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You have finally found a trophy buck and managed to harvest him. You
have many
decisions on how you want to display your buck. You should have your
mind made
up before you cape your deer. You must evaluate a number of things to
determine
if you will have a full chest mount done by a taxidermy company or not.
You should consider the cost of the mount, condition of the deer, quality of the deer and the amount of wall space. You should also keep you wife and kids in mind if you plan on displaying you trophy in the living room.
I have limited wall space to display my hunting and fishing trophies. I also am very cost conscious and having a full taxidermy mount for every critter I bring home is out of the question. I have decided to have European mounts of most of my almost trophy grade bucks. I am reserving a place of honor over the fireplace for that buck of a lifetime. I will have a full chest mount and I will carefully plan the style of the mount.
The last two mule deer I have had European mounts done. The first one was done by a local taxidermy shop and they boiled the skull and mounted it to the display with two sheetrock screws. I liked the mount very much until I had one done by a different process. The process used dermestid beetles to clean the skull and the bone looks much more smooth and natural. That is why Museums prefer this method overall. I also requested that they clean the jaw bone. This makes a nice display and can be used to determine the age of the buck. You can tell how old and healthy the deer are by looking at the teeth and the relative size of the deer.
The second mount was done by Scott Plunkett of High Desert Skull Works in southern California. I highly recommend them. It was a pleasure doing business with him. I packed and shipped the head FROZEN via FedEx. We were in contact via Email and the trophy was shipped back in a reasonable length of time. It returned home safely and was well packed. The skull was mounted to the display board using a much nicer bracket. I had them use the same style solid walnut European wall mount panel #01075282 from the Van Dykes taxidermy catalog. This mount was much superior to the prior mount done by another professional company.
California has restrictions to prevent Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD). Deer heads and spinal materials are not permitted to be transported from out of state.
You have invested a considerable amount of time and money to get each set of antlers and you want to make sure that you can display them in a way that will bring back the joy of the hunt. In past years we simply took a few priceless photos and we cut off the horns with a hacksaw. This left our memories to be tacked up in the garage or out in the barn rarely to be remembered.
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