Anyone had a ph tell you to shoot the wrong animal or wrong shot?

[Nyati]

Congrats @skydiver386 , outstanding bull

 

[LimbNoMo]

This happened in South Dakota and not with a PH, but with my friend the landowner. We come up this hill, and we see a buck with five does on the edge of the corn field. We leave the truck behind, and we stalk to about 180 yds or so from the edge of the corn field. By this time we get there, only two does are there, the buck and the other are back in the field. I clearly heard my friend say shoot, and I even asked again shoot, and he said shoot. After I shot, he is laughing saying why did I shoot, when he said not to shoot. Well, my hearing is all jacked up, and I told him that I thought he said to shoot. Well, while we are arguing back and forth about the shot, the buck steps out of the corn field, and my friend said to stop arguing and to shoot the buck. I tagged out in less than 5 min, filled my doe and buck tags. We always laugh about this, and we make sure I'm listening to the right command when we hunt.

Had a journeyman HVAC technician tell me this same lesson. He had an apprentice with him, who was to be guarding the breaker box. The journeyman tells him, "Don't turn it on."...well, the apprentice heard, "Turn it on." And he did, liberating the journeyman from 2 or 3 fingers.

He says he only uses one word commands now. Off. On. Maybe we should use, "Shoot" and "Hold"?

 

[Hunt anything]

My latest hunt in the Free State, we were hunting common springbok. We had found a really nice ram and after playing cat and mouse with him for almost an hour he finally offered a broadside shot. My PH said he was at 250yds, I was looking at him through a 12 power scope and thought he looked awfully small. I asked if he was sure of 250? Tom said yes so I held on the shoulder and promptly broke his leg just below his body. So the poor thing is out there flopping around like a fish out of water and getting up and falling back down. He gets back up and I aim 6” over his back and put him out of his misery.
I step it off and it was 450 of my steps so around 425yds. Turns out Toms battery was going out on his range finder and giving false readings.
Here’s a picture just in case someone doesn’t think I shot a springbok! LOL

 

[Hunt anything]

Had a journeyman HVAC technician tell me this same lesson. He had an apprentice with him, who was to be guarding the breaker box. The journeyman tells him, "Don't turn it on."...well, the apprentice heard, "Turn it on." And he did, liberating the journeyman from 2 or 3 fingers.

He says he only uses one word commands now. Off. On. Maybe we should use, "Shoot" and "Hold"?

I’m upfront with my PH’s and tell them I can’t hear a damn thing and to say “shoot” or “no” as loud as they can without spooking game!

 

[Dinsdale]

. Well I had kind of tunnel vision…..

I think this is a good lesson to come out of these discussions, done the same thing and subsequent hunts I try to keep aware of the whole situation.

Two smaller groups of 4 Black Wildebeest each and some clumps of brush between us and them. I’m laying prone with the landowners manager between me and the PH and he didnt speak a lick of English. They start shuffling around and I’m told to take the one on the right. PH means far right of the left group and Im looking at far right of the right group. I had a gap to shoot quartered away and never looked at any headgear, and shot a cow. Lucky she was dry and old, so it was a good management animal. But I should have confirmed before I shot.

In the end turned out OK. Shot a good bull on the next trip and had them shoulder mounted together and it really shows off the size difference; other than a Tahr, might be my favorite mount.

 

[Flbt]

I am not a guide. Never have been.
But if I ever hog hunt with any of you in a blind. Don’t trust me on a hog.
Them moving and with dogs I am pretty good.
Them at dark I have gotten it wrong nearly every time.
But the other way they have not ground shrunk they ground grew.
Looking at what I thought would be a good hole hog bbq candidate turns in to big hogs.

About a year ago cracked my leg again.
I was sitting in my truck the hogs came out shot one it ran back in the swamp about 20 yds . My buddy came out because he heard the shot. Told him we’re the 60-100 lbs hog went on he was slow dragging it out.
Where the small one? And I only heard one shot.
I ask him what was he complaining about and taking so long.
That dammed small hog grew up quickly
It’s actually 300 lbs if it’s a oz.
It maxed the 350 scale.

 

[Happy Myles]

If i have told this before, forgive me I am 87 years old.
Decades ago I went Marco Polo ship hunting. Traveling in I was accompanied by two famous hunters we were sent to three different camps. I was told they both quickly collected nice rams and left after a few days. Whereas I hunted hard for three weeks from a spike camp located at 15,000 feet. I had hunted in tough terrain but this was the toughest and still is the toughest and I was in great shape but completely worn to a frazzle. Finally, at dawn we spotted eight rams high above us working their way to a bedding ground. The lead ram was huffing and puffing with his tongue out. We were a long way below, I knew this was going to be tough. Finally after struggling upwards for hours through snow we spotted them above us bedded down far across a canyon. The guide said to shoot the one bedded down on the far left . My shot was 320 yards using my day pack on a rock for a rest. At the shot he lunged up and ran uphill to the right chasing the other rams. The men screamed shoot again but he stopped with his head down then collapsed. We slipped and slid down and then upwards. Two of the men whispered at each other and in broken English began repeating i had shot the wrong ram. I was discouraged working upward after all the effort to make such a mistake was almost more than I could bear. Then as we got closer I noticed the big right horn sticking out of the snow. I thought my how big was the good ram? When we reached the animal they began to laugh. They were teasing me. The monster was over 60 inches with one horn broomed.
A trophy of a lifetime

 

[WAC62]

Yes, picked out a Blue Wildebeest bull in a small herd. They moved left to right through some cover. Animal stopped with an excellent broadside shot at 175 yards. PH and tracker both agreed it was the bull. Single shot on target, found one speck of blood then a mature cow piled up under a bush. Took out lower half of heart and bled out internally. No issues marked as my management animal included in the package. Had it the next evening for dinner.

