Watching a taxidermist work on a mule deer is fascinating.
Many North American hunters love to have a variety of taxidermy mounts on their walls as a reminder of the memorable hunt for that big buck or bull. Most of you readying this probably have some deer heads hanging in your home. A little while back we shared a time lapse of a taxidermist putting together a beautiful whitetail deer mount.
Well, that same taxidermist, YouTube's Art of Taxidermy, does work on a variety of big game animals. In today's video, he's working on a chunky-looking mule deer buck in what looks like a semi-sneak pose.
If you ever questioned whether the work of a taxidermist was art or not, this video should answer that definitively. It turns out there's a lot of work involved to turn that buck into a beautiful wall mount that you'll enjoy for years to come.
The process of deer taxidermy seems to be the same whether working on a whitetail or mule deer mount. It's worth noting in the video's description that he says doing a mule deer shoulder mount is more challenging than a whitetail. He doesn't elaborate why. We'd be curious to know. In any case, this shows that there's more to the process than simply attaching the antlers and pulling the hide over the form.
This was a simple wall mount. We imagine things get more complicated for a wall pedestal mount, a full body mount, or anything more elaborate than that. There are some truly talented people in the taxidermy industry.
Note how much time he spent on the eyes of this muley. We may not be taxidermists, but even we know that if the eyes aren't done correctly, a mount just won't look right. When evaluating hiring someone to preserve the memories of your hunt, look at the taxidermy trophies the artist has previously done. A quality mount will capture what the animal looked like when you harvested it, but it was also accentuate the tines, color of the antlers and other features of the rack. Nice job on this mount sir, it looks fantastic!
For more outdoor content from Travis Smola, be sure to follow him on Twitter and check out his Geocaching and Outdoors with Travis YouTube channels.
NEXT: THE AXIS DEER AND HOW THEY'RE IMPACTING PARTS OF THE UNITED STATES
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