What to do with skull and antlers? (pics and story added)

[one shot scott]

Wait a minute. Somethings missing. You cant jump right to the trophy mount and not mention anything about the hunt! Your dropping little bits of info, like mentioning in another post about your wife bringing out the cart. Tell us about the hunt, show us pictures, anything! even like r.j mentioned: stap on that "skull cap" and take a pic!

[Pydpiper]

I got a lot of messages from guys wanting to help and I gave them all the same story..
The buck is small, a basket 6 that walked right in to a couple grunts. The recovery was far more exciting than the hunt.
I am not looking to put this on the living room wall, I am just hoping to have it mounted in a way that I can hand a coat and hat on it at the entrance to my gun room.

Left the house at 5, wife dumped me off at the bush and I was in my tree for 5:30. Once I had an arrow in I got a message from my daughter, mad because I didn't buy her a nightlight, as soon as I sent my apology and promises of a better tomorrow I seen movement to my left, put my phone down and picked up my rangefinder. 47 yards, through the trees, not good enough. I watched him for a few minutes as he fed in to the standing corn until he eventually disappeared. There were 4 blue jays who kept me up to date on where he was even though I couldn't see him.
The rain started, hard.
I pulled my Slick Trick arrow out and replaced it with a Hammerhead to help fight the weather that was picking up quickly, of course he heard this commotion and came to see what was going on. I grunted twice, picked an opening in the trees where I figured he would eventually go, ranged it at 32 yards and waited, like clockwork he stepped in to the only hole I had in the trees and with a soft grunt he froze, my arrow flew and did a perfect broadside.
He jumped and darted to the treeline, I heard 2 grunts when he got there and let myself wonder if I had somehow missed.
I called a friend in a panic to ask about the grunt, it made no sense to me how he could have grunted with a 2" hole going through both lungs..
As usual, I didn't wait, I went down my tree and found my arrow, a typical 3 blade that was left with 2 and covered in blood from insert to nock. Then my buck, 20 yards from where I hit him. Did a little happy dance, made up a new nickname for myself and called in the troops for a pick up, as well as another friend to brag. It was pouring rain at this point, an ugly walk back and made for some less-than-flattering pictures, but he made it home.

Here is the view from my stand, it was a new spot for me and I was supposed to be the only one there, as you can see by the wooden stand in front of me, I wasn't the only one who knew about the spot. (Blackberry picture)



My deer.



The next day I had to go back and find all the stuff that fell out of my pockets while I was doing my happy dance and snapped a couple more pictures.
Here is some of the blood trail that was left behind after a night of rain, not too bad now but the night before it looked like it was put on with a paint brush.



Found this thing too, the most pristine I have ever come across.



Then he flew by, snapped a couple frames.



That was it! Nothing terribly exciting, but I did get a new coat rack out of the deal.

[mtbyak]

Congrats Dave,

Hope to be doing a happy dance next week as well


Shoot Straight
Kirk

[one shot scott]

Congratulations David! he looks alot like the one I took this past weekend. Awesome pictures and a great story behind it as well.

[gerald strine]

Congratulations nice deer maybe you could u tube the happy dance for us.

[Horizontal Hunter]

Pyd,

Congratulations on the buck. This is what I did with one of mine. I got the kit from Matuska Taxedermy and it had everything in it to do the job. I just used a hack saw to cut off the skull cap and then I used a combination of pliers, knives, and a flat head screwdriver to get the hide and the membrane under the skull off.

Here is a link if you are interested" http://order.matuskataxidermy.com/Searc ... egoryID=18

Bob

[Pydpiper]

Thanks for all the help, links and tips!
I am going to have a forum member look after it for me, my wife is a wonderfully understanding soul, but she is not going to put up with that thing in the freezer for too long.

[Limbs and Sticks]

This took about ten minutes, just plain old spray paint, If you don't like spray it again





Wes