Trophies are in Arizona

Well fellow African junkies I just got back from my whirlwind trip to lovely LAX airport. I was only at work a couple hours yesterday and got an email in the morning that my trophies had already cleared customs. By noon I was on the road. I used Hunter's International in the San Francisco area to clear my trophies but decided I could drive to LAX in lieu of spending $400 for a truck to bring my trophies the rest of the way to Chandler. There was quite a line at the Delta cargo warehouse at 7pm and I decided that my chariot would turn into a pumpkin sometime long before getting back home. So, I had already made a backup plan to crash in a hotel and just get the trophies first thing in the morning, which I did. If you are familiar with L.A., you'll know that getting out of there fast and doing so with LAX as your starting point does not go together. Rush hour traffic tied me up a bit, but got home a little while ago.

Grabbed my cordless drill only to find out that it has taken a dump on me. So I've removed about a thousand screws so far with a screwdriver and have at least 3 blisters to show for it. The boys and I have had fun though doing this. So far we have the 3 impalas and the nyala out of the crate and in the living room. I'm happy to report they all look good with no signs of any damage. To my pleasant surprise the animals were shipped with the horns attached, so I'll only have to mount them on the wall.

The waterbuck and kudu are still in the crate. With the clock ticking down to game time for my son's baseball game, we needed to get the crate out of the truck and into the garage. The engineer and my junior engineer a.k.a. my 8 year old son Justin, figured out a good way to do this. Using my ATV ramps and the lid from the crate we pushed the crate out on top of the lid which was resting on top of the ramps and then just slid it down and out of the pickup bed. Worked like a charm! The way the kudu and waterbuck are mounted in the crate, I can't see frontal views so I can't make a call there yet.

One catastrophe seems to have been avoided by just stupid luck. As the crate was being loaded into my truck I noticed two strange holes about 1 - 1 1/2" top to bottom and about 6" wide with the holes being about a foot apart. I peeked in and couldn't see anything in the way, so I just dismissed it. A few miles down the road however it dawned on me what this must be. Not much doubt that somewhere along the line a forklift went awry and pierced the side of the crate!! By stupid luck the waterbuck was spared or so it seems. A piece of wood from the side that broke off when the forklift came thru more than likely contacted one of the horns of the waterbuck, but it's thin plywood and I think the wood lost and the horn won in this case. I'll know more later when I get the animal out. But for now I think it's okay. If it scratched the horn, I'm thinking some touch up paint will resolve that.

All for now, pics later.

Phil,
Heres hoping the forklift truly lost that battle!

Originally Posted by BRICKBURN

Phil,
Heres hoping the forklift truly lost that battle!

All trophies in the house now and am happy to report that the forklift was indeed a near miss. The waterbuck is just fine and I am a happy hunter!

Good news! Looking forward to seeing some pictures... Enjoy that big Waterbuck that you took and all of your other trophies.

And the time from hunt to wall was??? You probably beat my 5 months?
I'm in Page and get to PHX often so maybe we'll meet up some time Cliffy

Looking forward to seeing your pictures...

Originally Posted by Cliffy

And the time from hunt to wall was??? You probably beat my 5 months?
I'm in Page and get to PHX often so maybe we'll meet up some time Cliffy

Not even close Cliffy. I hunted in July last year, so roughly 15 months. The only time I beat 5 months from hunt to wall was on an elk. That was about 4 months and mostly because it was done by a friend of mine who was still building up his business. The last animal he did for me was closer to 6 months, still not bad.

Apparently, with the shipping screw up with mine I will not beat the five month barrier either.

Looking forward to the pictures when you get around to it Phil.

Congrats Phil, glad to hear everything turned out for you!