Gold Medal Trophies

TEX84

AH senior member
Joined
Nov 12, 2014
Messages
62
Reaction score
64
Media
4
Hunting reports
Africa
1
How common is it to shoot gold medal animals?

Let's say I'm going after a gold medal impala and wildebeest. Is that a realistic goal? Or is it really rare? Should I be happy with bronze medal trophies?
 
I think it is possible but you have to have a sharp eye and hunt the right property.
 
Very possible and like enysse indicated you will need to check references and past trophy taken from areas that you are looking at going to.

I have viewed a few web locations where the ranch owner, list the number of Gold trophy take by species on his ranch. So the information is out there you just need to obtain it.

I, myself have not had any of my trophy's measured for the possible books that they would make. That is not my cup of tea...
 
I haven't gone after medal trophies but have been pleased with very nice representative trophies. That being said if you work with your outfitter in advance with Gold Medal in mind and are willing to pay ......sure it can be done.
 
SCI gold is a resonable goal for some species and darned hard for others. I had a nice springbuck and eland scored which easily made gold. A tremendous, ancient 42" buffalo scored bronze. I have since, thankfully, quit worrying about inches and focused on age.
 
I was happy with any mature examples of the species I was after.... I ended up with a Gold Medal Kudu and Blesbuck, a silver Blue Wildebeest for my Dad, two silver Impala and a Bronze Gemsbok. But the advice you were given is spot on, if that is your goal let the outfitter know as far in advance as is possible. They'll scout and keep an eye out for a good animal.
 
It certainly could be done, but I think that you would have a hard time picking out two random trophies like that and ONLY hunting gold medal examples of those species. A more likely scenario is finding an outfitter who consistently puts clients on a VARIETY of gold medal animals and you could chose to only shoot gold medal animals, with the understanding that you will most likely have to shoot fewer animals and come back again (doesn't as bad as I first envisioned it when I started writing :)!)

I can tell the difference between my Eastern cape silver medal and gold medal kudus (although none of my friends can), but I can't differentiate the experiences. I won't trade either experience just for a better scoring animal. I went focusing on mature/representative and will absolutely do the same the next time I go.
 
Thanks guys. I guess I'm really trying to get an idea of realistic trophy quality.

I honestly do not care about the actual score. I just want to shoot mature representative animals. Is a bronze trophy usually representative? Or silver?

I actually shot my first African animals a few months ago (impala and wildebeest). I have no idea what they would score, I'm just trying guess based on the pictures and figure out if they are representative. I just don't really have enough experience to judge trophy quality.
 
There is one easy way to tell.
Drag the photos into your next post and everyone will be happy to help you out.
 
I think the hardest gold metal for me would be springbok and warthog. Some times you are lucky, other times not too much. There are great properties for both though. I think again, some people are just more patient than others and others just like mature animals and forget about the centimeters or inches.
 
Top Ten and Minimums for Blue Wildebeest
Minimums...........Standard........Bow
Bronze Score........70..................54
Silver Score.........76 1/8............75
Gold Score...........80 7/8............79 7/8

Top Ten

Click on the Camera Icon to view photo(s). Hope the photo option works...
Rifle
Rank Book ID....Name............................Score
1 1093788.....Anton Fouchee................97
photo_icon.gif

2 161219.......Choppy Roberts...............96 4/8
3 1119238.....Angus Murray................96 2/8
photo_icon.gif

4 155377.......F.J. Senekal....................95 1/8
photo_icon.gif

5 1099932.....Edward D. Cerra.............95
photo_icon.gif

6 142191.......Cecil Baldwin..................94 7/8
photo_icon.gif

6 169953.......Glen Williamson..............94 7/8
photo_icon.gif

7 1096442.....Dan Darr........................94 5/8
photo_icon.gif

8 125423.......Charles N. McLeod...........94 3/8
photo_icon.gif

9 1099302.....Peter E. G. Bruckmann....94 2/8
10 1114832....Steven Mazza..................94
 
Last edited:
Top Ten and Minimums for Southern Impala

Minimums......Standard.....Bow
Bronze Score....52..............46
Silver Score.....55 5/8........54 2/8
Gold Score.......58..............57 4/8

Top Ten

Click on the Camera Icon to view photo(s).
Rifle
Rank Book ID....Name...........................Score
1 115536........Dries Visser Jr...............69 6/8
1 1104462.....Jan Loubser...................69 6/8
photo_icon.gif

2 1096663.....Jeffrey Osment..............68 6/8
photo_icon.gif

3 168351........Lawrence J. Wolfgram...68 4/8
4 150018........Gerald E. Beck...............68 3/8
photo_icon.gif

4 1103455......David W. Frederick........68 3/8
photo_icon.gif

4 1127237......Angus Murray..............68 3/8
photo_icon.gif

5 136902........William Mosesian..........68 1/8
photo_icon.gif

5 1095432......Sten Sjogren..................68 1/8
photo_icon.gif

6 166991........Rick Warner..................67 6/8
photo_icon.gif

7 167333........Clayton W. Williams III..67 3/8
photo_icon.gif

8 1101530.......Jordan Robinson............67 2/8
photo_icon.gif

8 1130325.......Richard Matsler.............67 2/8
photo_icon.gif

9 1127235.......Angus Murray...............67 1/8
photo_icon.gif

10 1119486.....Kenneth L. Barr..............67
photo_icon.gif
 
Alright Brickburn, here you go.

