Hunting in the Namib-Naukluft desert in 1998, I asked my PH to find us an old man, that I was more interested in age than beauty. We past several magnificent cows with long, almost sweeping horns and a couple of nice bulls. Then we found the one we were after.

The old warrior had not one tooth in his head, but was otherwise quite healthy, and fat. His horns are worn at the tips but are nice and thick... a really beautiful trophy.

My PH said he may be in the 13 to 14 year old range and remained healthy because of an unusually wet couple of years, preceding my hunt. He also said that he had never seen a toothless Oryx. I guess he made a good living by gumming all those thorn bushes.

I'll bet some of you experienced Africa hands could shed some light on this. I have always been interested to learn more about this old guy.

Thanks.

Interesting story! I too took an old one, the landowner/PH aged him at 16. It had shortish horns at 34 inches but were heavily based and with its age he had a lot of character.

The meat was quite good for as old as it was. The PH made a poffadder out of the liver for me. MMmmmmm!

Very cool stories. I have never seen a toothless herbivore of any kind that lived very long.

I consider myself very lucky to take an old bull oryx on my trip as well. His teeth were quite worn, but he still had them. His horns were very worn down.



Cheers,
Canuck

Canuck,

That is a real fine animal...horns are impressive with the mass...

Mike

Freedom is not Free

Canuck, ours could be twins...very similar and tons of character. Thanks for the photo.

Naw, triplets, mine looked just like that too!

I told my PH for next year's Namibia hunt that I wanted 40"+ (already got a 37" on the wall), but it would be hard to turn down one with that much mass and character. Good looking critter there!

Canuck, here is another old one we took this past season. Not as old as yours which was the oldest one I have ever seen but this was an old bruiser as well. I'll take one like this over a long pointy bull any day!

Very nice bull, JJ. The bases are very impressive. No shortage of quality game at Landelani, is there! I am glad to hear that you have had another successful season...so far! Best of luck with your next group too.

Cheers,
Canuck