I doubt if I have walked more miles in pursuit of any other species than the kudu. Where I grew up in a small town in what is now Limpopo Province in South Africa, the kudu was the standard “big” antelope on the farms surrounding the town. Sure, the odd farmer had zebra or blue wildebeest as well and, if you were willing to spend the time and effort to travel some distance, eland and even gemsbuck could be had. By and large, however, the kudu was the preferred and available large antelope in that part of the world back then.
My first kudu was hunted on a ranch in Zimbabwe, not far from the dusty little town and railway siding named Rutenga. This was way before the troubles of 2000, and that part of the south-eastern Zimbabwean lowveld was mostly low-fenced cattle country. There was plenty of game around, however, and big, trophy quality kudu bulls were not hard to come by. I saw two from that part of the world that broke the magical 60-inch mark and encountered plenty more that would have looked just fine on the walls of any
