Well as the title says, I just got my deer mount back from Forest City Taxidermy here in London, and I have to say it looks awesome. The turn around time was just under 4 months, and really, I couldn't be any happier with it.
I've always wanted to have a shoulder mount done of my first buck so I could always remember it, as it would be quite the personal achievement after years of effort. The size of the antlers or the deer really didn't matter as I just wanted to have something to show for my patience. I'd also really be happy with anything at this point after 7 years of tag soup. And of course if it was a small deer I could justify it as my starting point in hunting. Either way, if it had antlers it was going on the wall.
On November 5th I headed out to a public hunting area I had been scouting for a couple of months for the opening day of the controlled hunt. I arrived at 5:30am to the location to be greeted by 5 or 6 other vehicles using this 75 hectare lot. During every visit I made to my other hunting area which was half a km away, I would cruise by this area to see if there were any cars parked there, or any people using the trails... and there rarely was. So I do a u-turn and head to my little section of family owned woodlot (15 hectares), which I've seen almost no deer sign in to kill the rest of my opening day of gun season.
I get dressed up and head into my only tree stand on the property, the stand is set up with a small conifer block to my back and open mature hardwood in front of me. Thirty five minutes in and after hearing 9 gunshots all around me I was getting pretty discouraged already and was preparing to chock this up to year number seven with no success. That is until I spot some movement coming way back in the hardwoods about 70 yards away. I try to silently click off the safety of my shotgun and the deer stops dead in its tracks and look directly up the tree at me. It looked down a couple of seconds later and kept trotting towards my direction, but slightly angling off. When the deer was at 35-45 yards, and my shotgun already shouldered I fired and the deer dropped in its tracks.
And heres my first deer...
And my new mount...
I've always wanted to have a shoulder mount done of my first buck so I could always remember it, as it would be quite the personal achievement after years of effort. The size of the antlers or the deer really didn't matter as I just wanted to have something to show for my patience. I'd also really be happy with anything at this point after 7 years of tag soup. And of course if it was a small deer I could justify it as my starting point in hunting. Either way, if it had antlers it was going on the wall.
On November 5th I headed out to a public hunting area I had been scouting for a couple of months for the opening day of the controlled hunt. I arrived at 5:30am to the location to be greeted by 5 or 6 other vehicles using this 75 hectare lot. During every visit I made to my other hunting area which was half a km away, I would cruise by this area to see if there were any cars parked there, or any people using the trails... and there rarely was. So I do a u-turn and head to my little section of family owned woodlot (15 hectares), which I've seen almost no deer sign in to kill the rest of my opening day of gun season.
I get dressed up and head into my only tree stand on the property, the stand is set up with a small conifer block to my back and open mature hardwood in front of me. Thirty five minutes in and after hearing 9 gunshots all around me I was getting pretty discouraged already and was preparing to chock this up to year number seven with no success. That is until I spot some movement coming way back in the hardwoods about 70 yards away. I try to silently click off the safety of my shotgun and the deer stops dead in its tracks and look directly up the tree at me. It looked down a couple of seconds later and kept trotting towards my direction, but slightly angling off. When the deer was at 35-45 yards, and my shotgun already shouldered I fired and the deer dropped in its tracks.
And heres my first deer...
And my new mount...
