The PH I’ve hunted with in Namibia is an awesome PH who is really good at sizing up trophies and is very conservative in his assessment of trophy size. If he says it’s a 40” Gemsbok, it’s probably 42”+. His only minor weakness is range estimation. The first Gemsbok Bull I shot was a 40” who appeared the first morning of my hunt. When I asked him the range he said “160 yards.” Well, I play a lot of golf, and if I hit a good drive, it flies 200-210 yards. I knew this Gemsbok was beyond my best drive range. Luckily I had my Bushnell Range Finder, and it was 224 yards. I had a Leupold Vari-X II in 3.5X10X40 with a custom elevation knob. I cranked it to 225 and dropped the Bull with a single shot. I’ve kidded him in each of my 5 hunts about his range estimation skills. He finally broke down and bought his own Laser Range Finder.
