This reminds me of a story from back in high school, pre-internet days, when a kid a few years ahead of me got caught pulling something like this. His daddy was the richest guy in a VERY small South Dakota town and started W.W. Tire, which has expanded out to several stores in the state. Wayne Weelborg's son, Dane, sent in pictures to the local paper in Bryant, SD of a monster whitetail, supposedly shot with a bow. But no one ever saw the head or carcass until it came back from the taxidermist. The paper ran the story and we showed it to a friend of ours back in Miller, SD who did some taxidermy for us and got me started with archery. About a week after we sent the paper to him, John shows up on our doorstep, out of the blue (81 miles from his house to ours). He has in his hand the Bryant paper and an old Bowhunter magazine. He says to my dad, who was the local Lutheran pastor and Weelborg's were parishioners, "Fred, we need to talk." John proceeds to show dad that the buck in Dane's photo is the exact same buck as the one on the cover of Bowhunter and then shows dad where a replica can be purchased from his taxidermy magazines. Very long story short, Dane bought the replica, shot a dink, sawed the skull plate off the dink, took photos for the paper, then the taxidermist mounted it for him. My dad took the evidence to Wayne and showed it to him while literally in the shadow of the mount. His parents were absolutely flummoxed and they forced Dane to write a public apology for the local paper for claiming to have shot a monster whitetail. Dane's parents are great people. Dane was a bit of a sketchy fellow in his younger years. I haven't seen him in over 20 years, so I hope he's turned out better after that little public tar and feather job. Even before the internet you couldn't get away with this crap. And you sure can't now.
The taxidermist who mounted the replica antlers didn’t realize they were not real?
