WNY Bowhunter

Finished product. ..

He's drying nicely. Another week - ten days before I finish him.

It's time to upgrade. My choice is an Xpedition Archery Xplorer SS!

Little better lighting in these pics. ..

Thanks. This guy will look awesome once he's finished!

Thanks. I wish his right beam hadn't been injured in velvet.

Phade's Mendon buck was a lot less "ticky" than yours!

I about crapped my pants the first time that I saw this guy back in August as I had no idea he was in the area. He was the ONE deer that I hoped to get a chance to mount this past season. I still have his jaws in the garage. Probably should sent out his incisors to deer aging place in TX.

For the most part I'm self taught, with a little help from a friend that is a taxidermist.

29 - Current progress. Now for a lot of hands on work that I couldn't document: Insert ear liners in butts, adjust all the skin, staple hide to the back of form, cut off excess hide, sew up the incision from antler based to neck. Fine tune eyes and everything else that needs it 30 through 32 - The mount is finished at this point. It needs to dry for about two weeks. For the next several days I will keep a close eye on it to make sure things don't move out of position as everything dries I will update with the finishing process in a couple of weeks!!!

20 - Apply critter clay to fill in the eye area 21 & 22 - Clay in ear butts keeping the correct muscle anatomy 23 - Build up skull plate 24 & 25 - Tuck lip skin into the mouth slot that you etch into the form 26 - Tuck nostrils and insert plastic wrap (expands and keeps skin in place as it dries) 27 & 28 - Tuck eye skin between glass eve and clay and rough shape the eye

11 - The skull cap is filled with bondo to fit perfectly 12 - The form with everything attached 13 - The eyes are leveled and ear position marked 14 - Form is roughed with a brass bristled brush 15 - Apply hide paste 16 - Glue and insert ear liners 17 - Apply hide and adjust into place with a hide puller 18 - Everything lined up 19 - Permanently attach skull plate.

Here's a quick run through of the step by step process of mounting a deer. 1 - Find a NY monster 2 - Kill him, cape him and sent the cape to be tanned Cape Prep: 3 & 4- Remove inner ear cartilage 5 & 7 - Thin the lips, eyes and nostrils with a leather shaving tool. The thinner the better to reduce shrinkage as the skin dries out. Oops...skipped 6 but it's wash the cape. 8 & 9 - Inspect for damage and repair any holes from arrows, bullets, skinning, fleshing, scars, etc... 10 - Materials to be added to the form

Steuben County...8R.

Nope. Think it's drought / stress related from poor quality forage.

A keen eye for details and 5 yrs of trail cam pics. You'll see in July when his new antlers start developing.

Haven't looked yet. Was waiting on the snow to melt...now we got more.

What about the new WGI lineup? They make awesome cams...lol.

Unbelievable buck, good luck finding the other side!

That 10 is awesome. Congrats!

No reason that I can't have both! lol

I'll mount the sheds if I am lucky enough to find them!

Going into my post season scouting, there was one specific buck that I had on my mind and one important question that I was hoping to answer: Did "Wannabe" make it? He was the biggest, oldest and most well known deer that I had on cam this past summer. I pulled all my cams on this farm back in mid-September and had only hunted here a couple times during late season. Although I hadn't heard of any bucks of his caliber being killed in the area...knowing that this buck was a huge homebody and after two weeks of surviallence and no pics of him...I was starting to lose hope. Well, my hope has been restored...yesterday's card pull proved that the old boy had evaded the orange army once again and surprisingly, he has already sheds his antlers!!! I'm pumped to get out looking for them, but there's another buck that's got to shed first before I go blowing through the bedding area. Wannabe this summer (5 yrs old):

It's my summer project!

There was one buck that I was hoping to see when I put my cams back out the last day of muzzleloader season. I was pretty surprised to see "Hooks" had shown up several times in the past week!!! I would love to snag his sheds. Hopefully, he is more visible this summer. Not the greatest genetics but a pretty cool buck!