Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Field judging oryx (gemsbok)

Yep I'm doing a shoulder mount. Dropped it off at the taxidermist's yesterday.

Very Cool, as Mule Deer said, take good care of the meat, its excellent!
As for judging, like others on this thread Ive hunted alot of Gemsbok,and shot more than my share, they are my favorite plainsgame too. No hard and fast rules, cow horns are longer, thinner and "wavier", bulls are heavier and straighter. Also look quickly at how high up on the horns the corrugations go. Older animals have corrugations closer to the tops, youngsters are closer to the bottom. With these and other species, your African PH, unlike most American clients may consider the older, more worn animals more of a trophy than the longer horned specimens. I kinda buy into that myself, my "best" Gemsbok barely made 32 inches, but they look like black baseball bats and his body was HUGE. My longest, on the other hand......
Ingwe

After a lot of thought I think the best way a newbie to Gemsbok can judge one is how close the horn tips come to the animals butt. then check the bases if you are shooting bulls. Actually I don't think there are any bad Gemsbok trophies..I have shot many of them and even culled them on rare ocassions during severe drought. My best bull as I recall was just shy of 40 inches and my best cow was 45 and a tad..but as Ingwe relates a big heavy horned 32 inches would be awesome..that mass always impressed me on most any horned animal.

Very cool, those are interesting tips, it seems to me I've scene several of those from the NM Oryx.

Great job! Nothing wrong at all with that one! I saw tips just like that on my hunt on the range. Very cool.

Enjoy the meat, it's damn good!

+1 to that!
Mule Deer and I have discussed this a couple times....there is just something about Gemsbok- like big mule deer bucks- when you walk up on one and look at him, you think to yourself" Oh, yeah, this is the real thing..."
Ingwe

Congratulations!

Shooting the biggest one from the group is a safe way for beginners.

The only advice I would really give a beginner - and even some very experienced gemsbuck hunters - is to avoid shooting at an animal standing all on it's own. Someone remarked on this before - a very young calf looked at alone, without any adults around as reference or to give you a sence of size - looks very much like a good trophy bull. Sounds impossible? Well you should see the look on the face of an experienced gemsbuck hunter [shooting his 26th gemsbuck] who specifically wanted a really big trophy when he walks up to a heifer of a few months old that he thought was a super trophy!

In good hunting.

Andrew McLaren