Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Elk mount ideas?

Happy Hump Day everyone

My antlers sit over on my library table, awaiting a call from the taxidermist that my cape is ready and its time to put it all back together. My bull is a 6point, 280 and change. I'm having a tough time deciding how to have it posed. I kinda like the traditional upright straight ahead, but I have looked for ideas also. Anybody got ideas for me?

By the way, I want the guys at Cabelas and Scheels to measure mine. If theirs are 320, mine is 345. Sheesh.

I did a sneak mount with a slight turn this year.

I had to do a sneak mount with this one as I only have8 ft ceilings.I t's brisket is only 18" from the floor.



The bull on the left I did a bugle, right turned and I have another identical with a left turn.I have them facing each other.

Sneak mounts are nice. I had one done on a Moose. They're perfect if you don't have high ceilings.

Thanks for the pictures. I appreciate that.

I'm still laffin' at the Boxer quotes.

That makes two of us.

Here is the mount I did for 2012 CO bull. You may prefer the wall mount though.

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbth.../Elk_pedestal_mount_finished#Post7619969

Here's mine I had done using a stump as a pedestal:

I had these done to look a bit more natural than just the head sticking out of the wall. Having the head and neck with a bit of an offset does help the look of the mount. Whatever you do, don't have the bulging elk with his head turned over his shoulder. There isn't an elk that ever existed that bugles like that...

thanks. I went with a semi sneak left turn which will look great in my office for now and work well on a larger wall in the future. I agree with you about the sharp turns, they seem a bit unnatural to me as well.

My wife and I photographed elk in rut in Yellowstone for about ten years running and then Rocky Mountain Nat Park on and off for 8-10 years. Probably watched a few thousand elk in those times. I guess Colorado elk are more flexible than Montana elk.

Cheap shot by Shrapnel if you ask me.

Watch them long enough and you will see just about every pose there is while bugling. I even saw one bugling when it mounted a cow for breeding. It started to bugle, mounted, and then thought better of it and finished breeding,which only takes a few seconds.

I did two of mine that way as I was short on wall space and wanted one on each side of a window.

The bigger bull, I mounted in a sneak because I was short on ceiling height.

No shame in doing some thing different to get things to fit. I'd rather they were like that, than have the antlers setting down in the barn.

Both turned mounts are 20+ years old and of all the people that have come into my home and saw them, not one remarked that they looked unnatural.

Sorry about your bugling elk, didn't mean to ruffle your feathers. I am sure if you photographed those elk for 20 years or so, you must have a picture of one bugling over his shoulder. Please post it here so I can actually see it. Of course I haven't hunted or shot as many elk as you, but I still haven't ever seen that happen...

I was the equipment carrier and my wife took what photos she wanted. It was way before digitals were on the scene and all are on 35mm slides.

Don't think I want to spend the time to sift thru a few thousand slides and money to get one in digital format satisfy your idle curiosity.I guess if you haven't seen one,it just hasn't happened. So just let it go.

The mount isn't looking back over it's shoulder, it is turned a little less than 90 degrees.

Don't know of it is still there, but RMEF had a big enlargement of one of her's in the Missoula airport.

If you are a nonbeliever, next time you are in Yellowstone, go to the Park Rangers office and ask them to check the archives and see whose photos and videos helped them arrest the poacher that shot a big bull named Charger in Norris Meadows back in the late 80's or early 90's

You feel crowded about your choice in a mount, cheap shot, hardly. I have no idea what you have in your house or why, but whining like a school girl doesn't make the mount look any more realistic.

I have been around elk all my life and even shot a few, I just never have seen that bugle by an elk and think it looks a bit unnatural...

I guess rl11 must have either photo shopped or had those entire three elk mounted. He just proved you wrong. Lets see if you are man enough to apologize and admit that you were wrong.

You few guys in the clique on this forum think you know everything there is about elk and try to cheapen any comments by the other few that actually do.

Thanks rl11

Here is another pose I don't particularly care for, don't tell me you have one of these too...

Saddlesore,

Pay no attention to shrapnel.

He "thinks" he's the only person who's ever been around elk or shot one.

If those are his elk mounts in the photos he posted, I likely wouldnt be giving out advice or commenting on anything to do with taxidermy.

WOW!

Pretty sure I've only seen that pose maybe a couple hundred times..By real elk.

not much of a picture taker tho.Could only find one example in my own photos.

Head turned and screaming his guts out..

The sneak mount is kind of a misnomer. I have only seen that posture when a bull is showing it's dominance and trying to persuade another bull to leave before a fight ensues. Usually the bull is walking towards the other bull. Another is when a bull is following a cow to check if it is ready to breed. That however usually entails a lot of tongue licking of it's nose. I suspect to help monitor the cows scent.