After peering through my scope for more than 20 minutes at the sleeping Altai ibexes, the strain was blurring my vision. We had watched this group of rams for almost four hours, waiting for the patriarch to stand long enough for me to shoot.

When it finally did stand, I wasn't ready. And so the cat-and-mouse game went on all afternoon with the animal rising for only 2 or 3 seconds every 45 minutes or so. Finally, my interpreter/guide, Hagil, upon hearing thunder, said that we could not wait any longer. It was now or never.

A bedded animal nearly 400 yards downhill is not a great target. I asked Hagil if he had the camera set. When he said yes, we watched my shot blow a large cloud of dust beside the sleeping ibex, which awoke in full run. To add injury to insult, the rain, thunder and lightning followed.

Read Full Article

As I write this story, the trophies from my 2006 safari are still in South Africa — receiving the finishing touches, I hope, from Highveld Taxidermists’ Thomas Ochsenbein or his minions. So it might still be a few months before I can put a tape to my impala’s horns.

Not that it matters a whole lot. If I hadn’t wanted the ram I shot, I wouldn’t have shot it. Mainly I want to know because of an animal I did not shoot.

More precisely, I want to justify why I’ve been kicking myself in the butt nearly every day since I watched an incredible ram saunter out of my life — all because I didn’t want my hosts to think me greedy. I’d already arrowed two impala to that point. One was for chui bait (chui is Swahili for leopard); the other was an old herd ram with blondish horns and great mass.

The one I let pass, however, was much bigger. If someone shoots it this year, his or her name will no doubt earn a spot in the Rowland Ward record book, which recognizes only the length of the longest horn (as opposed to Safari Club International, whose method involves measuring both horn lengths as well as the circumferences at the bases).

Read Full Article