Limited Space

[Charlie P]

I have often thought of going the video, journal and photo only route. I do all of these things plus taxidermy. The way I look at it how often would I look at them, for me I watch the videos maybe twice a year, look at my photos once a month or so and read my journal once a year however I look at my trophies daily, even if I just pass through my trophy room the memories come flooding back. I am by no means wealthy and really have to pinch pennies to go to Africa every 3 or 4 years. This works for me, it’s neither right nor wrong but it’s just me.

I agree with you concerning the mounts. They are an instant and continuous reminder of fond memories. I'd like to make a suggestion about the photos. My wife and I use to enlarge, frame and mat a photo we would agree on as significant to us. The last time we started that process we of course had different opinions on the photo of choice. Then when we went to have it framed the cost blew us away. Taking a day to evaluate the issue we discovered we could purchase a 50" TV, for less than the framing, and load a thumb drive with as many photos as we wished and have them scroll as a slide show. Better yet, as time goes by, we can delete photos we no longer appreciate as much and as we make new memories we simply update the thumb drive. No framing cost to update. It's hard to get guest to look through your vacation pictures but ours do have the opportunity and to our great enjoyment they seem to be mesmerized by the display. They spend time watching it and asking questions about certain photos that peak their curiosity. We of course love seeing all the memories and getting the opportunity to discuss them with our friends.

 

[buffybr]

A lot of folks are telling me that as well.
But on a first and maybe only hunt, it just wouldn’t feel right to not bring something back. Think I’d have regrets later if I didn’t!
Kids can always deal with them when I’m gone

I started out with pictures -- not pictures of my own hunted animals, but animal pictures from calenders, then larger framed game animal prints, no picture beats a mount of the real animal.

In college I put the spike antlers of my first deer on my wall, then the 5x5 antlers of my first elk, and later a DIY "almost" euro mount of my first 6x6 bull elk. My first actual taxidermy was either a rug of my first black bear or a shoulder mount of my first pronghorn antelope. Those two were over 50 years ago, and I still enjoy them on my walls.

Eventually my pictures were replaced with mounts, and in the late '80s I added a 1,000 sf trophy room addition to my house. That worked fine for about 20 years for my Colorado and Montana taxidermy, but then I went on hunts in Canada, Africa, and Alaska and my wall space quickly dissappeared. I've since added many pedestal mounts fit in places where I didn't have the wall space.

In my opinion, shoulder mounts take up too much room. What I recommend is you invest ONCE in a pedestal mount and have the taxidermist notified you intend to add to the pedestal in the future. He will create invisible fittings so you can add more heads to the pedestal later on. You might have an Gemsbok pedestal to start, adding a kudu, eland, bushbuck, or other to it later in a grouping.

For gemsbok, they are so damned tall a pedestal is really the only way to go if you have low ceilings.

A three-mount pedestal of Kudu-Bushbuck-Sitatunga looks very nice, as does an eland/kudu/bushbuck. It occupies one very large corner of a room and allows the tallest mounts to sit lowest in the arrangement.

I have 2 Kudus and 3 Bushbucks on the walls of my trophy room, along with a pedestal mount of an Eland. I made an extra large pedestal for my Eland mount, and I cannot imangine adding a Kudu and a Bushbuck to it.