Kevin Thomas
AH veteran
- Joined
- Jun 10, 2009
- Messages
- 141
- Reaction score
- 232
- Location
- Wiltshire - UK
- Website
- www.kevindthomas.com
- Deals & offers
- 5
- Media
- 53
- Articles
- 25
- Member of
- Previously ZPHGA, PHASA, SCI, ECGMA - all now lapsed since I'm no longer active in the industry but still support it fully.
- Hunted
- South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique.
To my mind, gemsbok are one of Africa’s most eye-catching antelope, and they make for a superb trophy. However, it wasn't until the mid-1980s that I got the chance to start hunting and guiding on them, and once blooded to this fascinating antelope, I quickly became a firm gemsbok disciple.
Gemsboks as the early Dutch settlers in South Africa called them are also known as Oryx, and SCI list six species. The non-indigenous Scimitar-horned Oryx has also been introduced onto private land in South Africa and SCI has a separate listing for them as an introduced species.
The Oryx I write about here is the common Kalahari Gemsbok (Oryx gazella gazelle). Native to much of Namibia, the extreme western tip of Zimbabwe (where they’re classified a protected species and cannot be hunted), the Kalahari Desert region of Botswana, and South Africa. Despite being called gemsbok by those early Dutch settlers in South Africa, it seems that the arrival at the name is obscure for the word gems is applicable to Europe’s chamois (Rupicara rupicara) which is in no way similar to the gemsbok.
Without doubt, when it comes to the ‘looks’ department they’re an antelope that scores well up the scale, probably at about 9 on a scale of 1 to 10. Trophy hunters aside, gemsbok are also a favourite with artists and photographers. They’re also popular with venison hunters because the meat is superb, the brisket being a 'must have' for camp fare. The lengthy straight horns and distinctive markings on their faces, knees and rump, finished off with their long horse like tail make them impossible to mistake. The black and white of the face, short black mane and black spinal stripe plus the white and black knees and white belly bounded by the dark lower flank colouring all help give contrast to the rest of their fawn coloured bodies. Gemsbok males stand at about 1.2 m at the shoulder and have a live mass of about 240 kg.
Primarily a semi-desert and arid country dweller, they are an incredibly adaptive species and have an interesting ecology in that research has shown how well their metabolism allows them to conserve moisture. When subject to high temperatures their body temperature also increases and after three to four hours they begin to lose excess heat by radiation because ambient temperatures in arid regions drop rapidly after sunset. This means gemsbok are able to get through the hottest part of the day without using moisture for evaporative cooling, and thus while under severe heat load they are able to save large amounts of moisture.
This aspect of the species make-up is probably the single most important factor that allows them to survive in desert regions, coupled to the fact that their kidneys are able to handle low percentages of brackish water. In addition, gemsbok have a natural mechanism that allows the blood circulating to the brain to remain substantially lower than their body temperature. Panting, which gemsbok will readily do if stressed and/or subject to extreme heat, also increases the airflow over the capillaries in the nasal veins thus helping achieve a cooling effect.
While essentially grazers’ gemsbok are classed as dry-region roughage eaters and if in areas where the grass coverage dwindles or disappears, they will revert to browsing, and readily take to digging for succulent bulbs and roots. Young are born throughout the year and new born calves are hidden by the mothers who then visit the calf to nurse it. Concealment sites are changed frequently and this practice may continue for up to six weeks after which the mother and calf will join a nursery herd or a mixed herd. Because of their habit of nursing a hidden calf, hunters should be wary of shooting a nursing mother although unfortunately this does happen. The reason is because in most areas, and if numbers are robust enough, female gemsbok are also allowed to be shot as trophies. A female’s horns are normally longer than those of the male of the species, although not as heavily ringed on the lower third.
It isn’t uncommon to hear a sport hunter say that he shot an old gemsbok cow that had been kicked out of the herd or had left the herd, in the erroneous belief that this had happened. Sadly though, the end story in such a scenario is often that a young yet to be weaned calf is then doomed to starvation.
