To Mount or Not To Mount-Taxidermy

[bigsky2]

I shoulder mounted some animals when I was younger. I have two mule deer, two whitetails, two elk, and an oryx. About half of them I now wish I had Euro'd even though they are nice animals. I am kind of a taxidermy snob and if a shoulder mount doesn't end up looking alive to me then I regret it. I do all of my Euro mounts and save a ton of money and wall space that way. Going forward, I likely will do Euro mounts on everything unless I draw a sheep or goat tag. I would like to get one nice antelope shoulder mounted and I think there are some species of ducks that would be cool to get mounted someday.

 

[bz_711]

Funny how as I've gotten older I care very little about the mounts I've done. I'll be 99.9% euro from here on out...may fork out cash for one big bull elk mount when I buy a mountain cabin.

 

[WCB]

I've started doing a bunch more Euros since we have somewhere around 15 shoulder mounts already and a couple full bodies. My rule now is bigger than my biggest is considered for mounting or a new species or one that I probably wont hunt again. That's why I full bodied my Tahr from NZ. However, I have a fish for my 4 year old at the taxi and have had to talk my 6 year old out of mounting her first two turkeys...so apparently they like mounts also. Its going to get expensive .

As far as my kids getting them when I'm dead...it is what it is. If they want them cool if not I guess they will do with them what they want. My Grandpa passed away a year ago and I took all his sheep shoulder mounts (7 of them) a couple Antelope and his full body African Lion. One of my cousins, uncle, and dad took a bit of everything else, probably 50 plus mounts in total (hippo, croc, cape buffalo, etx). My dad himself has 20 deer or so 6 sheep a couple goats and another dozen other species. Ill get those eventually...Ill figure it out when the time comes but I'm into them and know the stories on every one.

 

[jrbarnes9972]

I'm personally Euro mount unless a buck sxores larger than my current biggest.

Sent from my SM-G986U using Tapatalk

 

[Ross]

@buffybr Thank you for your service and the collection

 

[jeffpg]

When I was younger, I mounted everything! Even at the age of 50, I was working in Africa and constantly hunting and killing dozens of critters per trip, and I collected tons of trophies to mount. It gradually dawned on me that I was going to go broke on taxidermy, much less trying to house all those mounts, as my entire home was already full of taxidermy. I made the decision to give up a ton of cool animals, but it would have ended up being a bad move financially to bring all the trophies home. I kept some, but mostly went with skins and skulls, etc. Now I am approaching 65, and I just do my own European mounts for the most part. It's liberating to get away from all the chaos of full-bore taxidermy.

I recently ran across this pic that reminded me of this thread! lol

 

[wind gypsy]

I'm just opposite of most of the posters on this thread. I like taxidermied mounts way more than euro mounts. Growing up in Colorado before it became Californicated, I loved its outdoors, mountains, and wildlife. After college I covered my walls with big game animal pctures. After moving to SW Montana many of those pictures were Nancy Glazier Artist Proof pictures.

I didn't start hunting until I was in college where my first deer was a spike muley buck, and I proudly hung those spike antlers on my bedroom wall. The next year I shot my first elk, and again I proudly hung his 5x5 antlers on my wall.

After college and my tour in the Army, I shot my first black bear and had a rug mount that is sitll on my wall some 50 years later. While I still lived in Colorado I shot two 30" mule deer. At that time I couldn't afford to have them mounted, so I bought the materials and shoulder mounted the 4x4 myself. Years later I had my taxidermist professionally finish his face. The other buck had quite a few "sticker" points and I just had his antlers on my wall until about 20 years ago when I had my taxidermist do a shoulder mount of him.

After moving to Montana in 1975, my hunting opportunities greatly expanded, as did my taxidermied mounts, and shoulder mounts relaced my big game animal pictures. In the late '70s and through the '80s I was lucky enough to draw or buy tags for almost all of Montana's big game animals, and my taxidermy quickly outnumbered my wall space.

In 1988-89 I added a 2000 sf, two story addition to my house, with the upper story being a 30'x35' Trophy Room. In 1999 I went on my first guided and international hunt for a Dall ram and a Mountain caribou in Canada. Since then I have gone on about a dozen international hunts, bringing home animals to be mounted from most of them.

Now my 1000 sf Trophy Room and my Living Room are filled with shoulder, half, and full body mounts of 80 animals that every day I enjoy looking at and re-living the memories of their hunts.

Very cool room, quite the compilation of memories there. Spend it if ya got it but the cost of such and addition and taxidermy work to fill it in 2026 $ = a whole lot of cool hunts.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Pretty much euro for me from here on out, have got a shiras moose mount, bighorn sheep, dall sheep, antelope and a 176 muley. Running out of room but also enjoy the euro look and being able to pull them off the wall.

 

[buffybr]

Very cool room, quite the compilation of memories there. Spend it if ya got it but the cost of such and addition and taxidermy work to fill it in 2026 $ = a whole lot of cool hunts.

Today's building materials costs and guided hunt costs have skyrocketed since I did my hunts in the '70s and '80s. My divorce in 2000-2001 should have been a simple division of property, but she dragged it out to almost 2 years and it cost me more than the cost of the Trophy Room addition plus the taxidermy costs of all of the animals that I now have mounted and a good share of the costs of all my guided international hunts.

I have a construction background, so I did most of the construction work on my 2K sf addition I did myself at a cost of $50K for materials and some labor to help me.

All of my Colorado and Montana animals except my Buffalo and Mountain Lion I got on DIY hunts with resident tags. Most of those hunts (including my 3 Montana Unlimited Unit bighorn rams, Mountain goat, 2 Shiras bull moose, and all of my bull elk) only cost me a $25 or less resident tag and a tank of gas for my pickup.