fly

Great looking buck Pat. Congratulations! Hunting has been tough so far. Been out about 7 or 8 times and only had one shot opportunity at a tall four point. He walked right under my stand at 7am yesterday. I have seen one shooter while on stand and that was last week. He was walking in a field about 150 yards away. I grunted and he heard me but had no interest in a fight. It's been a long while that I've went this far into the season without harvesting a deer. Unfortunately I Lost half of the 50 acre farm i have been hunting for the past decade. A relative of the farmer has started hunting and put up a stand 20 yards from one of my stands on the east side of the property . He took down my trail cam and left a note to call him. Nice guy and all but sucks for me. I've been saving for land (got about 20K for a down payment) and hopefully can find a reasonably priced parcel for next season.

Around here we get the October lull for that middle week in October. The summer movement pattern is shifting as crops are all but out now. This is fine with me as all I've seen have been does and too far to shoot. Probably will get out on evening this week even though we are smack dead in the lull.

Well Pat????? I sat for 3 hours yesterday AM - not a deer. Still was good to be in a tree on opening day.

Nice work Pat! A week from tomorrow and I'll be up a tree. Can't wait.

Glad to be back on a team with you again Pat. Hopefully you'll be fortunate enough to cross paths with another one like that fantastic buck you took last year.

A thousand dollars is a lot for a hide but some gator skin boots that you hunted would be pretty cool. I'm sure that would be over 2K!

Nice job! Going to keep the skull or any of the hide?

fly (Frank) checking in with Team 1. The KY season has already started but I haven't been down there yet. I probably will not get down there until October or November. I was NOT fortunate enough to get into any good public ground draw hunts this season but one never knows what can happen. I'm primarily concentrating my early season and pre-rut efforts on a private ground farm in Green county IL. I'll hit KY for the rut and hunt the immediate post-rut on public ground in the Shawnee at our annual Deer camp. I'll then be back to the private ground farm to finish out the season. My goals this year: 1. Take three deer by seasons end with one being taken at deer camp. 2. With the exception of Deer camp (any deer will do) I'll be holding out for a buck that is 4.5 or older. Don't care about the score this year.

Thanks William and Tim. Tim, thanks for the tip on Gilbreth taxidermy. The guy does amazing work at a more than reasonable price. I'll be recommending him. I saw the deer in his shop and they too look amazing.

For 2K I'm very happy with this mount.

Good luck Al. Those are some great trophy deer!

Tim, I have 5 and have them hanging on walls throughout the house. One is in hanging in the basement because I cooked it to long as William mentioned. Several of the bones and teeth fell away from the skull and it looks terrible. I did this one by first cutting off the head of the deer after skinning. I then removed as much meat (and eyeballs) with my knife as I could. I then wrap the base of the antlers in foil (keeps them dark). Then I use my turkey fryer burner (outside) to SLOWLY boil the head in water. I add a few scoops of borax. The top of the skull needs to be submerged to the level of the antler bases where the foil is. After a few hours I remove the skull and scramble the brains with a screwdriver. I then shake it to remove the brain. I then cut away more meat. A few days later I’ll boil again in the same manner. If you boil it on too high of a heat the teeth will fall out. Light boil only and not more than 3 hours at a time. You may need to do it multiple times to ensure all the meat is off. I then place in the sun and brush the 40 volume peroxide on it and let it sit all day. Then hose off and remove the foil. I've heard taking it to the car wash and pressure washing it works well but I'm afraid it might damage the bones in the nose.

Great place for sure. That mineral flow has changed a lot since 2014. It used to look like an old mans face.

Four months is unheard of! I hope it looks as good as your wife says. We’ll see....

Finally finished the Texas mount for my October 2017 Crossbow buck. Boiling is such a time consuming process but it’s always nice having one displayed you did your self.