My wife and I are going on a bison hunt in Alaska next week. I'm wondering about the best care of the cape, skull plate, and horns. How much of the skull plate do I need to keep. What will work to cut through a skull of that size? Any suggestions on removal and care of the cape?
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They complain when I answer "everything", but then they won't answer or comment until I do. Go figure.
When you cape your buffalo out, remove all vestiges of red meat from the inside of the hide. You can either salt it heavily (with table salt of any kind, but NOT rock salt) or roll it up, flesh to flesh and freeze it as soon as possible. If you salt, roll it up and let it set overnight. Next day, unroll, dump all the wet salt and resalt. Repeat this for at LEAST two days and longer if you're there. A bison hide is pretty thick and will retain a lot of water. The airlines won't ship it if it's leaking fluids and neither will most carriers. If you freeze it solid, box it and bring it along as excess baggage. That $50 extra is a lot cheaper than freight. As far as the horns are concerned, before you begin caping, measure the distance from the nose to the horn tip and from the center of the eye to the base of the horns. Record and save. On many forms, you don't NEED the skull. The horns are glued on caps cast into the forms. A bison skull is surprisingly thin for the size of the animal and a meat/bone saw will work as will a small camp hatchet. Just wedge them out. The recorded measurements will insure you get them back in position like your original. And remember, bison are like moose. A "small" bison is still a BIG animal.
Why not use Rock Salt? If it's ground fine.
Then it is not "rock salt" anymore. You should be OK.