Antlers have a magical quality that can freeze a moment in time. Hunters mount animals and display them as a reminder of a great experience and to recreate the feelings and adventure of the hunt with a single glance. Many hunters mount their first deer and some of their biggest, yet what about the others? A medium-size antelope or a large mule deer Y-buck is equally deserving of that memory generating process and here’s a simple way to mount antlers with little expense or wall space.
Practice on the Past
You probably have a set of antlers or horns around your place that you wanted to get mounted, but chose not to for a variety of reasons. Like any project, it’s great to practice before you tackle the optimum choice. The good news here is that while you are working on this project, you can make several at the same time. In this way you won’t have to start from scratch and you will have mounts that match for color and relative size.
Clearly How-To
Hats off to Remi Warren, the author of this process for a most comprehensive explanation of a process. Steps in the creation are developed one at a time and photographed extensively. Even if you aren’t handy with tools, you can create a beautiful display that will make you proud and treat the animal with the utmost respect.
Getting Started
The off-season is a great time to pull out a few of those old antlers or last year’s trophy and make a unique antler mount to show them off. It’s pretty simple and can look professional. As a hunter, I enjoy the whole process, from butchering to cooking my game meat to making the display for my antlers.
For this article I mounted two animals to show a few different options. One is a Sitka blacktail I took on Kodiak Island two years ago. The other is an antelope my dad took on a hunt with me a while back. Neither of these animals are the biggest in the world, but they were both taken on fun and memorable hunts, and as souvenirs of those hunts, they’re worthy of display.
