Nyala or Kudu - Which is your favourite?

[BRICKBURN]

I'm going to do my best to eat a tenderloin out of each one.
I'll let you know my verdict!

 

[WST416]

Would love to hunt bongo someday.

They are both beautiful animals and when I think of African plains game, kudu pop in my head every time but I'm with you. There is nothing I would like more then a nice bongo. Christophe Morio's pictures of his bongos on here make me drool every time I look at them. Hopefully someday I'll go on a hunt for them!!

 

[BRICKBURN]

WST, I know what you mean. Christophe goes and shows me another spiral horn and off we go. Peaking at those Bongo through the trees at the edge of a river drinking.... (he is just nasty.)
Anything with stripes on its sides and those damn curly horns.

 

[PHOENIX PHIL]

If hunting challenge is the question, I'd have to go with Kudu. If it's a beauty contest, hands down the Nyala wins in my book. I wish I could afford a full body mount.

My wife and I were treated to a display of a Nyala bull showing his dominance to a younger bull in RSA last year. If you've not seen this, it's quite entertaining. The bull doing the showing off flairs out his hair, curls his tail, and then kind of does his best impression of Arnold Schwarzanegger flexing all the while doing this stiff legged strut. There's a word for this act but for the life of me I can't remember it.

 

[messmate]

I was lucky enough to get both. The Kudu was the harder and on a 10 day hunt was a last hour of the last day scenario. Perhaps for that reason the Kudu wins for me and he has that slightly more rugged appearance out of the 2. Both are truely things of beauty though and are awesome to see in the wild. I've seen Nyala do their Tai Chi routine and that is a site to behold.
I would hunt both again but Kudu first.

 

[Mark H. Young]

I honestly think the nyala is far more attractive than a kudu and perhaps the most beautuful of the spiral horns. They have a more limited range by far than the kudu and in their natural range are cover loving animals of the forest making finding a big one a little more difficult. Having said that I probably will not try to best the two nyala I've taken but if I'm somewhere that has great kudu genetics and I see a very big one I'll try to take him. There's something about those big spiraled horns.

To me the bongo is by far the most desireable of the spiral horns and perhaps of all the PG species. The hunt, location and the bongo itself make me lust for one badly.

 

[bradking1]

Pretty proud of this guy...

 

[enysse]

You should be bradking1, he's a nice one!

 

[BRICKBURN]

Very nice older Nyala and with character to boot!

 

[graybird]

I've taken 2 Eastern Cape kudus and 1 nyala. I would certainly say the hunts for both were very different.

The kudu hunting was conducted by spotting the kudu from a high vantage point and then making a stalk. The two kudus I took were at 168 and 225 yards respectively. So, the hunting was more of a get in the right position and make the shot.

The nyala hunting is more personal in my opinion. I hunted in KZN in 2004. The bush was very thick and you would often spend your time slipping along the dry river beds trying to spot the nyala before they spotted you. We once snuck to within about 15-20 yards of a nyala displaying. So, we knew there was another male there but could not locate him because of the dense vegetation. We finally saw him when the wind betrayed us and he was less than 30 yards but we never saw him until he ran. I ended up taking my nyala at about 25 yards.

Therefore, I'd say I enjoyed both types of hunting very much! The kudu hunting was more of a stalking hunt and making the shot. The nyala more of a can I sneak up to him without him knowing I'm there type of hunt.

Having said this, bushbuck are my nemesis. I hunted for a bushbuck on both hunts and have not taken one yet.