In South Africa gemsbok are mainly hunted under game ranch conditions where they can become a wily quarry indeed. In the Karoo there are a number of extremely vast sheep ranches that run to 50,000 acres plus, where the landowners also maintain good numbers of game such as springbok, hartebeest, blesbok, black wildebeest and gemsbok.
Hunting across some of these adjoining spreads that together often total in excess of 200,000 acres without high game fences, can indeed be a challenging hunt experience because with there only being standard 4' 6" livesstock fences (which aren't a barrier to most species of wildlife) the gemsbok are able to free range in the true sense. Although on the larger big game ranches where despite high wire surrounding the whole, the unfenced interior also makes for a truly fair chase hunt. And particularly so if the gemsbok are on properties in areas where they existed historically. There is nothing more disheartening for a discerning sport hunter than hunting a gemsbok in areas such as the mopane woodland belts in South Africa’s northern provinces where gemsbok have never previously existed. Hunting them goes with the arid wastes and semi-deserts of southern Africa like a good post hunt Scotch goes with soda water.
Calibre wise the 300s and the larger of the 7mm family all perform adequately. As will any well constructed bullet combined with a flat shooting calibre and coupled to the hunter’s ability to shoot accurately over long ranges, are all that is really needed to put a gemsbok trophy into the salt.
Over the years I've had clients take some excellent trophy gemsbok and most were shot after a hard or challenging stalk. Closing with gemsbok out in the open is not easy as the herd is normally wide awake and they like to keep distance between themselves and any potential threat to their well being.
Judging a trophy gemsbok can also be tricky because of the varying body size on different aged individuals, the horns of which are proportionate to age and body size. As an example, if a group of young gemsbok are glassed and one sees an individual in the group scratch it’s rump with a horn tip, those horns soon begin to look enormous. And particularly so if all the others in the group are of similar age and size. If there is nothing else to compare the horn length to within the age group, and you then pop the biggest in the group, by the time you get to it an incredible amount of ‘ground shrinkage’ has usually taken place. Be wary too of trying to judge a solitary gemsbok because it too, once shot, may turn out to be a lot smaller than was originally thought.
As I’ve previously mentioned, if the population allows, gemsbok females are also shot as trophies without there being any stigma attached and although their horns are normally not as thick or as heavily ringed as those of the males, they are normally longer. Prior to heading out on a gemsbok hunt, PHs and clients must ensure they’re on the same wave length regards the sex of the trophy. If this isn't done, it can become a bit embarrassing and by way of example, back in the late 1980s I had a learner PH with me and left him to guide the client, while I climbed onto some high ground to observe the stalk unfold.
Once the gemsbok had been grassed I made my way down onto the plains where the client and young PH were standing silently alongside the felled form. The mood was sombre and when I offered my compliments to the client on a trophy well taken, he harrumphed loudly, and then rolling his eyes towards the blue sky yelled, ‘Goldang how can I do a life size mount of a thing with teats – what will my buddies think!’
Given that I was the tutor PH to the young learner, it was entirely my fault. I should've ascertained the client’s wants well before the gunning exercise and explained to the learner PH that only a male gemsbok trophy was to be shot. and briefed him correctly. Fortunately, we still had late season quota so I allowed the client another gemsbok, used the female he'd shot for labour rations, and all ended on a happy note.
On another occasion Darryl Stoller from Raymond WA and I were hunting a gemsbok, when from high up on a steep slope we spotted directly below us the horn tips only, protruding from a clump of bush in a narrow kloof. We sat and waited for over an hour to try and sex the gemsbok, but it didn’t budge. Eventually, and impatient, I flipped a stone into the thicket where it was hiding. The gemsbok burst out of there at a gallop, and then 25m on pulled up and looked back, perplexed, it was a respectable trophy male so Darryl shot it.
