I know that exceptional animals, like gold, are "where you find them", but also like gold they are more likely to be found where they have been found before.

If you were going to devote 30 hunting days each to an attempt to locate and take a new RW #1 of the following animals, where would you hunt?? [Limited to legal, without regard to cost]

Elephant (of course, since a damned-fine trophy is one third the size of the record, this would be a "best chance at best available" deal)

Greater Kudu

Nyala

Cape Buffalo

Bushbuck (Common, Harnessed or both)

Nile Crocodile

Sable

Roan

Warthog



Other

(I have left off animals like Mountain Nyala that are only available in one Country, the cats because field judging of skull measurements is so iffy, etc, but feel free to chime in with any varmint/location you like)

Jeff, I think that No. 1's are the luck of the draw. I mean you have to put the time in but, You could hunt the best place in the world every year for 30 days a year for 20 years and not take the No. 1. Focus on the experience, be don't shoot the first thing you see. Your get a good trophy and and have fun to boot. Just my humble opinion

Jeff,

I know all that, I was just interested in where those with experience figured the best trophies likely were.

With some species, obviously elephant, probably Greater Kudu, the odds are against me even being alive while an animal better than the current record is. On the other hand, record-quality animals of other species will likely die of old age this year without ever having been seen by any hunter, like bongo.

Jeff,

From my experience talking hunting everyday.

Kudu:

Zim in areas that are not hunted hard for plains game. Some of the DG areas will turn in a monster kudu but their density may be quite low. I personally saw more big kudu on Coutada 9 in Mozambique than anywhere I've been.

Nyala:

The Mkuze Game Resewrve in RSA would be an excellent bet. Some areas of Mozambique are again turning in some great nyala.

Buffalo:

Our areas in Masailand Lobo/Lokisale.

Croc:

I understand that the great croc hunting in Ethiopia has been closed. Mozambique where very little hunting has taken place might produce a huge one.

Sable:

The NW of Zim is still very good and certain areas of Zambia around the Kafue park or the north of the country.

Roan:

Northern Zambia, Western Tanzania and Cameroon. These may be differnt varieties but they look the same to me.

Warthog:

Coutada 9 in Mozambique is crawling with monster warthogs. I have a 15.5"x16.5" from there.

I think you could get top scoring trophies from these areas. RW world records? I don't know.

Mark

quote:

Greater Kudu

Nyala

Cape Buffalo

Bushbuck (Common, Harnessed or both)

Nile Crocodile

Sable

Roan

Warthog

jeff ,
of course being in a great area is the first step , an area where the gentics are likely to help you on the quest ...but then most importantly lady luck has to be smiling all the way !!!

elephant ....northern mozambique or bushmanland namibia

greater kudu i would put you in namibia or northern south africa ...i would have said southern zimbabwe but a drought five years ago in that region has lowered the chances , so while there are great kudu there i think a well researched central namibia property or northern south africa will be the ticket ...

nyala , lots of game ranches have them introduced , one of the last truly wild populations with good quotas is in northern mozambique ...the largest genetics are in malawi , so somewhere north western mozambique would be the ticket


cape buffalo would have to be tanzania ...while excell;ent buff are taken in the okavango , southern zimbabwe etc , looking at the records of buffalo over 50 inches ...you will have to be in tanzania , the areas bordering tarangire afre excellent as is kilombera ... and some areas of the selous ...TGT took one last year that was simply outstanding ...over 50 i believe

bushbuck , coastal mozambique can likely get you one over 17 inches , harnessed (scriptus scriptus)will be way further north the biggest come from CAR.

Nile crocodile , the biggest ones regularly used to come from ethiopia , thats recently closed , so currently southern shores of caborra bassa in mozambique is the place i would head to ...

sable , has to be western zambia where its debatable that the sable there dont have some genetics of the giant sable ...getting a trophy over 50 inches there is doable ...with everything in place ...

roan has to be either zambia or central tanzania .....i would say based on habitat that central tanzania will produce larger roan ...

warthog
this is an easy one , northern south africa ...

leopard
southern zimbabwe where you can with luck , 30 days and unlimited budget probably get a leaopard of cloose to 200 pounds and over 7'6"

lion would have to be either mazunga conservancy in zimbabwe , central luangwa valley in zambia or rungwa in tanzania ...all as a result of great genetics and limited offtake


wow, that would be a couple of dream years of hunting right there wouldnt it ?...need a guide ??? ...choose me choose me !!

Mark,

I figure you could hunt every day for a year and probably not see an RW #1, but I just wondered where folks thought the best available specimens were.

Hunting for the record book would be a sad way to hunt, seems to me, but at the same time hunters have wanted to kill the biggest "whatsit" possible since Og and Ur argued over whose mammoth tusks were better, Og's short, thick ones or Ur's thinner, beautifully-curved pair...

Ivan,

From very remote research I suspect you are right on the Sable location, and genetics. Some references actually claim the Royal Sable's range laps across into Zambia.

If my lawsuit against Harrah's Entertainment and MGM Mirage has a favorable outcome, you're hired.

the only way to make money at the casino is to own one ....or i guess sue one !!!

jeffive , looking at the facial markings of trophies from western zambia (taken by swanepoel and skandrol) you will see that while they are not exactly the same as the giant (royal) they are also a little different from the zimbabwe race ...

its been recently established that the royakl sable is still around in central angola ...but not in great enough numbers to ever be hunted ...royal sable is to the others what east african impala is to southern ...just a bigger cousin !!!

Ivan,

Far better than suing a casino is sueing the two largest casino companies in the world.

