Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting What do hunters do with trophies?

I'm not a hunter, but I understand that in my state (and presumably others) hunters typically get one "buck" tag a year, and that an antlered deer is a "trophy."

Since a successful hunter can get one trophy every year, what do hunters typically do with them? E.g., do they only keep the largest ones, and just discard ones that aren't distinctive?

Or if they manage to harvest a buck are they probably going to keep the antlers from every one? I know antlers can be put to some creative uses – e.g., knife handles, coat hooks – but I'm wondering what guys do who have been successfully hunting for decades and might have harvested scores of antlers.

Have about 100 'racks' hanging upside down on the rafters in my building. Find all sorts of uses for antlers, our Labrador has one favorite use for antlers....

I have a client that uses the shed he finds in the spring to make pens. I've got a set, they are beautiful.

Had a bunch of small racks.
No barn to hang and keep them all.
Boxes in the basement.
Tired of the clutter..........sold some, gave some away.
Kept about a half dozen of the nicer ones.

Had some deer mounted over the yrs............kept the biggest one, sold the rest.

My buddy has kept all his racks.......but he's only killed about a dozen bucks LOL.

antlers are not why I hunt. I have never mounted a head, and have but one set of antlers on the wall.

I kept the horns and skull plate of the first buck I ever killed--an eight-pointer (4x4 Western count) whitetail. I've also got a skull mount of my first elk but I'm about to give it away to a friend. Too darned big for where I live. Other than that, not much interest in that kind of thing.


Okie John

I have kept every one of the racks I have shot since 1994 and have them mounted on a plaque professionally and they hang in my garage. The two exceptions to this are the two shoulder mounts in my office. Many times i look at them and relive the hunt. My kids ask about them and I retell the story. The meat is long gone, but the buck lives on in stories and memories.

"trophy" hunting gets a bad rap, but any biologist will tell you the harvest-able surplus that will not harm a population are the old males. I often wonder if the people that oppose trophy hunting would rather people shoot fawns and reproducing-age does? Shane Mahoney had a good take on this recently; look him up.

I had 7 or 8 mounted, got tired if looking at them, sold them. I have 50 or so sets of antlers hanging in barn. I think the camo mounted skull mounts are cool.

I think your getting the cart ahead of the horse.
Bigger bodies is what flips my switch.
I'll take a 200# 6 before I shoot a 150#8

Fascinating. So there's a market for antlers? Or is it for antlered skulls? Or just heads that have been stuffed and mounted?

What are those things worth? And who buys them, or what are they used for? Just decorations?

I've kept every rack off every deer I've killed since the first "unicorn" spike I killed when I was 12 and can tell you where I killed it and what I killed it with its nostalgia I shoulder mounted the first nice buck I ever killed when I was 15 with the bow a 19" 7pt and got the one I killed this year at the taxidermist to shoulder mount the other nice bucks are euro mount or I fixed a nice plaque for the horns in the man cave

I've got some of my better racks hanging in the house, along with plenty of predator pets, but normal critters just get to hang their hat in my barn.



I honestly don't know what I will do with them all, but do like to take them down once in a while and play with them. I have a pile of antelope horns just out of view and several racks nailed to studs out of view as well. I've also given away and sold quite a few to folks who make random things out of them.

Trophies are something you get for bowling a perfect game or being a state champion in football. It has nothing to do with hunting.

I make cribbage boards and things like that, give them away as presents! Some just hang in the garage and hallway going upstairs! Usually on a slow winter day I start a project with a set or two! My brother just hangs them over the rafters in the garage! Others I know make plant hangers and such! Different strokes for different folks!

I keep all mine. Have some of them mounted.

I have 1 deer head mounted, I saw the skull plate off and have a bunch hanging in the rafters in my attic.Some small ones I saw them off the head. Don't know why I keep them. I just do.
I've given a few away.

on my wall are my dads biggest buck my wife’s dads biggest buck and my biggest buck all shoulder mounted in similar fashion side by side all 3 killed the week of Christmas different years. Give you one quess when the peck of our rut is!? I do save other antlers and would mount another if it measures up to these. But I’m satisfied with a old smart doe as a trophy or taking any deer that i feel I’ve somehow out smarted. Or taking a deer on some new turf. Besides we eat a lot of deer so any meat is a freezer trophy.

I eat them myself.

I have a few decent buck heads 'mounted' - not stuffed.

I gave a nice 8 pt to a friend for decor.

I gave a couple of boxes of antlers to another friend to make knife handles etc.

I have 2-3 boxes of nice racks that I keep for memories/nostalgia. I used to could tell which rack came in what year
and where it was killed. Nowadays it's harder to remember some of the older ones. Part of that is too many racks to
keep separated -- uhh couldn't be fading memory.

I like to talk about deer hunting and I have visual aids.

Jerry

I have all my horns, except a couple whitetails and one antelope. My old dog ate the antelope.. Somewhere around 2-3 hundred I suppose.. Memories.. Let my kids worry with them later..