Hank the tank is a hell of a buck! Congrats to you and your wife! Have you scored him? Now I do have one piece of advice for you: you didn't mention that after the shots you gave him any time to bed and die? I personally even after listening to them kick around, will still set a timer for 20 minutes before going in, while thoroughly watching area for movement, and listening further..
Thanks HT. The thought crossed my mind briefly to wait a bit. But man, honestly, we couldn't wait to get up there! By the time we got our gear and walked up, I figure at least 10 minutes.
Thanks HT. The thought crossed my mind briefly to wait a bit. But man, honestly, we couldn't wait to get up there! By the time we got our gear and walked up, I figure at least 10 minutes.
Lol oh i know from experience, it kills to wait, but can pay off...I find the whitetails for their size are very tough, so if you don't give em time to bed and die, they will continue to run if you don't wait long enough...again, very good impressive buck you got, it may take you a long time to top that one!
Thanks for all the great responses! Just wanted to give back a bit of stoke after reading some great stories and cliff hanger threads from you guys.
So now the question is what the hell do I do with this?
I'm feeling a bit of pressure to do the right thing.
Friends right away are texting me their taxidermist contact info.
So I talk to one and get my options:
-the velvet is not looking so hot with some missing spots. Recommends removing it.
-I don't have the cape. I can buy one but it'll be a winter one, not summer.
-shoulder mount will end up being over $1000 and 12-18 months turn around.
-euro mount closer to $400, probably get it before xmas.
I was partial to euro mount from the start and figured all right, let's do this.
Skinned and stripped
Boil in OxiClean
While boiling I had to be careful because the heat of the antlers made the blood swell and start oozing out of pinholes in the antlers.
Kind of freaky to see the whitish antlers bleeding red. I took it out, cooled it down, wiped the blood off and then boiled some more.
Took about an hour.
Then pressure washed the shit out of it. I'm fortunate I have access to a 3000 psi unit and this saves a lot of time.
I was able to get pretty much everything off on the first pass. Then a coat hanger to get some of that brain material out and then more pressure washing.
I then used a few 140ml bottles of 30 vol developer (peroxide) and matching decolorizing powder from the hair coloring section of Shoppers Drug Mart.
2 bottles might have been enough, I had more than plenty of paste.
Brush that onto the skull, let sit overnight in a plastic bag and voila
Now I'm letting it hang outside until the smell dissipates and the flies are done with it.
Then I'll stain the antlers to a more natural color and glue the nose pieces back on properly.
I ended up giving the velvet to a friend who told me all about the healing and boosting properties it has, commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine.
You dry it into a powder and use it as a supplement.
I'll post some pics when I get around to finishing the mount.
A decent shoulder mount can be had for $650 and euro mount for under $200. But you cut off the cape way too short to do a shoulder mount anyways. Woule have to use one from another buck
Last year I got a euro done for $125. Worth it to not have to clean up brains off my driveway and deal with whitening myself.
Magic healing powers? Ya, I'm sure some Chinese fella is now snorting the ground up velvet and wondering how long before the chronic indigestion is cured *roll eyes*
Good looking euro. Did you use dish soap when boiling it? If not I would recommend soaking it in warm water with dish soap overnight. It will help draw the fat out that can lead to yellowing of the skull over time.
Before Big Hank, my scoring ability was pretty much limited to counting how many points.
Until now I had just glossed over Section III Judging of Mike Eastman's book. What a great resource.
Now after reading it I can appreciate the finer details and quality of a mule deer's rack, especially when I have my own in front of me.
After taping and measuring a 3rd time, my amateur attempt at scoring came out to
166 6/8 gross
158 net
Here are the details:
Like twoSevenO mentioned the back forks are weak which is probably what is limiting the score.
When measuring G1,2,3,4 I taped off the main beam/tine to get a visual of the middle of where the tine branches out and took the measurement from there, hoping that's correct.
I'll eventually have it measured by the local club to see if I'm in the right ball park.
Anyways, it's not record for B&C or BC but I'm pretty darn happy with it.
The real question now is next time I see Big Hank in the wild, do I let him grow a year older? Or am I still a meat hunter?
Hmmm...
I looked at Big Hank's teeth and they seem in very good shape so I'm not sure if he plateau'd yet. Maybe he could have eventually reached record size.
Let me know if there's anything else I missed or you'd like to know. Lots of good feedback from you guys.
Gander's Taxidermy. I think he quoted around $900 for the shoulder mount and in addition I'd be charged extra for cape ($95), velvet stripping ($75?) and antler staining ($125), something like that.
I decided to leave the cape on the side of the mountain, had enough on my plate to deal with.
Originally Posted by twoSevenO
Magic healing powers? Ya, I'm sure some Chinese fella is now snorting the ground up velvet and wondering how long before the chronic indigestion is cured *roll eyes*
Yeah I like my medicine western. My buddy was stoked though.