Last month I traveled to my good friend's ranch in South Texas to hunt whitetails and axis deer. On the first evening hunt, after a whole 10 minutes in the tri-pod stand, I shot a 4x4 whitetail. The entry shot was a little high, but the trajectory of the arrow would place the arrow on the otherside in his lung. The arrow did not pass through and because of that, we found absolutely no blood. We looked 2 1/2 days for that buck and never found any sign or buzzards. Here is my delima,my friend found my buck last week. It had jumped in his lake and when he pulled it out one of the antlers stayed in the lake. He has sent me the one antler, along with last years shed from another deer that looks identical to the one I shot. I am in need of a whitetail buck skull to make a european mount and preserve the memory of the hunt. Taxidermist here in Montana said I will have wait until next fall when they have supplies of skulls.Patience is not my strong point. Any ideas? Randy

Randy, I can't remember the name, but I think you can find them on the cabelas site. It is a plastic skull replica horn mounting kit that gets good reviews.

I'll see if I can find it.

Tim

here it is:

http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/product/standard-item.jsp?_DARGS=/cabelas/en/common/catalog/item-link.jsp_A&_DAV=MainCatcat20712-cat280001&id=0057445229205a&navCount=2& podId=0057445&parentId=cat280001&masterpathid=&navAction=push&catalogCode=QZ&rid=&parentType=index&indexId=cat280001&hasJS=true

ditto on the cabelas skull kit

Tim- The taxidermists all steered me away from the plastic skulls, so I never persued it. Now I will look into them. Thanks for the web site. I will now have a "plastic" eclectic mount.Thanks- Randy

I've also saw a chrome skull made from plate aluminum. Looked pretty neat.

Cabela's Skull is the tickett!!  

if you want a skull, don't do the plastic...give me your address, and i'll send you one...you can pay for the shipping...your taxidermists were right IMO...

nice gesture Don

Yes, very nice. I'm guessing you really have to pack a skull for max. protection though.

Tim

Have any of you guys used the cabelas skull kit?  How heavy is the plastic? Can you make a slit behind and around the bases of the insert with a razor and slide a whole skull plate underneath?  I'm thinking about getting it for a buck that I shot a few years ago, but I would rather not cut the antlers off of the skull plate.  I was thinking of maybe painting it and doing some indian desins on the skull if it looks too plasticy.

I'm sitting here looking at a Van Dykes Taxidermy  (Cableas owns them) a imititaiton europena skull mount I did with my antlers on it. I'm totally pleased. I've been doing euro skull mounts LONG before they were popular. My walls are full of them. I do my own taxidermy and have several mounts I just prefer skull mounts. Anyhow the year I used the fake skull I just had to much on my plate and opted to go fake. I've had TONS of folks here admiring my work and when I tell them one of them is "fake" can they point it out nine times out of ten they pick a REAL skull mount! If your local taxidermist is saying wait till you can get a real skull I'd wait till you find a real taxidermist! just my opinion.

Taxidermists are trying to make a buck ( pun intended ).  If you like the look of the fake skull go for it.

Clay, What do you expect from a taxidermist when a guy comes to him for advise?  

Do you expect he'll send him to the Cabela's catalogue?

It's his way of making a living and feed his family, doesn't he deserve the business?

Yes, I'm an ex-full-time taxidermist, still part timer...