 

[Kharn]

Last PH told me to shoot the wrong blue wildebeest. I asked him twice "The one on the left?" He said yes and I pulled the trigger. "Good shot!" We walked up to it and he says "You shot the wrong one!" Uhh ... what happened to good shot? "It's a young bull." Yeah, as in yearling young! PH goes to get the truck and I tell the tracker to get busy gutting. Won't be any photo op. He rolls it over and there's tits. Fortunately no milk in them. PH says he'll make it right with the property owner and lodge owner. Leaving the property we run into the owner. Long conversation in Afrikans and then in very broken English he asks me if I was happy with the hunt. I merely said "Okay." But I did not look very happy I'm sure. Time to pay up the day I left and PH blames me for shooting the wrong animal. He did not make it right with anyone. Not a good scene ensued ... briefly. Not that I haven't made mistakes but no one else ever pays for mine. I did agree to pay half the "fine" for shooting breeding stock just to put and end to it. I have since heard other bad stories about the guy.

The last evening hunt we were after kudu on another PH's farm. Saw 27 of them that day but no real good shooters. Rather than go back to the lodge empty handed my PH spotted a lone springbuck ram I should cull. It was a tricky stalk before we were finally in range for a long shot. I cranked my scope up to 9x. "Nah, that's no shit-ram!" "Yes it is. Shoot." I handed him my rifle. "You can shoot it if you want. I'm not going to." Talking to the owner/PH that night after dinner he confirmed the ram who held that turf was breeding stock not a cull.

Name & Shame
Name & Shame
Death of Quality is the acceptance of inferiority.

 

[thriller]

I won’t say who or where (it was a hunt I was not on in a country I have not been to) but a guy I know was told to shoot and it turned out to be a female leopard. Apparently it was legal but not importable. That was a mess and he never got his cat back.

 

[Justbryan]

I have never shot or been told to shoot the wrong animal. But I was on a hunt for a 35"- 38" Cape Buffalo on a quota. The other hunter on a second quota had a 40"+ bull on quota but he shot the wrong bull so I got to shoot a 40" plus bull. I was charged for the smaller bull.

 

[Moe324]

Yes. On my second trip to Africa I had bushbuck on the list. Had a landowner tell me and the ph to shoot two of them. One being a trophy and one not. It was in the dark with a spotlight. He admitted he told us to shoot the immature one without looking at it good. He told us to load both up. On the 2 hr drive back to lodge I asked pH about it and said no way we should have to pay for that first immature one. He said he would talk to lodge owner. Fast forward to bill day and 2 trophy bushbuck is on the bill. I said why is that on there and he said the landowner charged him for two. After arguing with him he said he would charge me his cost on the immature one at $800 and that I was to take that out of the in house pH tip because he wanted to teach him a lesson.

 

[Sideshow]

I'm still in Romania as I write this, but a funny story I didn't know until a few days after I shot my Red Stag.

Four of us were in a high stand with the thick woods of the Carpathians to our back, and open fields to our front. Tina, Marius, the Club Hunt Director and myself just casually viewing the huge stags about 300 yards below us with their groups of cows. Group after group came up from the pastures and agricultural fields, through a thin treeline and up to the open field just below us.

One Bull had vines or brush stuck in his rack, another very large Bull stayed to our left, and another large Bull slightly to our right. The Hunt Director couldn't clearly Identity the Bull on the right as one he'd seen before, but but knew the one on the left to be a good trophy Bull. The one on the right was covered with mud, and in the low light was really hard to score.

Marius wanted to put a stalk on the Bull to the right, the Hunt Director the one to the left, so there was a bit of lively whispering in the high stand for a minute or two.
View attachment 718800
After I put him on the ground, the Hunt Director got a good look at him up close and was shocked. He'd never seen this particular Bull and was every bit as happy as I was that we had this one in the bag. So much so, he called the Club President who arrived a few minutes later to get a look at the Bull.

Just goes to show, there can be a difference of opinion even between very experienced guides when judging trophies.

Dam that’s a mighty fine Stag you have taken there @skydiver386 what’s his spread? Looks to be a 16 pointer, that’s a great effort!
Remember though with red deer the males are called Stags. Calling them Bulls is like calling Cape Buffalo Water Buffalo

 

[migrabill]

I had a PH tell me to shoot the wrong Golden Wildebeest. We came upon a herd of 8-10 bulls. One was remarkably bigger than the others. They all went behind a copse of trees. Every once in awhile 1 or 2 would venture out from the tree, go back in, etc. Eventually one stepped out and my PH said, "There is your bull, take him". I did. upon recovery, my PH realized he made a mistake and had me shoot the wrong bull. That evening he told me that that Golden Wildebeest would be "free" and we would go out the next day for a "proper one". Well, the next day I shot an SCI Golden WIldebeest. I had a knife made with the knife handle being from the inferior Golden, and I am kept the skin.