Woodhits,

Well said! I can give a fairly recent example of that. On my first safari (Hopefully not my last!), I made a 1-1/2 hour stalk on a nice Kudu and ended up having to shoot him 3 times at ranges in excess of 250 yds. The first shot was just a tad too far back, (I still can't explain that one). The second shot, which was about 45 minutes after the first shot, was deflected by an unseen branch which was clearly seen on the video after the hunt. The third shot was through the shoulders as he was running uphill at about 260 yards. That bull measured 45" on the longest side, which isn't bad for an Eastern Cape Kudu. But, this ranch holds plenty of 50"+ bulls, and a couple of friends took some 50" bulls on this safari.

Bottom line......I'm damn Proud of that Kudu! It was a very difficult and challenging hunt and stalk and I EARNED that beautiful Kudu bull!

Well spoken Woodhits,
I agree completely.A trophy needs to be "earned" and be difficult to obtain to matter on the wall.Two different criteria.
We dont value a high scoring animal shot from a stake.
We usually also dont value as a trophy,a specimen of mediocre quality- probably because higher score is tougher to find and get.
The latter is a bit soft in argument as luck has a lot to do with it,but as a whole we rather take luck and attribute it to our skill .

sheephunter

I would say that I do care about the trophy- but that being said I think that the term "trophy" can be relative. To me a trophy is a mature represenative of a species (I'm not gonna lie and say I don't prefer a better "scoring" animal- I do) taken after earning the animal through a challenging, fair-chase hunt. Long horns are great- but I feel even prouder of them if I work hard for them. I think though that since their is usually a correlation between a "trophy" animal and age, elusiveness, etc. that allowed that animal to get big- a trophy animal is usually one that is smart and challenging to hunt- luck aside. The animal that I am most proud of isn't necessarily my biggest or best animal- but it is one that I hunted hard for under extreme conditions. I earned him.

It depends. I like to have trophy quality animals on my wall that I'm proud of. I also love to cull animals when needed.

The trophy animals have a hunt and a story behind them.

The cull animals are for the trigger time, meat, experimenting with different loads/bullets/calibers, etc.

It just depends!

I wonder how many of us really care about the trophy head, and how many really just want a hunting experience. Personally I enjoy hunting and shooting, and would rather hunt 5 non-trophy animals of a particular species than a single trophy.

The hunting is in my mind the most important. For me, shooting a fantastic trophy from a car would make the experiance worthless, as it would always have been gotten too easy in my memory. Memories are forever. Not that a stalk lasting for days is needed, but at least I want to feel that I hunted and that it was a fair match between the animals wits and mine.
So a good hunt will still be good with a so-so trophy.

But, as long as you're paying as much money as one does, I think that a respectable trophy would be nice. It doesn't have to be record book big, but at least a mature representable sized animal.

Erik D.