Gemsbok are tough animals and like any of our bigger southern African plains game, if the shot is not placed correctly they may end up adrenaline charged and absorbing a lot of lead before succumbing. Once, when I had an Austrian client drop his shot on a gemsbok the gut-shot wounded antelope took off for the high ground leading us on a merry go round uphill and down dale for most of the day until we finally accounted for it. By which time too, we were both pretty exhausted and on our chin straps, not to mention the gemsbok’s suffering – messy.
Gemsboks as the early Dutch settlers in South Africa called them are also known as Oryx, and SCI list six species. The non-indigenous Scimitar-horned Oryx has also been introduced onto private land in South Africa and SCI has a separate listing for them as an introduced species.
The Oryx I write about here is the common Kalahari Gemsbok (Oryx gazella gazelle). Native to much of Namibia, the extreme western tip of Zimbabwe (where they’re classified a protected species and cannot be hunted), the Kalahari Desert region of Botswana, and South Africa. Despite being called gemsbok by those early Dutch settlers in South Africa, it seems that the arrival at the name is obscure for the word gems is applicable to Europe’s chamois (Rupicara rupicara) which is in no way similar to the gemsbok.
Without doubt, when it comes to the ‘looks’ department they’re an antelope that scores well up the scale, probably at about 9 on a scale of 1 to 10. Trophy hunters aside, gemsbok are also a favourite with artists and photographers. They’re also popular with venison hunters because the meat is superb, the brisket being a 'must have' for camp fare. The lengthy straight horns and distinctive markings on their faces, knees and rump, finished off with their long horse like tail make them impossible to mistake. The black and white of the face, short black mane and black spinal stripe plus the white and black knees and white belly bounded by the dark lower flank colouring all help give contrast to the rest of their fawn coloured bodies. Gemsbok males stand at about 1.2 m at the shoulder and have a live mass of about 240 kg.
Primarily a semi-desert and arid country dweller, they are an incredibly adaptive species and have an interesting ecology in that research has shown how well their metabolism allows them to conserve moisture. When subject to high temperatures their body temperature also increases and after three to four hours they begin to lose excess heat by radiation because ambient temperatures in arid regions drop rapidly after sunset. This means gemsbok are able to get through the hottest part of the day without using moisture for evaporative cooling, and thus while under severe heat load they are able to save large amounts of moisture.
This aspect of the species make-up is probably the single most important factor that allows them to survive in desert regions, coupled to the fact that their kidneys are able to handle low percentages of brackish water. In addition, gemsbok have a natural mechanism that allows the blood circulating to the brain to remain substantially lower than their body temperature. Panting, which gemsbok will readily do if stressed and/or subject to extreme heat, also increases the airflow over the capillaries in the nasal veins thus helping achieve a cooling effect.
While essentially grazers’ gemsbok are classed as dry-region roughage eaters and if in areas where the grass coverage dwindles or disappears, they will revert to browsing, and readily take to digging for succulent bulbs and roots. Young are born throughout the year and new born calves are hidden by the mothers who then visit the calf to nurse it. Concealment sites are changed frequently and this practice may continue for up to six weeks after which the mother and calf will join a nursery herd or a mixed herd. Because of their habit of nursing a hidden calf, hunters should be wary of shooting a nursing mother although unfortunately this does happen. The reason is because in most areas, and if numbers are robust enough, female gemsbok are also allowed to be shot as trophies. A female’s horns are normally longer than those of the male of the species, although not as heavily ringed on the lower third.
It isn’t uncommon to hear a sport hunter say that he shot an old gemsbok cow that had been kicked out of the herd or had left the herd, in the erroneous belief that this had happened. Sadly though, the end story in such a scenario is often that a young yet to be weaned calf is then doomed to starvation.
In South Africa gemsbok are mainly hunted under game ranch conditions where they can become a wily quarry indeed. In the Karoo there are a number of extremely vast sheep ranches that run to 50,000 acres plus, where the landowners also maintain good numbers of game such as springbok, hartebeest, blesbok, black wildebeest and gemsbok.
