrived at the western base of the Muchinga Escarpment (which is the big hole in which they keep the Luangua River and its attendant valley).

So now the real fun begins. We abandon the vehicle, and up the escarpment we go. Through rock fields we go. Over boulders the size of SUV’s we go. Over boulders the size of houses we go. Through thick, hook-thorned scrub we force our way. Up, down, sideways we go for hour after exhausting hour, but no sign of the elusive klipspringer. My day pack, which weighed 10 pounds when we left, had incredibly increased to fifty pounds. My rifle (why the heck was I carrying a rifle, I wasn’t the hunter?) weighs a ton. I am scratched, scarred, sunburned and completely beat. After a much needed, but far too short break for lunch, its back at it again for more of the same. Then, maybe an hour later, suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, I note that Alex (the tracker) has suddenly frozen like a well-trained pointer. I look in the same direction in which he is looking, but can see nothing but more boulders. Fortunately, Dianna, who is closer to him, sees exactly what he is looking at, a real live klipspringer! BANG! And that suddenly, the hunt is over. Let the celebrations begin! Everyone is smiling, laughing and babbling at once. The mighty and elusive beast is slain at last!

An hour or two later, we arrive back at the vehicle, scratched, burned and beat, but happy. An uneventful, though once again bone-jarring three hour ride later, we are back at camp. We drop the klippy off with the skinner, a man of many years experience in his field. He looks at our prize and asks, “What animal is this that you have brought me to skin�

And so it came to pass, that while on safari in Africa, a safari on which we killed two 2000 pound Cape buffalo, one 5000 pound hippo, and a smathering of other assorted deer-sized and larger antelope, that the grandest prize of all was a little almost-forty-pound antelope that virtually nobody has ever heard of. Whoda thunk it? Hopefully, there is a picture of Dianna and her klippy somewhere in this issue. Please note it is not a ‘baby’. It is not only full grown, but is an unusually large specimen of its kind, a genuine record book animal. It does however bear a striking resemblance to most of the deer that I manage to take. Hey, maybe they’re actually klipspringers too?!?

Andrew, thanks for the explanation.

To be sure the Klippy as with all the pygmy antelope are true trophies, when hunted for and not taken as a shot of chance. The Mt Reedbuck shares the koppy with the Klipspringer and is a tough hunt. I rate my two greatest trophies to be my Blue Duiker and my Orbi. That may change when I get Mr Spots.

This is still my #1 trophy

Under-rated trophy: Squirrel Perhaps?

Another vote for the klipspringer. They are fun to hunt and one of the most attractive of the pygmy antelope.

Vapo, my best "book" trophy was also my common DUiker. The little antelope are often overlooked but tons of fun to hunt.

Sharpe grysbok
Any bushbuck race


Bill Quimby

I hunted Springbok nov 2006 with Kevin "Doctari" Robertson at his farm Boeffelshok in Karoo. Must say that the Springbok is a very interesting game to hunt, walk and stalk, and then very long shoots by European standards, also very cheap throphy fees.

Springbok is also fantastic to eat!

All of the pygmy antelope, bushpig, and bushbuck.

I love to hunt springbok! Stalking huge flats with hundreds of eyes, ears, and noses on the alert makes for some serious challenge. I shot these 2 bucks on my last trip up west of Kimberly. The big one scored 44 7/8th SCI



springbok pair

quote:

walk and stalk on pushpig

Damn that one must be tough because I've never even seen one!

I would say the little antelope.

Bushbuck, Hyena, and large croc (15 or better).

Dak

What about the black wildebeest? I hear that they are really tricky to hunt and finding a trophy one is even harder. It is not that often that I even see these in trophy rooms. In my opinion they are also one of the coolest looking critters running around over there.

quote:

Originally posted by madabula:
I love to hunt springbok! Stalking huge flats with hundreds of eyes, ears, and noses on the alert makes for some serious challenge. I shot these 2 bucks on my last trip up west of Kimberly. The big one scored 44 7/8th SCI



springbok pair

Congratulations!
Very nice Springboks!!!

quote:

Originally posted by madabula:
I love to hunt springbok! Stalking huge flats with hundreds of eyes, ears, and noses on the alert makes for some serious challenge. I shot these 2 bucks on my last trip up west of Kimberly. The big one scored 44 7/8th SCI



springbok pair

Very nice mount.

For me its the small predators of Africa.

I have been after a Caracal for the last three years. One of these days I am going to get lucky.

And the jackal.



Gerhard

It has to be the Bushbuck. A "huge" animal with a small body.

quote:

Originally posted by David Culpepper:
I like all the pigmy antelopes, I have three so far - Steenbok, Duiker and Klipspringer. And of course there is the baboon which I do not have yet.

I too have the Klippspringer,





The Duikers, and other little 5 have eluded me.

My vote would go to the bushbucks in this instance however.




Baboons on the other hand... many have fallen.

Andrew McLaren: I had never heard the term a "queen" to describe an exceptional barren female till I hunted in Zimbabwe on the ranch of my PH friends brother. He had an absolute monster of a lioness which he felt was a queen. He bought a male to breed with her with the idea of returning to his property wild lions. No go on the pregnancy. She was every bit as large as the male and was estimated to weigh 450 pounds.

LJS,

We all know that there are some people that 'look' to be female, but are in many respects simply not feminine or female. I for sure know that it occurs in impala, and I use the word 'queen', as the first time I was made aware of the phenomenon the vet used that word to describe the impala.

The lioness, at estimated 450 pounds, sure sounds like she is a queen. BTW, did the owner also use the word 'queen'?

Anyone who can add to the list of animals in which the barren, fatter, bigger or 'queen' phenomenon was noted in females?

In good hunting.

Andrew McLaren.

quote:

Anyone who can add to the list of animals in which the barren, fatter, bigger or 'queen' phenomenon was noted in females?

Margaret Hoffstettler. Hey, I was young. And drunk. Very drunk...