Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa What To Do with a Crocodile

I have booked a hunt for elephant and buffalo for later this year. I was conversing with the PH about what other kinds of game might be shot and he mentioned hippo and crocodile. He said it might be possible to get a 14' to 15' crocodile.

My question is what do you do with a crocodile trophy. What do you keep to show off? I certainly don't have 15' of space for a full body mount and a head mount, like an antelope, seems ludicrous. Do you keep the skull like a bear or a lion? Do you put the skin on the floor or what?

Well lets see.. I have crocodile shoes, a crocodile belt....

I'm hunting crocodile this year in Zambia. My plan is to take plenty of great photos so that I can come up with a quality 11"x14" enlargement to frame and put up in my office. I also plan to have the skull shipped home.

If the safari company I'm hunting with wants to salvage the skin and sell it or make soemthing out of it, they can have at it. I'm not going to pay to ship it home or do anything with it myself.

The first time I hunted hippo, my PH advised me to forget about a shoulder mount and just ship home the skull. That proved to be great advice, and I have that hippo skull placed in it's own corner on the floor in my reloading room. It's dramatic, yet it's not in the way of anything else. I did that with my giraffe, too.

I'm hunting hippo again this year, and I'm going to donate that skull to a local university......

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They are great converation pieces! Everyone knows what it is.

FWIW, I saw an interesting fullmount a while ago, and if your short of room, it might be suitable. The guy had asked to taxidermist to set it up like a giant gekko that he could mount on the wall of his house. - It sounds a bit odd, but I have to say, I thought it looked good.

I have no personal experience with Crocs, but at the SCI show in Reno I saw a taxidermy mount of a croc coming out of the water and snapping at a Baboon that was mounted hanging from a tree (if I'm remembering correctly). It was pretty neat and was mostly a "vertical mount", meaning that it didn't take up much floor space. This mount used the full body of the croc with just his lower half lying horizontally below the "water". However, I'm sure such a mount could be done just as nicely with just the upper half of the body so that it wouldn't take up much room. Of course, something like this would be much more spendy than just the skull, but if you like good taxidermy, it would be much cooler IMO.
Test

I like nice taxidermy and the croc presents a dilemma due to the size. A nice option if you could plan a trophy room with a sunken floor. Not very practical but could you imagine a crock placed as if it is under water and you could walk over it. Would be spooky.

At the Harrisburg Sportsman show last year they had a full mount. It was swimming upwards with it's mouth open.

Then they had poured a clear acrylic water surface above. Then their was a full mount warthog above the water. The croc was essentially swimming up to eat the warthog.

My African Taxidermist was there and we went to look at it together. He said $3,000, but he thought shipping might be another $1,000. I thought $3k was a bargain for a full mount croc and warthog. This had some substantial woood scene to go with it to support everything.

I've seen mounts like these at sportsman's shows. They are very cool. $3000 does sound cheap considering the size of a croc and the complexity of the mount.

I have a really good friend that has a 14' croc vertical snapping at a duiker(sp) just on the edge of water. The mount was 12k. Awesome mount, but it came at a price.

I can do a croc half mount coming out of the water after what ever animal you would like with splash and all.

It would be mostly vertical about the size of a coffee table.

I'm doing some work for safariman now so I can show you some pic's of my work and his comments.

Email me if you would like to work something out.
swgartswgart.com

I've done Skull mounts of gators; they don't look half bad.

How about getting a luggage builder to use it to cover a complete 5-piece set of luggage, including a briefcase?

My dad had an elephant hide briefcase that he finally got tired of carrying, but showed no sign of wear. Croc isn't that tough, but looks nice. Mom has a set of black croc luggage.

I have no experience with African game mounts but I have a few birds of prey among others. What I've found is the big "impressive" mounts i.e. a Golden Eagle in winter scene on a jackrabbit. Big glass case in cherry wood top and bottom. Quite impressive but it really gets old quick. I have a few owls and hawks just wall mounted on antlers and grift wood, they look as good or better to me. What I'm saying is some times less is better.

JIm

What to do with a crocodile?


Leave it alone.

Build a moat around the house & run the croc around it on a track. It should cut down on the crackpots coming to your door selling religion, snakeoil or politics.

I'm hunting a gator in Florida in Oct. & made a few calls & Internet searches. I found a firm that would tan a full gator skin w/head for $500-700 depending on size, of course. I was going to just do a skull mount but now I am rethinking. I have found skins to be quite cheap if tanned in Africa. Would be kind of neat to have a 14-15' crock in a trophy room.

If I had a 14' croc in a trophy room, I would probably not have a wife in the house! ;-)

Make some cowboy boots, belts, and a briefcase from the croc.

Did you see Crocodile Dundee? Pretty snappy vest he's got there. That and anything left over for a rifle scabbard.