Maybe you scoring experts can give me an idea as to the quality of these three animals. Average, above average, exceptional, etc.???

Impala1.JPG
Wildebeest1.JPG
Impala2.JPG
 
That should do the trick.
 
We went on a budget hunt and brought back:
Southern Impala Gold-#48--61 5/8"
Southern Impala Bronze--Did not enter but scored it.
Ringed Waterbuck Silver #89 76 6/8"
Blue Wildebeest Silver #112 79"
Blue Wildebeest Bronze--Did not enter but scored it.
Blesbuck Silver #75 44 3/8"

My daughter took a Red Hartebeest Gold I do not remember the exact number but it was #68 or 69

All hunting was spot and stalk

The attached photos may help to see what they look like
 

Attachments

  • Africa trip 1019.jpg
    Africa trip 1019.jpg
    59.1 KB · Views: 241
  • Africa trip 876.jpg
    Africa trip 876.jpg
    88.9 KB · Views: 258
  • Africa trip 804.jpg
    Africa trip 804.jpg
    63 KB · Views: 256
  • Africa trip 680.jpg
    Africa trip 680.jpg
    60 KB · Views: 256
  • Africa trip 701.jpg
    Africa trip 701.jpg
    57.1 KB · Views: 262
Last edited:
Alright Brickburn, here you go.

Maybe you scoring experts can give me an idea as to the quality of these three animals. Average, above average, exceptional, etc.???

View attachment 35519 View attachment 35520 View attachment 35522
How do you qualify average? That blue wildebeest is probably representative for most places but may have been the biggest one on the whole property you were hunting, and an absolute trophy! Having looked at the three, you may be very close to silver/gold on the top impala, probably not on the other two. If you want to get a soft tape measure and go to the SCI website, you can get instructions to measure your own trophies for yourself, but will of course not be official. If you are proud of the trophy, that is all that is important.
 
on my tape the first impala came out as a cracker.
the bwb and second impala measured out to bueatiful trophies.

My thoughts exactly 1st impala gold, wildebeest bronze or less and last impala bronze, very nice animals, all of them.

My experience with game size has been that only 1 has been below bronze, 20% have scored bronze, 50% Silver, 30% Gold including several that went way up in gold.

If you want gold medal only, it is possible, I had an outfitter quote me an all gold medal hunt and he quoted rates $200/day higher than normal, said we would need to budget several days per animal and need to travel extensively to find each animal. As a comparison gold medal non-typical whitetail is 187 3/8", Is this a realistic goal? sure but not on most hunts and the high fence hunts where it is realistic are far more expensive than other hunts.
 
@TEX84 As the good folk above have said there are a few things to consider. A Outfitter can have the gold medals available due to selective breeding and good management principles, genetics and quality of grazing or browsing also playing their part. As mentioned in another post the guy with the largest area is probably going to have the better quality animals, but you will pay more in dayfee and maybe trophy cost due to a higher running cost for the property owner. Dont confuse this with put and take of large trophies brought into the smaller areas. It should not be too hard to find yourself the species mentioned above in the gold class, Kudu,Bushbuck,Klipspringer,Vaalie etc are however going to be much harder.
I can only add from experiance that the hunter who is mentally and physically prepared to hunt as hard as possible are the ones who more often than not get top class trophies in areas that contain both avarage and above avarage trophies. Lets face it no matter how hard you hunt if the quality is not there its not there.

The photo is of a extremely exceptional Blue Wildebees, this is were genetics cannot be beaten, a breeding bull that will probably never be hunted.
IMG_111600007924940.jpeg
IMG_111572123322472.jpeg
 
@TEX84 I can only add from experiance that the hunter who is mentally and physically prepared to hunt as hard as possible are the ones who more often than not get top class trophies in areas that contain both avarage and above avarage trophies.

There can be no truer statement about hunting anything anywhere in the world.
 

Forum statistics

Threads
53,632
Messages
1,131,580
Members
92,701
Latest member
jack849688
 

 

 

Latest posts

Latest profile posts

Early morning Impala hunt, previous link was wrong video

Headshot on jackal this morning

Mature Eland Bull taken in Tanzania, at 100 yards, with 375 H&H, 300gr, Federal Premium Expanding bullet.

20231012_145809~2.jpg
 
Top