first elk call last night. curious as to what differences to expect from mounting whitetail. taxi 50 to 60 whitetail a year. any tips appreciated. searched archives already.
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Take photos of how the antler sit on the head, use a protractor for angles. Measure everything and even photo graph the measurments.
Draw the tear duct on paper and take a lot of different angle photos.
Nose and nose interior too.
I have a photo of a live elk on the yahoo site, anyone can down load. look at it study it.
Don't over due the ear but size.
Also look at how the antler burr and hairline meet up.
Watch the mouth length, many forms have the lip line way to long and a bellowing elk does not open their mouth wider, it actually gets a good bit smaller when bugling.
Buy a couple sets of live reference from the suppliers and scan into your computer so you can enlarge and study them.
get ready for some sewing...elk are fun to do. make sure that the eye and the lachmore (i think thats how its spelled) gland are a smooth tansition. reference, reference, reference. i thinks its one of the funnest shoulder mounts to do.
moght seem obvious but if it has any width to the rack you might want to talk the customer into doing a removable antler (mounted on pegs). They might not be able to get it into their house - you might not be able to get it out of your shop. Like John said the big differance is in the referances. They are fun.