Great write up. Congrats!
If not doing a skull mount, you can cut the antlers off the skull, assuming thats legal, I think all of CO has points restrictions if anything, not spread like our moose do, and measure spread, then cut the skull plate in half and much much easier to pack. In fact I do it that way on moose once out of the field and clamshell them together to put on the plane for the flight to TX if I am flying antlers back for any reason.
