Husband and Wife Deer Skulls

By Becky Williams
Originally posted on Becky's blog: Let A Girl Show You How To Hunt And Fish

For this project we found two skulls while out shed hunting. One was a doe and one was a buck skull that had already naturally shed its antlers, but still neat. I soaked them in clean water and peroxide for a few hours to clean them up. They were old and had been dead for a long time, they were already dried out.

This one is the buck up close. I added some small metal decorative corners to the wood.

To mount the heads I had some scrap wood in my barn so I stained it a drove a 2 inch screw through the backside, so the skull can hang on the protruding part of the screw.  The back of the skull of the deer has a deep hole where the brain would've been so the screw slides into it perfectly.

Here is the finished product with a small latch on the back to be hung on the wall. They are neat conversation pieces, and they were found while out shed hunting with our children.

The Head Hanger by Heads of State

After years of hunting my husband Jared and I have filled our walls and home with deer heads, turkey mounts, pheasants and other taxidermy. We have very limited wall space but it seems we always find a spot for another mount. Deer heads make up the majority of our mounts and we have both decided that most of the bucks we shoot from here on out will be European mounts since they tend to take up a little less wall space. 

One thing that we have found with European mounts is it seems that you are limited as to how you can display them. You can either put them on a wooden pedestal to sit on a table or hang on the wall, or mount them on a wooden plaque and/or flush against the wall, causing the antlers to face downward. That is fine in certain areas of our home, but with limited wall space we want, and need, more options. 

While at this year's ATA show we found The Head Hanger mounting bracket by Heads of State Panels. This bracket allows us another option for our European mounts and helps us take advantage of un-used wall space that other types of mounts just didn't look good in. The bracket mounts flush to the wall with a screw and has two "upper tines" that fit into the skull cavity where the vertebrae meets the skull. Insert the tines into the skull cavity slowly until the skull rests on the "lower tine". (See Photos Below)

When mounted to the Head Hanger bracket, the skull sits more upright instead of facing downward. Before using this bracket we hung our European mounts using a metal wire, causing the skull to be flush with the wall and the antlers pointed down. We prefer the look of a European mount directly against the wall, rather than on a plaque or pedestal, but we don't necessarily like the look of it pointing down, especially if the mount is at eye level.

The Head Hanger bracket not only mounts the skull more upright, you can also turn the mount to the left or right with the "adjustment screw" on top of the bracket. This is perfect if your buck has a stronger or more characteristic side that you would like to show off. Or if you're like me and have limited space available, turning the mount to one side allows me a little more room to hang a mount where I may not have been able to otherwise. 

My husband and I are both very pleased with this product. It works great and is very easy to set up and use. I had it up and the skull mounted within a matter of minutes!

It retails for $29.99 and is available at www.headsofstatepanels.com.

They will also soon be available on the Huntress View website! www.HuntressView.com

-Andrea Haas