Hunting across some of these adjoining spreads that together often total in excess of 200,000 acres without high game fences, can indeed be a challenging hunt experience because with there only being standard 4' 6" livesstock fences (which aren't a barrier to most species of wildlife) the gemsbok are able to free range in the true sense. Although on the larger big game ranches where despite high wire surrounding the whole, the unfenced interior also makes for a truly fair chase hunt. And particularly so if the gemsbok are on properties in areas where they existed historically. There is nothing more disheartening for a discerning sport hunter than hunting a gemsbok in areas such as the mopane woodland belts in South Africa’s northern provinces where gemsbok have never previously existed. Hunting them goes with the arid wastes and semi-deserts of southern Africa like a good post hunt Scotch goes with soda water.
Calibre wise the 300s and the larger of the 7mm family all perform adequately. As will any well constructed bullet combined with a flat shooting calibre and coupled to the hunter’s ability to shoot accurately over long ranges, are all that is really needed to put a gemsbok trophy into the salt.
Over the years I've had clients take some excellent trophy gemsbok and most were shot after a hard or challenging stalk. Closing with gemsbok out in the open is not easy as the herd is normally wide awake and they like to keep distance between themselves and any potential threat to their well being.
Judging a trophy gemsbok can also be tricky because of the varying body size on different aged individuals, the horns of which are proportionate to age and body size. As an example, if a group of young gemsbok are glassed and one sees an individual in the group scratch it’s rump with a horn tip, those horns soon begin to look enormous. And particularly so if all the others in the group are of similar age and size. If there is nothing else to compare the horn length to within the age group, and you then pop the biggest in the group, by the time you get to it an incredible amount of ‘ground shrinkage’ has usually taken place. Be wary too of trying to judge a solitary gemsbok because it too, once shot, may turn out to be a lot smaller than was originally thought.
As I’ve previously mentioned, if the population allows, gemsbok females are also shot as trophies without there being any stigma attached and although their horns are normally not as thick or as heavily ringed as those of the males, they are normally longer. Prior to heading out on a gemsbok hunt, PHs and clients must ensure they’re on the same wave length regards the sex of the trophy. If this isn't done, it can become a bit embarrassing and by way of example, back in the late 1980s I had a learner PH with me and left him to guide the client, while I climbed onto some high ground to observe the stalk unfold.
Once the gemsbok had been grassed I made my way down onto the plains where the client and young PH were standing silently alongside the felled form. The mood was sombre and when I offered my compliments to the client on a trophy well taken, he harrumphed loudly, and then rolling his eyes towards the blue sky yelled, ‘Goldang how can I do a life size mount of a thing with teats – what will my buddies think!’
Given that I was the tutor PH to the young learner, it was entirely my fault. I should've ascertained the client’s wants well before the gunning exercise and explained to the learner PH that only a male gemsbok trophy was to be shot. and briefed him correctly. Fortunately, we still had late season quota so I allowed the client another gemsbok, used the female he'd shot for labour rations, and all ended on a happy note.
On another occasion Darryl Stoller from Raymond WA and I were hunting a gemsbok, when from high up on a steep slope we spotted directly below us the horn tips only, protruding from a clump of bush in a narrow kloof. We sat and waited for over an hour to try and sex the gemsbok, but it didn’t budge. Eventually, and impatient, I flipped a stone into the thicket where it was hiding. The gemsbok burst out of there at a gallop, and then 25m on pulled up and looked back, perplexed, it was a respectable trophy male so Darryl shot it.
Gemsbok are tough animals and like any of our bigger southern African plains game, if the shot is not placed correctly they may end up adrenaline charged and absorbing a lot of lead before succumbing. Once, when I had an Austrian client drop his shot on a gemsbok the gut-shot wounded antelope took off for the high ground leading us on a merry go round uphill and down dale for most of the day until we finally accounted for it. By which time too, we were both pretty exhausted and on our chin straps, not to mention the gemsbok’s suffering – messy.
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