Anyone here had the privilage of hunting both animals? How do they compare in horneryness? Are they comperable in size, tenacity, and temperament? How about Sambar vs Kudu? Does the difficulty in hunting compare with these two creatures. I'm closer to Oz than Africa, and i'm thinking about a hunt there. Your imput is greatly appreciated. My Dad is a WWII veteran who spent some shoreleave in Oz Brisbane I beleive, while taking breaks from the fighting in the Solomons, and New Guinea, he has nothing but praise for you Aussies, your women, and your beer.

WB are less antagonistic, as a rule, than Cape Buffalo. They can be a handful if you screw up though.

A good Sambar is way more difficult than a good Kudu if both are hunted the same way. No spotlights or Dogs. I say this because I have never found Kudu particularly hard to find in Zambia, Zim., RSA and Namibia. I have never seen a Sambar while actually looking for one.

I hope to change that in August.

WB are dogs CB are wolves and that explains their wildness quite easily.
Have hunted sambar but not kudu but know a little about kudu and it seems not that hard to film a bull being shot whereas it is an achievment to simply film a sambar stag and to nail one is considered as good as it gets!

I'll get back to you in six weeks or so; I'm headed to South America for feral water buffalo.

George

Have hunted both, but probably would have to take a dozen of each to give a definitive opinion. My experience would give the nod to the cape buffalo, although smaller, is the meaner of the two. Known for trying to circle the hunter and attack from the side and also for the "charge" when wounded. Also, I think it is more difficult to come up with a 45 inch cape buff, than an Asian Buffalo of greater than a 100 points. The Asian Buffalo can still be hard to bring down. Nevertheless, the Aussie buffalo is a great trophy and can be a good hunt in the NT, also the friendly ph and Australian populace is a plus. I got a good one and he is on my wall, after it was reinforced.

Dak

Would have to agree with Mickey1 on both questions. Cape buffalo are definitely more aggressive overall and it is understandable when they are constantly under threat from both man and lions while water buffalo only have to worry about man and all of the water buffalo here originally came from domestic stock. Some books claim that water buffalo grow to larger sizes than Cape buffalo. I've never put one on the scales but having seen both up close I would say that they are about the same size.

Sambar are, without any doubt at all, far more challenging than kudu. Finding a good representative kudu trophy is not hard as there are good numbers of them around and they tend to live in more accessible terrain. There are huntable numbers of trophy sambar about but the population is a lot smaller than kudu, they tend to live in very tough terrain and they are rat-cunning in their ability to evade a hunter. They seem to know what the trophy hunting game is all about and will pull some amazing stunts to defeat you - such as running directly away from you but only after putting a large tree in your line of sight and between the two of you. Now, it is questionable as to whether sambar have enough intelligence to deliberately do this, but I have seen it happen too many times not to wonder if it isn't deliberate. And if they are in the thick bushes and think that you haven't seen them they will watch you walk past and then sneak out behind you and all you will find are fresh tracks to tell you what just happened! They are a great challenge.

From my limited experience, but having taken all four, I would have to say that the sambar is a trophy that has a very special meaning to me, and it means more than my kudu, which is my highest scoring trophy. I think the sambar must be the most beautiful deer in the world, and the hardest to get a good trophy of. I would be hard pressed to choose between the cape buffalo and the Northern Territory water buffalo, but would have to admit that the cape buffalo is a more difficult and dangerous animal to hunt. Australia has to have some of the most beautiful country to hunt and some of the friendliest people in the world. I would return in a minute.

Sambar vs Kudu



Kudu. Drive around on som bush tracks in a landcruiser for 7 days. See one, jump off the back and plug it. You may have a representative trophy to a record trophy.



Sambar. Try doing that outside a game farm in the Vic Alps and see if you will get a representative trophy in 7 days or 70 days. Probably neither.



No contest.



Water buffalo vs Cape Buffalo. WB not having had the years of marketing hype, Crapstick stories etc that CB have had. However there is no doubt WB are ex-domestic stock many generations ago while CB have never (?) been tamed.



Again no contest.

I've seen kids playing on the backs of domesticated water buffalo in some regions. They each get on a buff and tap its legs with a stick to try and race each other.
After a few minutes of such cajoling the buff may even stop munching grass and walk off a bit.
These things are obviously a different animal from the wild ones.
Be wary of what you get sold on a WB hunt in a third world country...

Karl.