All they had to do was keep their word...

i am rooting for you , of course you know that if i guide, between all the other species has to be lots of elephant hunting !!!!

Ivan,

I have a very special treat in mind for you...

How's your French??

Ever hunt something that's not supposed to exist??

forrest elephant or exotic ladies ...both need french !!!!

or the mukelembembe monster??!! i do have a 577

Ivan,

I am convinced, based on little evidence outside of toenail count, that the pygmy elephant is NOT merely a dwarfed forest elephant.

DNA from one of each from the same area would settle the issue, and a full-body mount of a good pygmy elephant would be awesome.

This one belonged at one time to P.T. Barnum, it stood 5'3" at the shoulder, slightly larger than a newborn forest elephant.

Coincidentally, the area where the most pygmy elephants with "ground-sweeper" tusks are reported is the same area where Mokele-Mbembe is most frequently reported...

i have an elephant hunting book , in spanish from guy by the name of chicharro , i hunted a lot of elephants with his son , he shot over 200 elephants all in the forrest and in his book he has a photo of what he describes as a dwarf elephant ...not a forrest elephant but a dwarf elephant...as you describe ..i have also heard guys tell me that the pygmies have tolkd them of those little elephant ...judging from the chicharro photos they would be about 6 foot at the shoulder ...

i have read about them and they are called loxodonta africana pumilo i believe . the forrest elephant being loxodonta africana cyclotis ...


win your case and lets go find out

Like the dwarf forest buffalo, supposed to be irritable little fellers, according to the Baka who know them best.

No telling what a month goofing around in the area between the Ibenga and Motaba Rivers would turn up. It's known to hold bongo, giant forest hog and forest sititunga in addition to the two elephants, and if anybody but pygmies has hunted it in a century they left no record.

If anyone knew the answer to that question everybody would hunt in that one spot..A famous old PH once told me big trophy animals were like gold, they were wherever you found them. He said an area would be fantastic for several years then decline for a time and then return and the good areas moved around...He said the biggest mistake folks make is to assume because some good bulls were killed in one area that it would always be the best area. I think he was on to something.

I believe hunting pressure and the number of animals harvested seems to determine the availability of trophy buffalo or any other species..

I have shot some really nice Cape buffalo in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Botswana, and Zambia and Tanzania..I have shot more buffalo in Zimbabwe than anyplace else..The biggest and best buffalo I have ever shot was in the Selous about 3 years ago.

If a client asks me where the best buffalo hunting in Africa is I tell them the good and the bad of most areas in Africa with pretty good accuracy, but I would be very confused as to state where they should go...

If they want a true monster with a 95% chance of success, thats easy, do a fenced hunt in RSA. Same for a monster elk or whitetail deer. I personally don't really like fenced hunts for DG. I dont' mind them on plainsgame and "big" properties of more than 15,000 acres or more.

quote:

Originally posted by Jefffive:
I know that exceptional animals, like gold, are "where you find them", but also like gold they are more likely to be found where they have been found before.

If you were going to devote 30 hunting days each to an attempt to locate and take a new RW #1 of the following animals, where would you hunt?? [Limited to legal, without regard to cost]

Elephant (of course, since a damned-fine trophy is one third the size of the record, this would be a "best chance at best available" deal)

Greater Kudu

Nyala

Cape Buffalo

Bushbuck (Common, Harnessed or both)

Nile Crocodile

Sable

Roan

Warthog



Other

(I have left off animals like Mountain Nyala that are only available in one Country, the cats because field judging of skull measurements is so iffy, etc, but feel free to chime in with any varmint/location you like)

I would bet a million to one that no matter what country you hunt, for 30 days a year, for the next 50 years, and you won't be able to get the new RW #1.

quote:

I would bet a million to one that no matter what country you hunt, for 30 days a year, for the next 50 years, and you won't be able to get the new RW #1.

Saeed, Are those more Zim dollars?

Saeed,

On any of the animals I listed, and several more highly-sought species I didn't, you are almost certainly right. I was merely trying to elicit where those with experience thought the best trophies were likely currently found.

If my life's ambition was to see my name next to a RW #1 listing I would go to West Africa after the forest duikers probably, the more obscure the species the better.

Some good areas mentioned, but I would go with Ivan and Mark.
LDK

LDK,

What struck me was how often they both mentioned Mozambique...

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
I would bet a million to one that no matter what country you hunt, for 30 days a year, for the next 50 years, and you won't be able to get the new RW #1.

Greetings all! Being new here, I am hesitant to respectfully disagree with our wonderful host on but one point. I think Saeed is right with respect to all creatures listed EXCEPT perhaps Nyala, Bushbuck, and Warthog (perhaps even Roan since they are so rarely hunted these days). Maybe, I am just a dyed in the wool optimist but I think if one truly specialized in ONLY these species and did so in areas where they are believed to be large, one might have a real shot at a RW #1 over a 50 year time span (not to say that this a proper primary motivation to hunt, of course). Now, I type that having not looked at the book in a while, how old are those species' records in particular? In other words, in what years where the top 5 of each species taken?

Best,

tendrams

No mystery there Jeff. Due to a long civil war, Moz was no place to hunt, let alone be. Now, 10 years later the game has had time to return and mature. I've seen Suni with horns that looked like Bush Duiker. Why? Age. We're currently finishing up the roads were having to cut into Niassa. The new camp should be ready by mid-late August. If you give game some age, you increase your odd's of taking a high ranking trophy. What I've seen coming out of Moz has been stunning. I plan on finding out for myself.
Good hunting,
David