I want to thank the administrators for saving this post. They could have just deleted it, but I am glad they did not. I reread it, spelling mistakes, grammar errors, etc. and all, (I didn’t proofread it while hammering directly into the forum) and it was great to relive the experience.
As somewhat of a postscript to the story, instead of the mounts coming back in 8-12 months as forecasted, they were ready in only 3 months, so I had to get on the stick and finish a trophy room in the basement (actually half was turned into a trophy room and half a tiki bar called Key West North). It took me 6 months, but the results are great.
While the animals were at the taxidermist, they were measured for the SCI record book. The impala was 2.5 inches short of making the book, due to one side being shorter than the other. Because this animal was taken at a pretty good distance, there was no way to know that at the time.
The gemsbok ended up missing the record book as well — by 1/8th inch. With the degree of difficulty in finding this animal and the physical circumstances, as relayed in the post, I would have taken it anyway. Besides, that is a pretty small dimension to judge while things are happening fairly fast.
The kudu earned a bronze award and entered the record book at #260.
The Lechwe earned a silver award and entered the record book at #68.
The Steenbok earned a gold award, as the PH had predicted (man am I glad I took his advise and shot it), and it entered the record book at #64
But, of course, Nancy had to top me with her Copper Springbok which earned a silver award and entered the record book at #51.
So, 4 of 6 scored fairly well (I’m not really into that sort of thing, but it is nice to know). My hope is that the folks at Mayogi Safaries, Dirk and Arno, can survive the total shutdown of the hunting business. They were only able to hunt early last year and will probably not be able to hunt the traditional safari season this year due to restrictions on international travel. It is good that they are diversified business-wise, but I know they would rather be hunting than anything else.