Ghost in the darkness taken!

Fleming Lund and his parents with his trophy bushpig taken in just the moonlight.We've had an early start to season this year,with two Swedish clients arriving in the 1st week of Feb already. The second Swedish hunter,Ulf Daniellson , arrived a couple weeks later and bushpig was on his list.
Although both hunts were conducted in generally hot conditions the other trophies taken were fortunately hot too!
PH Eric guided both hunts and managed to negate the heat and hunting very well.
I took Ulf out on two evenings in the waxing moon phase.The first night was fruitless with no pigs coming to the bait we were staking out.
The next evening I decided to switch locations and it wasn't long and a pig made its appearance.There was a bit of cloud cover obscuring the 1st quarter moon, so Ulf battled to see the bushpig at first.When he managed to pick the pig up in the scope he shot and the pig dropped in its tracks.I could see the bushpig spinning around where it fell and yelled ; shoot again!
Before Ulf could shoot again the pig jumped up and disappeared into the moonlit night never to be seen again.
After a sleepless night we went to investigate the next morning but only found its tracks where it made the speedy getaway into the notorious Eastern Cape thorny thickets that the famous author, Maj. Pretorius , once called "a hunters hell" in his book , Jungle Man.
Ulf's shot was probably high on the shoulder.Bushpigs are one of the harder species to target and this episode clearly illustrated just that.
Hard lines Ulf, maybe next time!

Halfway through March old friend ,Fihl Jensen, from Denmark returned for his seventh visit to Blaauwkrantz.He brought the Lund Family with him for their first African trip.
Fihl, a Bushpig Hall of Famer himself , indicated to Flemming Lund that he should accept the famous bushpig challenge in addition to his plains game package he was hunting. After arriving and spending a few days out in the thick bush and being assured by PH Francois that there were buhpigs all over but hardly ever spotted, he accepted the challenge to target the these "ghosts".
The first evening I took Fleming out , was the night before first quarter (Mon 22March).
Once again that group of bushpigs' sixth sense rescued them and we sat till 10 pm with nothing coming in.
The next evening,at a different spot, saw a clear night with the first quarter shining brightly once the sunlight had gone. At 7:50 pm two pigs came walking almost within touching range from our bush blind.The wind was good so they didn't smell us.They passed by and did their customary "circle" around the bait and then closed in.We could clearly see the boar was larger than the sow,although this is not always the case.(bushpig sows are good trophies too)They had their heads facing us as they started feeding.They stayed in this position for more than 15minutes.These 15 minutes felt more like 15 hours!Finally the boar turned and Fleming made an excellent shot with the bushpig dropping dead in its tracks.Fleming was using his .308 topped with a Swarovski Z6i 3-18 X 50P scope.This scope also has the feint orange dot to indicate the centre.This rig makes for an excellent bushpig combination in this type of hunt.
The bushpig weighed 70 kilograms or 154 lbs.Tusks should go good silver medal SCI.

Congratulations to Fleming Lund ,the first Bushpig Hall of Famer for 2010!

What's the difference between a trophy species and a non-trophy species?

I often wonder about this topic as who can really say they have the authority to call a trophy a trophy and who cant?
Why should Rowland Ward or SCI decide that certain species are good enough to "make" the book and others not?
I suppose if it has horns,antlers or tusks there seems to be consensus they "make" the book because they can be measured.But what about the cats?They don't have horns,antlers or tusks yet they're in the book.
What about the impressive Zebra? They're not in the "book" although they have a skull like the cats.
Why should some be left out while others enjoy all the glory?

I'm sure the folks who put the record books spent a lot of time discussing this issue: is size really always the goal?
At the end of the day it is each individual hunter who decides what is HIS trophy and how much hew rates it.
The bushpig probably doesn't look as regal as the sable antelope to most but that's just looks..what about all the other qualities like degree of difficulty that are attributed to species?Surely they count too?
Fortunately these other qualities are mostly in the eye of the beholder as they can't be measured with a tape.

I'm happy to say the bushpig makes the "book" as a trophy species in both publications and is much more than that in my eyes too.